HomeDepot Maple Hollow Body Les Paul

[I_build_my_own]

The alu jig is just a recycled 19 inch 2HE electronics rack. I think the vendor was Merath Metal Systeme. It was once used to hold pcb boards. The good thing is that it's modular and you can screw it together the way you like it. The bad thing is, it is too short to cover an entire body in one pass.

Carving: First I carve the flat area where the pickups go, considering the neck angle. Then I route the outer level down to the final measurement. Then I route the next level towards the center. This is also routed to the final depth before I move on to the next level. Each level/step has the same distance / depth from the next.

[I_build_my_own]

Here the back before it is closed. The electronics and switch cavity are closed off and shielded.

The detail picture shows the ferules soldered on fiberglass epoxy PCB and mounted on the center block with flexible wires extending to the electronics cavity. This will allow for proper grounding of all 6 strings since the Schaller bridge will have piezo saddles that aren't conductive. Same applies to the lower bridge bushing - it also got a grounding wire.

[I_build_my_own]

Finally the back is glued on.

[Fred_Garvin]

Very nice, indeed. I like the carved back.

[Maricopa]

Awesome build and I sure agree with your reasoning here.

Re: Why the bolt-on neck: Various reasons:
A) I think a very tight bolt on neck joint gets the same results like a not so tight glued neck joint. I am honest to myself with the tools I have, I cannot do a really tight set neck joint. When you look at the heel of the neck at the beginning of this post, you'll see it is much higher than the standard Strat or Tele heel, which allows me to use much longer screws, which helps in screwing it tighter without over tightening and eventually stripping the neck holes.
B) For me it is much more manageable to do the body and neck separate.
C) If a neck once turns into a banana, it can easily be exchanged.

[I_build_my_own]

Schaller piezo bridge with custom extra long brass bushings - before the bushings are pressed into the body. Bushings go almost through the entire center block.

[Peter C]

Holy Mackerel - Keep it coming it is gorgeous.

[mrz80]

Love the inlay work around the top. Carved back, too? Can't wait to see this thing built! :-)

[I_build_my_own]

Yes the back is carved too. It is my compromise of being able to put a binding on the back and giving up the "tummy cut" on the back. With a carved back you basically still get a bit of "tummy cut" feel, just all the way around. Though its quite labor intense.

Here the back with the binding channel.

[I_build_my_own]

Binding on the back is glued on with #16 from Stew Mac, where I also got this white tall binding.

Next pic shows the top with the 2 level routing channel. One for the tall binding on the outside and the one for the abalone inlay.

[jipp]

hey great build. i do not see a big diff in set neck and bolt on neck other than marketing.
i like how you added the longer studs in my mind that should get some of them sound waves bouncing around deeper in the body which in return with the acoustic aspect you are adding should really make this sound good when you use the acoustic part. you do great work. looks like im gonna have to build me some of them clamps with carriage bolts.
chris.

[fluid69]

Originally Posted by jipp

you do great work. looks like im gonna have to build me some of them clamps with carriage bolts.
chris.

My thoughts exactly!

[I_build_my_own]

@ JIPP: That was my thinking behind the long bridge bushings, too. The center bock is real hard maple, while the flamed top isn't really that hard maple at all. So why put short bushings into the soft top if long bushings can be anchored in the hard center block that runs through all of the body. Should only be good for making it "ring" longer. I still like the old concept of having a brass bridge block for additional sustain, which I saw Ibanez promoting years ago. While the bushings are not bringing that much mass into the bridge area like a full brass block would, the bridge studs out of stainless still with M8 are about as long as the brass bushing - they bring some mass.

The long bushing also made it easier to put in a dummy screw and spring which I’ll use to ground the bridge bushing and therefore bridge. If anyone is interested in a detailed sketch, I will draw one.

In general I’d be happy to learn how other people ground Gibson style bridges when they use non-conductive bridge saddles i.e. Schaller / Graph Tech.

[I_build_my_own]

Here a pic around the top binding. I go into a little bit more detail -since I spent quite some time in researching it and finally figuring it out. I decided to have a 9 layer binding in this order (starting form the outside).
1) white (1.5mm)
2) black (0.3mm)
3) white (0.3mm)
4) abalone (2mm)
5) white (0.3mm)
6) black (0.3mm)
7) white (0.3mm)
8) black (0.3mm)
9) white (0.3mm)

The 1.5mm white binding is full height and has its dedicated channel. The multilayer thin binding + abalone is just 1.5 mm deep which is determined by height of the abalone available.

First I use my "free" binding laminator and glue layer 2) and 3) together. (Pictures of the binding laminator are in the next post.)For this I use 6mm tall 0.3mm thick PVC binding from eBay. I laminate this together with brushing on the acetone in between 2 PVC stripes. Stew Mac has shows “how to” on their website. Then I use a regular scissor and cut the black and white laminate in half to get it down to 3mm. This doesn't have to be very precise since 1mm is being sanded away later anyway to get it to the height of the abalone. (sanding after the abalone is in.)

Then I use again the binding laminator and glue together layer 5) + 6). Then I use the same method and glue layer 7) + 8). Then the same process to laminate (5+6) and (7+8) together. Now it is basically white – black – white – black. Finally I laminate the last white layer 9) on (5+6+7+8).

Then let it dry for at least a day. With these 5x0.3mm layers I have 1.5mm (plus a bit of swelling from the acetone) binding that is 6 mm tall and 5-6 feet long. Then I use a fine blade on a band saw and cut the 6 mm wide binding into 2 strips. Depending on the blade, this gets me 2 stripes of about 2.5mm tall binding. Again this doesn’t need to be precisely cut in the middle since it is being sanded down to 1.5 anyway, once the abalone is in.

