DLP Les Paul 2 - Starting The Project

As well as several guitars hanging in the garage waiting for final coats of paint, another Ukulele build for my other son and another Telecaster on the go I have started a new Les Paul style build.  I had glued up a couple of boards a few weeks ago and have a mahogany neck blank already scarf jointed ready to go.

The headstock will need some additional material glued to each side and the blank is too thick so firstly I cut the back of the head off and then cut that in half ready to glue to the sides of the headstock.  By mounting the blank between two parallel pieces of metal I was able to saw a nice flat piece from the blank.

I glued up the one half of the headstock last night and the other this morning ready for final shaping and getting the thickness even.  I had previously used this blank as a test when I routed the truss rod channel in the DLP Les Paul Prototype neck so the is one job out of the way!

Secret Ukulele Project

Over the past couple of weeks I have been making a Ukulele for my youngest son Ethan.  I finally finished it today and gave it to him as a surprise. The shape is something similar to a Gibson Flying V.

The construction is nothing special, the neck is pine and the fingerboard is oak.  There is no truss rod as the nylon strings shouldn't cause any neck warp.  The body is plywood front and back and thin mdf sides.

I applied a light stain just to even everything up then sprayed a couple of coats of vintage cherry nitrocellulose stain followed by several coats of gloss nitro lacquer.  I then left it to hang for a few days and just polished the whole thing with a light abrasive compound before buffing.

It is not the loudest instrument in the world but I never expected it to be.  It sounds nice though and will suit my 7 year old down to the ground.

The machine heads are from an Epiphone Les Paul I recently refinished and replaced.  He seemed quite pleased with it and managed 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' after a few minutes.

Telecaster III - 4 - More Body Work

Last night I made a frame to glide my router over, the idea is to run the router over the body to take some of the thickness out of the blank and to even up the uneven rough timber I used.  Construction is simply 4 pieces of skirting board cut to size and but jointed, screwed and glued.

I also attached a base to the frame so I know the base is even to the sides and the slight overhang leaves me something to clamp the jig down with.

I have to be careful the skis don't come off the edge as the router bit is then lower and takes more material away than I intended.  This is a messy job hence I am doing it outside and not on my workbench!

With a couple of passes I have the desired thickness and I have now applied some wood filler and will continue the laborious process of sanding everything smooth.  I still haven't decided if I am going to hollow the body out yet but the body will defiantly be painted.

Telecaster III - 3 - Onto The Body

Today I got the jigsaw out and cut out the body blank for my latest Telecaster build.  I am not keen on using the jigsaw as the blade tends to move around and not give a great straight cut.  However until I get a band saw I will have to make do.

The body has to be routed to the correct thickness so I'm not concerned about the gaps where the planks join, today I am going to start on the edges by sanding them smooth and square.

It's really hard work doing all this by hand but well worth it in the end.  I will start with course sandpaper and also use a cabinet scraper periodically checking that the sides are square to the front and back.  More later!

Telecaster III - 2 - Continuing The Neck

I have continued refining the Telecaster neck blank today, I have mainly focused on the thickness of the blank and getting rid of saw marks.  Below is the back of the head and the difference between the mahogany and oak is quite obvious but the oak is also quite uneven is grain patten so I think I will make a feature of the wood and wont paint over it. 

The front of the neck shows the same variations very nicely as well.  This oak is very tough and hard trying to remove imperfections is tough on my tools.  One thing I like to use is a cabinet scraper (just a thin piece of rectangular metal really!) and I seem to be constantly turning the burr on it as it wears out so quickly.

I have a piece of African Rosewood ready to make into the fret board. My next job though will be to route a channel for the truss rod.  This should be a pretty neck.

Telecaster III - 1 - Starting The Neck

I have been quietly working on a couple of projects of the past week or so while I'm waiting for the weather to improve before I carry on spray painting.  One of the projects I have started is another Telecaster.  I had glued up some boards ready to make a body and started work on a neck.

I had a piece of oak so I decided to use it for the neck however it wasn't wide enough at the head end so I glued on a piece of mahogany.  Maybe I will paint over the whole neck to hide the different woods or maybe I will show it off as a feature.

I cut the basic shape out with my jigsaw and continue to refine the neck with my plane and chisels.  More pictures to follow.

More Fun Painting

I'm in full paint shop mode still but the weather is thwarting me at the moment.  I was a little too keen a couple of days ago and sprayed when it was too cold and I ended up with 'bloom' on all 3 guitars. Unfortunately it seems the only way round this is to sand back the bloom and paint again. 

I took the opportunity to fill a couple of blemishes that showed up on the Les Paul prototype.

The Encore Bass didn't need too much attention although it is easy to see how thin the paint goes on as I have sanded through the primer around the edges.

The Stratocaster looks pretty cool as it is... If I wanted a road worn look this would be the way to go!

Both necks needed a light sanding as well but on the whole are not too bad.  I just need to be patient and wait for the weather to warm up a little, I was too keen to start the other morning and it was quite warm in the afternoon so I would have been fine.

Paint Shop Not So Pro!

Well I thought it was about time I brought a little colour to my collection of almost complete projects.  It's the first time I have really used my new compressor and spray gun so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  First up is the Stratocaster body, I have some red tinted lacquer to go over the original red. I had previously sprayed this using rattle cans but I just wasn't happy with the finish so this was my first effort... and it wasn't great, I got streaks and runs all over.  I put this to one side, practised a little more and moved onto black.

