pulaifaz's 2012 Challenge Build Thread -- COMPLETED

[RogerC]

tasty carve. that's on my list of things to do on a future build.

[pulaifaz]

Originally Posted by emoney

Nice way to shave 3lbs off that thing! Have you chosen which of the finishes you were
debating about? Either will be pretty sweet.

thanks emoney, I love how light it feels - regarding the finish, at the moment I think am going for an amber on the top and darker body

[pulaifaz]

Originally Posted by RogerC

tasty carve. that's on my list of things to do on a future build.

thanks RogerC - it's a lot of work, but I think it's worth it

[Muzikp]

Great build, going to look nice. Would you mind sharing how you roughed in the contours for the carve?

[pulaifaz]

thanks Muzikp

sure, I didn't take any photos, but I used my Les Paul carve templates that were borrowed from another builder called ex-nihilo in mylespaul.com - follow this thread it has a link for the download

[pulaifaz]

Starting work on the 1 piece maple neck



I will use a two-way truss rod with the adjustment at the heel



routing the truss rod channel



channel is done



fitting the truss road adjustment nut



finished

[pulaifaz]

Starting to look at possible finish dyes

amber



this one is called merlot

[pulaifaz]

Continued shaping the neck



it will be routed next

[pulaifaz]

while routing the neck the template slipped and the neck was damaged beyond repair, I decided not to use any screws to hold the template






so off to start another neck from scratch .....

[pulaifaz]

here's the new neck blank



for this one I cut closer to the lines, and the straight sections were routed and the rest were sanded with the ROSS



next I glued the skunk stripe, using some oak

[Guitar novice]

Love the guitar. Your giving me inspiration for my next build.

With the carve did you have templates for each step? If you I'd how did you design them? Just freehand?

Cheers

[pulaifaz]

thanks Guitar novice

one template per step

[BR06623]

I like your inspiration guitars also. The carve you are doing looks real nice, can't wait to see the finished product. Good luck!

[Tonetele]

Great woodworking skills Paulifaz. I like the anber MHO.

[pulaifaz]

Originally Posted by BR06623

I like your inspiration guitars also. The carve you are doing looks real nice, can't wait to see the finished product. Good luck!

thanks BRO

[pulaifaz]

Originally Posted by Tonetele

Great woodworking skills Paulifaz. I like the anber MHO.

you're too kind Tonetele - but I feel I am more like a hack who has learned a lot from all the kind people in this forum who share their jigs and techniques

[pulaifaz]

I carved the back of the neck using Bill Scheltema's neck router jig and some sanding







I love that jig

[emoney]

Man, I think I like both those colors. It's really shaping up nicely!

[pulaifaz]

Originally Posted by emoney

Man, I think I like both those colors. It's really shaping up nicely!

thanks emoney - I can't decide about the color, but there's still a lot of the wood work to be done before I get there

[flatfive]

Nice work with the Scheltema jig! You stop the carve further
than the headstock than I do, but that is probably a good idea.
I really like the control and consistency you get with that jig.