The next step in the top carve is creating the neck and pickup planes.  The neck plane, especially, is one of those ‘get it right’ moments.  Gibson uses an angled neck on many of its guitars to compensate for the high, adjustable bridge.  If the neck were parallel to the body of the guitar, the strings would get progressively higher […]

I’ve been playing a little catchup with the build blog.  Some of these steps happen pretty quickly, but have a bunch of interesting mini-steps to get them done.  The top carve on the guitar is one of those.  Lots of curves, transitions, important angles, heights, etc., all with the goal of subtle elegance. For me, the carved deck is probably the […]

After a few weeks of working on the mostly-straight lines of the fretboard, it is nice to be finally working on some curves.  I’ve had the templates made for a couple of months and had the wood for about a month, so it was time to get going with the guitar body. The main reason for not starting with the […]

Binding seems to occupy a lot of space on the Les Paul guitar and luthier forums.  What width?  What thickness?  Whose color is correct?  I have to admit, I got caught up in it.  One dealer has a cream that some folks say is too pink for a vintage-style Les Paul.  Another’s is the right color, but too expensive (something […]

OK, another bad pun, but it was just too obvious to pass up. With the inlay complete, I turned my attention toward finalizing the fretboard.  First up was tapering the fretboard to its final dimensions.  I subtracted 0.04″ from the finished size on each edge to accommodate the binding.  This was definitely a measure five times, cut once operation.  Working in hundredths of an […]