The next step is taking the green or blue painter’s tape and position the binding all around the body with a Teflon filler stripe, where the abalone will go later on. This is then carefully “flooded” with the thin CA super glue (not the regular). After the CA is dry, I pull out the Teflon filler stripe, clean the channel, which is then ready to be filled with abalone.

I don't take any credit for this method - I read about it at Stew Mac and saw a movie on youtube.

In the picture below, the right side is already filled with abalone. Unfortunately you cannot see the colors of the abalone because the camera's flash light is too intense and just x-Rays through all the shiny abalone layers. I guess this is kind of red eye effect for abalone

[I_build_my_own]

I use then the left over binding from the body for the headstock. I the headstock picture I didnt use a flashlight and you can see the true color of the abalone. This pic also shows the individual black and white layers better.

I had to learn the hard way that you should not leave alot of time (weeks) between laminating the binding and putting it on the body or head stock. When the binding is freshly laminated, the acetone makes it very flexible and you can bend it easily around the body. After weeks all the acetone vaporized and the binding stripes will easily break when you try bending them (with heat or without heat).

[I_build_my_own]

Below are pictures of the virtually free binding laminator.
Material:
- base plate and top - free bamboo hard wood floor samples.
- 1 screw (5mm) plus a nut. You can take any other size like a 1/4".
- 2 springs from paper clips.
- CA glue and 2 wood screws to fix the top to base. I guess you can go without the 2 wood screws.

When you build your own, make sure the base plate is big enough so that you can use clamps to mount it on your working table.

[I_build_my_own]

Here the binding laminator pictures. Very simple to build. It can be quickly taken apart for cleaning.

Depending on the thickness of the binding material you can simply exchange the springs as there are many different paper clip sizes available. For thicker bindings you would want to use stronger springs.

[jipp]

neat tool. i did not realize you did that much work on the binding. the abalone and white is all i really noticed.. but its because of how you did is the reason why.. effect achieved. im not much for fancy inlays.. but i do like abalone dots, and the type of inlay you did on the neck head stock, and i like that abalone to run along the fretboard too.
its not that i think people with the skill to go all out is bad. im just a simple person. and would never have teh skill to pull off any of it but the abalone dots. heh.
so i figure ill just use dots for my inlays.. was even thinking of using exotic wood. you can get a lot of cool looking wood for cheap that is cut to the size that is useless for everything but pen makers.. but if i bought a little lath i could just make my own dowels out of it ( tone bars too ill probably use it for ). so that is what my goals for inlays are. but i think what you did looks great.
chris.

[I_build_my_own]

@jipp. doing inlays with abalone or pearl is not a matter of skills - no worries. I did in the past an inlay logo with some left over mahogany fernier (the name) and the fret board dots with the leftover of the mahogany body. Doing the logo in fernier was much-much-much harder because it just breaks due to the wood grain. Abalone or MOP does not break that easy – I’d say doing it in abalone or pearl is actually low tech compared to cutting out tiny letters in fernier. I also have a lot of respect for all the people who do the true maple bindings. Regular plastic PVC binding is much more forgiving.

A very good source for exotic wood are left overs or damaged pieces of hard wood floor. The taun wood stripes in the neck and back of the hollow body guitar from above came out of a scrap piece of hard wood floor that was going into the dumpster otherwise.

Red cedar also gives good contrast on maple or birch - it does not even have to be exotic. See the simple sound hole rosette on my Nylon Strat. The rosette is from Western Red Cedar scraps from a house siding on a birch plywood pick guard. The dot inlay's in the maple neck are scraps of the mahogany body.

[jipp]

hey i can see how the wood would want to snap with the grain.. the trick with that is gonna be moisture/heat.. at least when i would add re curve to simple pyramid style bows..i would steam the bow tips in water. for about a hour then in a form i would steam/bend the tips and cross your fingers you did not pull any grain. ( my back ground in wood working is building traditional bows ) thanks for the tip on the material being more user friendly than i thought.

i used a lot of vertical grain bamboo flooring in my bows its a great material.. bamboo flooring and carbon fiber has changed the traditional archery scene forever for high performance bows now. light mass with the stiffest tips is the key to building a fast bow.. yeah lots of other things with risers and what not. but the gist of it is the stiffer the tips with the lightest mass is gonna give ya the best performing stick bow. at any rate thanks for the inspiration.. i figure in 2 months ill have the tools and what not as long as no medical bills pop up. ( my health is pretty bad from a accident ) at any rate my first build is gonna be a cigarbox inspired thing. i plan on building the box my self. and will build my first neck for it too. i figure at looking at some of these cigarbox guitars construction and how good they sound but the shoddy construction annoyed me.. it would be a good first build.. because no matter how bad i mess up its gonna sound good. ( well i like the sound of cigarbox guitars) ill be using six strings too. and it will be eletric so i can plug in. figure ill just use whatever wood i can get at home deopt for the box. was thinking of just using a strip of left over bambo flooring to act as truss rod since its stronger in tension than steel. and since i have large hands a bigger neck wont be that bad. and if i make it so it can be bolted on when i do a real truss rod i can switch it out.. anyhow, im thinking out loud of what i plan on doing for my first build. crude, simple.. but will learn a lot. my radius block should be here by wensday.. i went with 12 degrees its what im use too. will use a gibson scale.
chris.