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The Les Paul Twins

#103
Christine said:
Phew it's been a hot one today! Not happy I have a blister on my thumb! How you ask? I'll tell you how :roflmao:

Started off routing a shoulder at the level of the top of the binding to give myself a clean edge to work to while shaping the tops, yes shaping at last WOOHOO!! After that I drew a rough contour map of the general curves I expected to get, after that well it was shaping time. I used a thing called an Arbourtech, a rather nasty carving attachment that fits onto a grinder, this is a method I do not recommend, it can reduce your guitar body to firewood in less time than it takes to blink. So why am I using one, I've had a lot of practice with it but even then it's a worrying procedure.

After rough carving I used some small thumb planes (blister!! :( ) to just get it somewhere like a shape at the back, the front couldn't be done until the angle for the neck/fretboard had been cut. For that I just made a jig, basically a sloping bit of MDF at 4.5 degrees with a hole in it to access the top of the body. There was some spare wood the jig didn't reach so I whipped those off with a drawknife, a bit like a massive spokeshave then took a bench plane to flatten it. Finally I took the thumb planes and some tiny spokeshaves and tuned the shape to something that looked right, it's sort of an intuitive process, try it you'll see. After that I was tired so I still need to tune the shape on the second body but I'm happy with the first, that just needs the neck fitting and sorting any snags before sanding etc.

Oh and I also checked the neck blanks for any movement, admittedly they are still blanks and any movement would be unlikely but if there is any movement at this stage then the blank is firewood. There was none but some of you may be interested to know how I checked. To see if there is any twist on a narrow board you used a gadget called a pair of winding sticks, these are basically two parallel wooden straight edges with two inlays on each one with a pair of black (Ebony) and one with a pair of white (in my case Ivory veneers from a piano), as luck would have it I couldn't find them so I used a pair of 12" rules one balanced at either end from which you can sight down to see any twist (wind) exaggerated by the length of the winding sticks. Handy thing to know


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Hey Christine

Awesome job! They look great. If it ain't broke, don't fix it - I love the angle grinder thang.

As a side note, I use a grinder to shape all my basses - to the horror of many on this forum, but we use the Galahad tungsten carbide one as below. Possibly a little less aggressive and forgiving than the one you use - but hey - they both get the job done just fine:

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Although I must say, I am hearing great things about the Galahad "see-through" ones they call "Holey Galahad". You don't have to lift the grinder to see where you are. They are getting killer reviews:

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Can't wait to see what is next!
 
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#104
BassHappy said:
Hey Christine

Awesome job! They look great. If it ain't broke, don't fix it - I love the angle grinder thang.

As a side note, I use a grinder to shape all my basses - to the horror of many on this forum, but we use the Galahad tungsten carbide one as below. Possibly a little less aggressive and forgiving than the one you use - but hey - they both get the job done just fine:

View attachment 3040030




Although I must say, I am hearing great things about the Galahad "see-through" ones they call "Holey Galahad". You don't have to lift the grinder to see where you are. They are getting killer reviews:

View attachment 3040032

Can't wait to see what is next!
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Thanks, they look pretty good, a lot more forgiving than the thing I've been using which is more of a rotary gouge that can put a, inch deep gouge into the work in the blink of an eye. I'm going to try something like those, the see through ones look just brilliant for the rough work, still nothing like hand tools for finishing off but for waste removal, anything goes!
 
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#105
Christine said:
Thanks, they look pretty good, a lot more forgiving than the thing I've been using which is more of a rotary gouge that can put a, inch deep gouge into the work in the blink of an eye. I'm going to try something like those, the see through ones look just brilliant for the rough work, still nothing like hand tools for finishing off but for waste removal, anything goes!
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Yes, your result is definitely a testament to the skills you have acquired using that grinder. Just looking at it makes me nervous! Grinding and shaping the body is one of the most fun and rewarding aspects of building a bass methinks.
 
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#109
Yesterday I just finished the shaping of the second body and called it a day, hardly worth an update.

Today I played around with the neck joint, I made a quick MDF jig to cut the tenon on the router table and screwed it to the top of the neck along the centreline where the truss rod will be set in next week. I roughed out the tenon on the bandsaw and routed the neck. They turned out just a tad tight so a couple of wipes with a file saw them a perfect fit. Then I semi scribed them into the body but left the tenons needing to move forward by about 1mm when the neck has had some shape cut into it so by scribing the neck join this will pull in nicely. I did the rough scribing with a dovetail saw and then pared off anything that looked to be sticking out. The tops of the necks are still about 3mm proud of the surface of the body, I'll sort that out next week after thinning just to make 100% sure everything stays straight and flat

So for now we have two massive blanks for the necks waiting to be thinned and the scarf joints cut for the angled headstock will probably do that on Sunday, I have other things to do until then unfortunately

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And for those who have been wanting to see what I keep in my drawers

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#117
Christine said:
Yes, both 34" I did toy with using the 34 1/2" Gibson used but decided against it
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Hey Christine

I am exclusively a medium scaler, but Gibson never made a medium scale bass, other than a couple dozen Flying V basses in the mid-eighties. That is why I wanted to make my own medium rare Les Paul. I was always fascinated by the fact that Fender rarely used mahogany necks - maybe because they were bolt on, I really don't know. But you rarely see a bolt on mahogany neck. But if you want the big difference between Fender and Gibson - besides the pickups - that is probably it right there. On my next round of prototypes i am going to do some mahogany set necks for sure. Might do all set necks, I have to see.
 
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