Building myself another Les Paul

[Blazer]

And this time it'll be far more traditional than my previous one.





It has a meranti body with a plain maple top which as you can tell is rounded off much more than my previous selfbuilt Lester and I once again went with flat top construction. I'm planning for it to be in tobacco sunburst and fitted with P-90 pickups. The neck will be Maple with ebony fingerboard and I'm still debating on wether or not to put binding on the fingerboard edges.

So if all goes well it'll end up looking like this.


I'll keep you guys informed.

[scotty]

Looks good. If you put the binding on the on the neck will you do the body to?

[Super_shredder]

looks good but please dont put dots on it

[rjohnstone]

So you're making this one a bolt-on instead of a set neck?

[Blazer]

So you're making this one a bolt-on instead of a set neck?

No, what makes you think so? I'll do it the same way I did with my previous built.



Anyway, here's an update, I routed the holes for the recessed backplates. The pictures show both the body and the routing template I used.

[rjohnstone]

No, what makes you think so? I'll do it the same way I did with my previous built.

Usually one would route the tenon channel and set the neck before the top was put on.
I guess you're not using a tenon.
I forgot that you usually make a bolt on config and just glue the neck in place.

[silentcrescendo]

If you do put binding on the neck, don't forget to put the binding over the frets! I wish Jackson would do that, it looks much nicer to me.

[j2379]

If you do put binding on the neck, don't forget to put the binding over the frets! I wish Jackson would do that, it looks much nicer to me.

i like that LP alot. & i hate binding nips like that, i always get the high E clicking in the gap between the fret end & binding nip when i do vibratos.

[Learn Guitars]

Les paul style of guitar would look so much nicer with the set neck and tenon set up. That way when you bind the body, It will go all around the inside of the scoop on the lower front bout. The joint looks so much cleaner. IT is really not any more difficult, but because you don't have the arch top, you wont have the neck angle nessecary to run the bridge the traditional Gibson way. Im sure you are building the instrument for your own use, but if you were to start building and marketing them, you may consider a more tradional approach to enable more customer acceptance.

[Blazer]

Take a good long look at the third picture of my opening post and you'll see why there will be no binding around the front of the body edges...

Let's see who notices what I did there that made binding the body impossible.

[rjohnstone]

Let's see who notices what I did there that made binding the body impossible.

Rounding the edges kinda put an end to that.

[Learn Guitars]

Rounding the edges arent a problem. Al you need to do is increase the size of your purfling inside the edge binding You could also scrape a recurve in it and put a slight arch in it. But putting a recurve at the edge you would eleminate most of the curve that is the issue you have. At the same time you could compensate for neck angle so you can have a bit more flexibility of bridge height.

[åron]

i like that LP alot. & i hate binding nips like that, i always get the high E clicking in the gap between the fret end & binding nip when i do vibratos.

+1 getting my LP fixed up with frets over binding was the best thing to ever happen to that guitar.

[sully]

i hate binding nips like that, i always get the high E clicking in the gap between the fret end & binding nip when i do vibratos.

i hear ya, but there's a way to fill those gaps. i'm a binding over frets guy, myself, and have used a mix of binding chips and MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) to make a binding sludge of sorts. if you clean out the gap with an exacto knife, then take a toothpick and dab some of the binding sludge in there (use a little more than you need), let it set up for 24 hours or so, then reshape the ends (those pink nail files/emory boards work nicely) you're back in business. it's also a nice way to rebuild old nibs that have worn over the years.

sully