The Les Paul Twins

[Basvarken]

Very nice Christine.
Love these posts with your impressive work, cool tools and videos. Keep 'em coming!

[Christine]

Today I screwed up again, nothing major but a silly mistake, I forgot to rout the neck binding rebate before radiusing ah well have to do it another way tomorrow, still not the end of the world just a waste of time

So as you may have guessed I radiused the Ebano fretboard, first though I shaped the neck using a jig that fits into the truss rod slot, then in my hurry to radius the fretboard I did that and then shaped it instead of shaping, routing then radiusing. After all that i glued in the Mother of Pearl and sanded them down to 320 grit for now until I fir the binding and clean it up then I can sand down to 3000 grit and see how we look after that; any finer and I'm off shopping again! The inlays were a good fit, I needed to press them in using a vice (linoleum jaw linings) but the fit was good, just that tiny nick to fill, I'm very pleased with that job, lets see how I get on with the headstock inlays hopefully next week.

The inlays for the other neck arrived today, so I will get them sorted tomorrow with luck.

[Rob]

This is a great thread!

[Christine]

This is a great thread!

Thanks Rob It's been a long time since I made a bass on this scale, lots to learn again. I'm at the stage now where I'm really looking forward to getting it painted and starting another LOL

[Christine]

Yesterday I worked on the Rosewood fretboard, got it inlaid. Turned out that the new binding cutter I bought wouldn't do the fretboard because the bearing was too far down from the cutters so today I just cut both on the router table and stuck the bindings on with CA. I started with a thick gel type with a slow setting time so I could get the inner edge of the mitre exactly in the right place then used a thin CA to do the rest, horrible stuff, gets everywhere, made a right mess of my finger nails After that I scraped the bindings flush and sanded the faces through to 3000 grit which looks very good. The Mother of Pearl is stunning and no filler used at all, feeling a little smug about that LOL I finished off the day by putting a thin coat of Lemon oil on the faces, will give a couple more before fretting them

[amptech]

Wow, those fingerboards turns out great!

[Christine]

Wow, those fingerboards turns out great!

Thank you, I can't tell you how pleased I am with them. I'm 100% sold on Rocklite after using it, I honestly had to remind myself all the time while working on it that it wasn't the real thing; I can't recommend the stuff enough in these times where environmental impact is of such important in our everyday lives and CITES is having such an affect on the movement of musical instruments/timbers across international borders. Even without that I would still recommend it, it is lovely stuff to work with and to look at/touch

[Christine]

So today's thrilling update, I know you're not sleeping nights wondering what will happen next :roflmao:

First job this morning was to drill the switch and control pot holes, I did this perpendicular to the surface rather than to the back so the knobs don't look cock eyed. I looked at some Les Paul guitars in PMT Cardiff last weekend to see how they were drilled, strangely some were vertical and some where in line with the contours, it was the ones high on the wall that were angled so in hindsight they would have been customs as they cost an arm and a leg..

Next was to sand the body contours and make them look less like I attacked them with an axe, after that I did the sides and the back but only to 80 grit until the binding is in and all other work done then I'll take it down to 240 or 320 grit depending on how it looks. No need to go further than that on wood, the marks will never show even at 240 with clear lacquer, the problem with going finer is that the grits start removing soft wood rather than the harder and ripples start to appear, it's quite hard to stop that and to be honest there isn't any real advantage to do so on your average timber like Oak, Mahogany, Ash etc.

The last job of the day was to check the necks for flat and yes they were, excellent news so a couple of wipes with the plane and then I sanded the headstock and glued the headstock veneers on, after an hour in clamps I trimmed the veneer flush and being the daft bat I am I stuck the bits together to have a first look at what they were going to look like. I won't comment on that, make your own mind up. The top of the neck body isn't flush thith the top of the body yet, I need to trim the bottom of the tenon but I'm leaving that until shaping time

[Christine]

Well for north Wales the weather has been hot these last few weeks but the last two have been baking, I had the day off yesterday but decided to try working outside today and enjoy the sun. It started out lovely but eventually it got too hot and I ended up with a towel draped over my head trying to keep the sun off, I had a magnifying visor on so I couldn't wear a hat. I got some done and now I'm inside cooling off.

I set up a makeshift bench outside, literally a saw horse and a metalworking vice clamped to it to hold my saw table. then I took my designs for the headstock inlays and, well confession first, I nearly flamingo'd up with the name as my written Welsh isn't that good but basically "the dragon" is "Y Ddraig" and plain "Dragon" is "Draig" so disaster averted. So I took my design and with a sharp scalpel cut out some of the sections and glued them with Titebond to a Mother of Pearl blank then cut them out, each time I cut a piece I turned it upside down and glued it to a mirror image of the design so it can then be transferred to the headstock. I'm sure you all get the drift and after 4 hours sawing and filing I ended up with one dragon ready for inlaying into a headstock.

Not sure if I want to do the other tomorrow or do one of the Draig inlays for which I have some lovely dark green Abalone

[clankenstein]

Cool inlays.

[Christine]

Another hot morning in the sun cutting Abalone today, I cut a couple of the Draig inlays. After I drilled the headstocks for the tuners and marked and routed the holes for the inlays and stuck them in, not quite as easy as the square fretboard inlays and yes a little black epoxy was needed.

Just rough sanded and wetted to give an idea

[Highlander]

Gorgeous work...

[clankenstein]

Looking good!

[Pilgrim]

Lovely work! 

[wellREDman]

I'm in awe of your work