Coming Soon - Les Paul Custom

This is where the build begins - a Les Paul Custom. Here's a few pictures of the raw wood.
Three pieces of Mahogany, with Maple veneer glued to the edges.

I glued a three pieces of veneer, Maple/Mahogany/Maple, for a triple pinstripe.

I am using a 16mm thick piece of Curly Maple for the Top.

The neck will be a three piece Mahogany and Maple combination and the fretboard will be rosewood.

This is going to be a fun and complex build.

More Neck work, both good and bad

First the good. Today I did some more work on neck blanks. Above is a neck blank for a headless guitar that I have had on sitting on the shelf for the last few months. The body will be a copy of the Steinberger P series guitar at the top of the frame. I picked up the body off of ebay early in 2011. The body that I am building is made from Ash with a Curly Maple top. I've already joined the two pieces of Ash. The hardware was purchased from JCustom, a South Korean company that specializes Steinberger-like parts. They sell through ebay, and deliver in about 1 week.

The headless neck is only slightly longer than truss rod. I routed the channel today and cut the sides straight.

The neck was constructed out of three strips of Curly Maple with two thin strips of Mahogany veneer. Above is a closeup of the heel of neck.

And now the bad. While shaping one of the Purple Heart necks, it splintered and chipped at the heel. While the Maple and the Bloodwood necks routed easily, the Purple Heart appears to be more brittle. This is the precise reason that I don't work on a single neck at one time. Mistakes will happen.

Not photographed today was the progress on the Bloodwood one-piece neck. I routed the front of the headstock where the truss rod adjustment will be accessed and cleaned up the sides.