1959 Les Paul Build

A short Friday... Shabat is coming and I did very little today.
#4 Template will include my own design for the chambered sections and is not a part of the 59 exact replication schedule obviously. I love chambered Les Pauls, they got a certain quality in the tone which reminds me the featherweight 52 wood response, warm beautiful mids and a very woody sound. Most earliest 52 LP bodies were not made of Mahogany, they used Cedro and therefore were much lighter and sounded awesome to my ears. The chambered Mahogany I designed will do 2 things:
1) Dramatically drop the weight down = warmer mids
2) Allow the maple top to vibrate freely = More harmonics

I usually look for those two characters in a good LP. (This will not work for Hi-Gain metal tone but will be great for Clean, Blues... etc and Tube Amp OD).
So, between Cedro and Chambered Mahogany I'll take the Mahogany for it's wider freq response and its tighter lows.

I'm not sure yet if I'll use this template on this proto build... although I really want to... We'll see. Anyway, I need to cut it as a part of the design templates.

Here it is. Note the special design where theres a narrow section between the neck tenon and the bridge area that opens up like a fork to channel the low end to the studs but still allow very large sections of the maple top to vibrate. Remember that the control cavity is a chamber as well so the bridge area is pretty much surrounded with "free" maple. since there's no air ventilation (like F holes etc) the chambered areas will hardly affect the attack and signal decay.



I drill the perimeter first



and manually smooth the lines with this special bit

 

OK... I just noticed I made a little mistake here... I left a too small of a gap between the diagonal channel and the top chamber. This might create vibrations of the thin "wall" at certain frequencies so I think it will be better to add about 1/16" just to play it safe. I glued some HDF and will cut it once dry.



This is what it looks like with the cut chambers. I will use this template on my pin router because there is not enough "base" to use a hand held router safely.

 

Fixed



I squeezed another small template while the one above was drying
If you "know"50's Les Pauls you probably know what the second control cavity rout is...
But for those who don't here it is:



Note the slanted second rout that is done in order to align the base of the cavity with the curved top to allow the pots to extrude evenly. There's usually some mahogany left at the bottom and some "damage" to the cavity walls. Not all cavities look the same but they all have this second rout.

I made this jig for the second rout. The angle is not yet finalized since I use a lower neck angle than the mandatory 4.4... (I love the ABR-1 when it sits low) and need to test it as I go with this proto build, but the rout outline is correct.

 

I aligned it with the #2 template.
Top view



Bottom view (as if from within the cavity as the capacitors see it (-; )



It will be angled like that



by those. Just need to set the angle and sand them a little. It will be attached by a strong double sided carpet tape.

 

Getting ready for the neck templates, but this will definitely wait until Sunday.
Shabat Shalom!