L.P. carve templates - A little stunned by the price . . .

https://www.mylespaul.com/threads/the-definitive-top-carve-thread.435924/

 

If you have an R9, why not make your templates directly from that? Super easy to do, using small pieces of thin card stock and some tape.

 

They used to sell drawings for a 59 LP as well. I bought a copy way back and had difficulty building from them, so I made my own based on the Bartlett plans, which were much better IMO. I actually worked with Tom Bartlett and drew up some more "construction" friendly drawings. They look like this -


Acrylic is expensive, but it is nice to be able to see through them. Not that price nice though! ;-)

For the top carve there is this set of drawings going around, which are 7 - 1/16" carve steps. Print this out and then create 7 of your own templates of your own.


with carve profiles / sections as noted by the letters above.

One of the things that is perplexing about those templates and the plans they used to sell was the neck template. It shows a heel block which is incorrect AFAIK. This was one of the things that bothered me about the drawings and if that was incorrect then what else what not quite correct.

Cheers Peter.

 

The problem with that carve ^^^ is that the top sloped down to the binding at the neck. More like this




When I built mine I routed an edge that corresponds to the recurve at the top of the binding and made some cross body templates from the StewMac plans. The shape of my guitar isn't perfect, it doesn't matter

 

if you have an LP or know someone who does, this could be an option, more work, but a lot less money.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001C06BBE/?tag=tdpri-20

That said, those drawings posted by pshupe look like a good way to go.....

 

They are all in here if you want to roll your own. I used the Catto ones about 15 years ago:

Schablonen und Zeichnungen - GitarreBassBau.de

 

Achtung!

 

If my Les Paul copy wasn't so pretty I would take it apart and stick it in my duplicator and make myself a carve template.

 

That is the guy that came up with the carve steps and also is working on the other thread that was posted here. The vintage LP Burst tops were all sanded by hand in the final stages and varied quite a bit. Using Scott's carve steps is an easy way to get a decent carve for the hobbyist. Definitely takes a bit of the guess work out of it and results in a nice top carve.

If I was building an LP, I would probably head over to that other forum for specific questions. Similarly, when I build a Tele I do not post a lot of questions over there.

Cheers Peter.

 

Yeppers, very instructive