Les Paul from scratch

[AggieTreed]

Are you cutting out the neck pocket after all the dying, or am I missing something?  ???

 

[ramonet]

Rapfohl09: the color at the end will be the same amber. I've read that if you aply the colour, sand a little and re-stain again you rise the figure in the wood. I've never tried before so... We'll see.

Aggie Treed: I'm not going to do all the stain before the neck pocket it's done, but while I was cutting the neck angle (I thought this was is easier for me that make the angle in the pocket) I do the first stain. After this I'm going to sand back the stain, prepare the pocket, glue the neck and stain all the guitar.

 

[nexrex]

Is this a flat top LP?

 

[ramonet]

Yes nexrex, it's a flat top LP. Nex time I'm going to try a carving but for now it's enough with a glued neck with faux binding. I'm improving my skills step by step (always learning)

As I told before, I've sanded the dye to a some kind of washed amber.

 

[ramonet]

I've used a forstner bit to raw cut the neck pocket, keeping the router bit for the fine work

 

[ramonet]

This is the first time I'm going to use a routing template because I've never befor I can found a router bit with ball bearing that works with my router. I've made it out of MDF

 

[ramonet]

securing the template with clamps

 

[ramonet]

the template and the new bit with bearing worked great. The neck pocket it's ready to accept the neck

 

[ramonet]

I'm thinking about doing some carving at the neck/body union I can improve a lot the upper frets acces, what's your opinion? this operation it's not going to make the union a little weak?

 

[Tipperman]

I would line up the neck and body and take a picture, then decide from there. That way you always have a reference, etc. Not that I know much about hand building an instrument from scratch, but at least you could get an idea of the upper fret access and see how well your hand cups in and reaches said frets.

 

[ramonet]

At this point, a dry test fit it's a must. It goes tight: success

 

[ramonet]

I have no pics of the grain filling process, only at the sanding stage. I've used Timbermate filler and this works much better than the previous filler from Stewmac

 

[ramonet]

Neck glued and clamped to the body; wait ovenight and start staining process

 

[ramonet]

all the routing it's done

 

[ramonet]

aquick mock up before sanding and staining

 

[ramonet]

Top in colour. In real ther's a little more flame; it's not an AAAA top but it's nice for a 28€ top, isn't it?

 

[ramonet]

When stained, the back and the neck have taken a nice brown goldish colour

 

[ezas]

That's starting to look like a guitar!

 

[ramonet]

after taking out the tape of the side and sanding / rounding the top edge the faux binding appears. Nice for the first time

 

[ramonet]

3 mist coats of clear, a little sanding with 2000 grid paper and a 4th coat