Next was the Encore Bass guitar which was originally black, I decided to refinish it in the same colour and the body had been primed and prepared.  This time I got much better results.  Practice makes perfect they say.  I sprayed one coat, then left it to dry for about 30 minutes and applied another.  I still had a run but just the one which should be easy to fix.

You can just make out the run on the front of the bass between the neck pocket and the pickup.

I also sprayed the bass neck and the DPL Les Paul prototype neck at the same time.  A couple of coats went on perfectly.  While I had the table out I also sprayed the grill for the back of the Les Paul black.

Finally I turned my attention to the front of the Les Paul.  It was my intention to spray a sunburst leaving the original wood showing through but it wasn't long before I realised I had bitten off more than I could chew and ended up painting the whole front black.  Once again experience and practice is needed here.

All in all I have had a mixed day.  I will correct all the errors I have made today and learn from them as well, lets see what tomorrow brings.

DLP Les Paul Prototype - 33 - Ouch... Split!

Ouch... While I was drilling the hole for the output jack I heard a disturbing noise and noticed the side started to split!  I had to open the split and clean out the dust and debris from drilling the hole and apply some Titebond into the split and then clamp.

 

I'm glad this is a prototype and not a 'production' build.  The split has closed up nicely and a little filler should make the repair invisible.  I was hoping to start painting later but this might put me back another 24 hours.

I had managed to drill all the control holes and bridge holes before this happened though.

DLP Les Paul Prototype - 32 - Pickup Cavities

Over the past couple of days I have been preparing the pickup cavities.  I am chiselling them out by hand and I start by laying out the neck pickup position relative to the bridge.  The neck is mounted further into the body than a vintage Les Paul so the pups will also be further down the body.

After scoring the outline of the cavity to prevent the varnish chipping too much I used a forstner bit to take away the vast majority of the material and then chiselled away the rest until I have a snug cavity for the pickup.

Once I finished the neck pickup I laid out the position of the bridge pickup using the pick guard as a spacer.

Now the two pickup cavities are finished I can more onto the rest of the holes that need to be made in the front of the body for the bridge, tail piece, pots, switch and output jack.

It's a nice neat job however the pickguard does not sit flush next to the neck (mainly because my neck is not quite as wide as a standard Gibson Les Paul neck), so I might have to make one bespoke if it looks odd.

Any chipping around the neck cavity and pickup cavities will be hidden with the sunburst I plan to paint and the pickup mounting rings.

General Guitar Stuff - Next Project and Beyond

Before I started the DLP Les Paul Prototype I contemplated making two guitars at the same time running each process parallel using slightly different materials.  However once I started building a Les Paul style guitar I realised just how much work was involved compared to the Telecaster builds especially on the neck so I decided just to concentrate on the prototype.

As that project and others approach completion I and starting to think about what to build next.  I have two guitars in mind, firstly I want to make another Les Paul style guitar learning from mistakes I made on the first prototype so I have glued up a couple of boards to make the body blank.

This body will be painted so I'm not too bothered about the wood I use, I'm not sure of the species I'm using, but I know the two main pieces are made from a reclaimed scaffold board... I had to plane off concrete! The 2 extra pieces are added just to accommodate the width of the body.

The plank is actually very resonant so while I might sound a little nonchalant about the choice of wood it actually had a nice tap tone.I'm still thinking about making a hollow Les Paul with a flat top, maybe this will be the one.

Also on my radar is a signature DLP Telecaster featuring a thinline body with a unique 'f-hole' and a one off design pick guard.  The intention is to also feature a P90 pickup at the neck and a single coil at the bridge, traditional controls and a vintage ashtray bridge.

I have set aside some wood for this as well and have started planing the planks ready to join to make the body blank.  If this turns out well then it's my intention to focus on T-Style bodies and necks producing both hollow and solid body versions of the DLP Signature Telecaster.  i think to stand out in the market place I would need to produce something different and this might be it.

DLP Les Paul Prototype - 31 - Back to Grey

Tonight I sanded back the grain filler I put on last night... probably a little too much in parts, as I can still see some grain.  The neck is lovely and smooth now though and has had 3 good coats of primer.  I will let this dry hard for a couple of days before doing anything else with it.

I really need to get going with the paint, I now have a Stratocaster, the Encore Bass and the DLP Les Paul Prototype ready (or almost ready for paint).

DLP Les Paul Prototype - 30 - Reshaping the Heel

With the neck cavity cut to exactly half the body depth I took another look at the neck and decided there was still some way to go as the neck was too high against the body and I didn't want to take any more material away from the body for both structural reasons and aesthetic ones.  So I decided to take some material off the heel itself both the reduce the thickness of the neck and to introduce a slight angle.

I clamped the neck between two pieces of flat metal in my workmate and line the metal to two lines I had laid out to removed about 5mm at the end of the neck tapering forwards at a 2.5 degree angle.

This method worked perfectly although a Japanese flush cut saw might have made a slightly neater job than my regular saw!  With so much material removed the neck did not look right and it made it seem way to thick at the heel end.  Also upon fitting the neck into the body I realised I should could have made the heel smaller anyway so I marked up the neck to remove some more material at the heel and generally thin the profile of the neck.

After a short time using my block plane, sand paper and a scraper I had carved a nice profile into the neck.

Once I was happy I sanded the neck with 120 grit sandpaper and then applied some wood filler into a couple of nicks I had made and then mixed some fine grain filler and rubbed this across the grain of the neck.

I will let everything dry overnight then sand this back to see how smooth the neck is and repeat the process until all the grain and bumps are filled and smooth ready for paint.