Les Paul build

[Telenator]

Mine is a "Greg Koch" style, LOL. Over-size. It's wider, longer, and has a 25 1/2" scale. I don't like the 24 3/4" scale.
This body is also chambered and thinner than a regular Les Paul. It's still heavy at just over 9 lbs.
Plays and sounds like a dream!
Placing the pickups was critical because of the scale length. I find that P90s just don't sound great on a longer scale unless you move them forward a bit. Get 'em away from the bridge. Heck, I move all my bridge pickups 3/16" further from the bridge than what is typical placement. They sound much better!
Good luck with your build. Looks like it's coming along nicely!

 

[Yonatan]

on a test piece weigh how many grams one of those holes removes. I found that you need a ton of them to reduce weight appreciably. I concluded the only way to get significant relief is to chamber more completely like Freeman did.

Just mentioning, for what it's worth, that in this video that someone shared on my thread about the top carving, he mentions something (it's around 38 minutes in) about the "full chambering" approach making it sound more like a hollow body.

 

[pypa]

Just mentioning, for what it's worth, that in this video that someone shared on my thread about the top carving, he mentions something (it's around 38 minutes in) about the "full chambering" approach making it sound more like a hollow body.

That's interesting. I don't hear it. My "Freeman style" chambered LP sounds just like the solid body (imitation) one I have from the 80's. I will listen better. I suspect the reason is that the top plate is not curved on the underside as it is in a hollow body so it does not resonate. It also doesn't have any sound holes for that sound to escape.

I made a "Gibson" ES356 last year. I tried to manually hollow the backside of the top plate (poorly...) and it sounds very much like a solid body

My anecdotal evidence suggests that it's easier to make a hollow body sound like a solid body than the other way round.

 

[Freeman Keller]

on a test piece weigh how many grams one of those holes removes. I found that you need a ton of them to reduce weight appreciably. I concluded the only way to get significant relief is to chamber more completely like Freeman did.

I started by making a ton of them


And then cleaning up what was left



I figure that if I was a little more aggressive I could get another half pound out of it.

 

[Freeman Keller]

Just mentioning, for what it's worth, that in this video that someone shared on my thread about the top carving, he mentions something (it's around 38 minutes in) about the "full chambering" approach making it sound more like a hollow body.

That's interesting. I don't hear it. My "Freeman style" chambered LP sounds just like the solid body (imitation) one I have from the 80's. I will listen better. I suspect the reason is that the top plate is not curved on the underside as it is in a hollow body so it does not resonate. It also doesn't have any sound holes for that sound to escape.

I made a "Gibson" ES356 last year. I tried to manually hollow the backside of the top plate (poorly...) and it sounds very much like a solid body

My anecdotal evidence suggests that it's easier to make a hollow body sound like a solid body than the other way round.

For what it is worth I have made two les paul style guitar, see post #8. They are both mahogany neck and body, one has a maple cap, one has a Spanish cedar cap, but interestingly those woods have very similar mechanical properties. A significant thing is that they have identically the same pickups - StewMac's golden era PAF clones and they have the same electronics. So other than minor difference in woods they are identical. Oh, yeah, one is the chambered one in my earlier post, the other is a solid hunk of hog.

After the second one was I sat down one even with both guitars, a friend, some adult beverages and a little Quilter amp with an AB box. We plugged one guitar into each cable and played them back and forth and back again until the beer ran out. We set up my little recorder in front of the amp and took some sound clips. Same amp, no effects, same settings, player and pick.
With a whole lot of effort and the help of forumite Awasson we posted the clips to Soundcloud and I put a link in the build thread that I was writing at the time. A few folks commented on the clips

That confirms my experience with like minded guitars I have built.With same settings,amps,etc they sound exactly the same,BUT I think the hollow versions seen to be just a LITTLE louder and more dynamic.Just one man's opinion lol

Both these LP sound really good.

That’s what I thought too. Really nice playing as well.

Not very helpful, eh? Well that thread is old, the links are all broken but I still have the clips and I would be happy to e-mail them to anyone who wants to listen (they are wav files). Just shoot me an e-mail addy, I would post them here but I can't.

Now days I would do more than just record them, I have software that lets me analyze a sound clip both in the time and frequency domains. It would let me compare that holy grail, sustain, as well as the frequency and partial makeup of individual notes. I would do this if I had time and was bored but frankly both guitars sound wonderful, I can't hear a difference and what would I do if I did?

Bottom line, the pound and a half makes a huge difference, the chambered guitar now lives with a friend who takes it out a plays with it often, the heavy on stayed with me and I sit on the couch and pick out a few little blues riffs on it.

And life is good.,

 

[Yonatan]

For what it is worth I have made two les paul style guitar, see post #8. They are both mahogany neck and body, one has a maple cap, one has a Spanish cedar cap, but interestingly those woods have very similar mechanical properties. A significant thing is that they have identically the same pickups - StewMac's golden era PAF clones and they have the same electronics. So other than minor difference in woods they are identical. Oh, yeah, one is the chambered one in my earlier post, the other is a solid hunk of hog.

After the second one was I sat down one even with both guitars, a friend, some adult beverages and a little Quilter amp with an AB box. We plugged one guitar into each cable and played them back and forth and back again until the beer ran out. We set up my little recorder in front of the amp and took some sound clips. Same amp, no effects, same settings, player and pick.
With a whole lot of effort and the help of forumite Awasson we posted the clips to Soundcloud and I put a link in the build thread that I was writing at the time. A few folks commented on the clips

That confirms my experience with like minded guitars I have built.With same settings,amps,etc they sound exactly the same,BUT I think the hollow versions seen to be just a LITTLE louder and more dynamic.Just one man's opinion lol

Both these LP sound really good.

That’s what I thought too. Really nice playing as well.

Not very helpful, eh? Well that thread is old, the links are all broken but I still have the clips and I would be happy to e-mail them to anyone who wants to listen (they are wav files). Just shoot me an e-mail addy, I would post them here but I can't.

Now days I would do more than just record them, I have software that lets me analyze a sound clip both in the time and frequency domains. It would let me compare that holy grail, sustain, as well as the frequency and partial makeup of individual notes. I would do this if I had time and was bored but frankly both guitars sound wonderful, I can't hear a difference and what would I do if I did?

Bottom line, the pound and a half makes a huge difference, the chambered guitar now lives with a friend who takes it out a plays with it often, the heavy on stayed with me and I sit on the couch and pick out a few little blues riffs on it.

And life is good.,

Good to know. My Agile copy is a top notch instrument, but it's on the heavier side. Not necessarily for a non-chambered LP style guitar, but just as compared to what I'm used to. So, *if* I were to build one, I'd want to do as much chambering as possible.

BTW, with your pattern, what hardware mounted only to the top (because the body was chambered away, so there's no center block)? The stop bar? Or also the bridge? Or neither, which I think is the answer (when comparing these pictures to your completed guitars, I think you might have stopped chambering just before the stop bar)?

 

[Moldy Oldy]

Here’s another option. The finished guitar sounds great and definitely sounds like a solid body.

 

[Freeman Keller]

BTW, with your pattern, what hardware mounted only to the top (because the body was chambered away, so there's no center block)? The stop bar? Or also the bridge? Or neither, which I think is the answer (when comparing these pictures to your completed guitars, I think you might have stopped chambering just before the stop bar)?

I left enough of a center block to support bridge, stop bar, pickups and neck. If you look closely at this picture you can see where I have penciled in the various parts

I left the sides fairly thick, they could be thinned significantly which would remove a few more ounces.

The top ranges from about 1/4 inch at the rim to 5/8 thickness in the center where it is glued to the block. In my humble opinion its not going to vibrate much and since the air chamber is not connected to the outside world via f-holes or any thing, there really isn't going to be much acoustic sound (which is what the sound clips tell me).

 

[Freeman Keller]

Good afternoon everyone , after I finished my telecaster build I have decided to tackle a Les Paul build . I have most of the measurements I need and found some good body diagrams . I have not found a good neck and fretboard diagram with measurements. If any one knows the fret board dimensions that would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

Dylan, the subject of Gibson scale lengths just came up in another discussion and I remembered that you had some questions about the same thing. Its probably too late but here is what I posted in that thread

Gloss black finishing attempt

I'm making a flat top in the very loose style of a Les Paul Jr. The body shape is somewhat similar, but scaled down to 12.5" wide. The horns are shrunk a bit too. The customer wanted marker near the most prominent harmonic spots too. Go figure. He also wanted a modified headstock. The real...

www.tdpri.com

It might at least give you some background.

 

[Dylanmarleyyoung]

Lots of good advice on this forum , I have made some good progress on the guitar. I made a binding jig out of parts from an old 3d printer. I have done binding on a tele but the curves on a les paul body are very tricky. Do you use abs binding or the other type pvc I think for this. I have tried three times now and it’s not looking as clean as I would like . I even got a heat gun but I find it’s not holding its shape as well as it could any tips would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Freeman Keller]

For any carved topped guitar a floating binding router makes the work much easier. I used cream ABS binding on my first (and wood on the second) preshape with a little heat. I like to tape the binding to the body without any glue, take enough time to get it perfect and then "tack weld" it in place with water thin CA. Remove the tape and any clamps and run a bead of thin CA all the way around the seams. One of the tricky parts of binding a lester is that inside the horn the binding channel gets deeper, you either need to bend the binding in the vertical (long) axis or use taller binding or sculpt the top down to meet shorter binding. (I think we discussed that with the top contours).

When I built my first one I did everything wrong. I prebent the binding then decided to use medium CA as the adhesive, applying small amounts of glue as I move around the body taping it in place as I go. It was a total cluster, some places weren't glued tight, there were gaps, I actually glued my latex glove to the top.



It is far betteer to tape the binding in place without glue leaving little gaps between tape and tack it down like I described.



Some folks use acetone based glues for plastic binding, I do mostly wood and like CA better. One nice thing about CA is if you get it on ther maple it pretty much disappears when you do your finish.