The Les Paul Twins

[Christine]

Had a difficult day today, will explain in a bit. Started off where I left off yesterday and finished routing the pickup pockets. Then I moved on to making a jig to rout the bridge pieces which is where I had bother, no idea why but could I get the shape of the tailpiece right?? Three goes it took me before I got there, after that it was just a simple rout and that was done. I drilled through from the bridge, bridge pickup and tail piece for wiring; the neck pickup I got very lucky in that the front of the rout (which was angled remember) just nicked the rout underneath for the switch wiring so I can feed the pickup wire straight through there. I'd had a belly full after all that so I went and sat in the garden and had a nice cup of tea



Some shiny bits just for fun

[Granny Gremlin]

With the thickness of those bodies I thought you were going to do a arched/carved top, but now that you've routed it doesn't look that way anymore.  Serious basses.

[Christine]

With the thickness of those bodies I thought you were going to do a arched/carved top, but now that you've routed it doesn't look that way anymore.  Serious basses.

Give me a break I've only got one pair of hands and a ton of housework to do too!! 

Below

[Christine]

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

[Basvarken]

Wow! That's impressive!
Thank you for sharing this build step by step. I love seeing all the different stages.
Very inspiring.

And welcome to The Outpost.

[Christine]

Wow! That's impressive!
Thank you for sharing this build step by step. I love seeing all the different stages.
Very inspiring.

And welcome to The Outpost.

Thank you

You have a small part to play in this strangely, if it hadn't been for your book I would probably be sat relaxing in the sun instead of feeling the need to build basses again. I've never built a Les Paul type bass before so I'm making this up as I go, if nothing else it shows why a Les Paul costs more than a lot of basses/guitars out there. Most of the basses I've built have been Fenderesque things, just so simple to build  in comparison

I also enjoyed the photographs from TBird1958's visit to you very much, you have some wonderful basses stacked up there, a museum in itself

[Basvarken]

Thank you

You have a small part to play in this strangely, if it hadn't been for your book I would probably be sat relaxing in the sun instead of feeling the need to build basses again. I've never built a Les Paul type bass before so I'm making this up as I go, if nothing else it shows why a Les Paul costs more than a lot of basses/guitars out there. Most of the basses I've built have been Fenderesque things, just so simple to build  in comparison

I also enjoyed the photographs from TBird1958's visit to you very much, you have some wonderful basses stacked up there, a museum in itself

Haha, that's a nice side effect of the book!

But I am not Uwe! I am Rob.
Uwe Hornung is the one with the impressive collection.
I am the guy who made the book.

[Christine]

Haha, that's a nice side effect of the book!

But I am not Uwe! I am Rob.
Uwe Hornung is the one with the impressive collection.
I am the guy who made the book.

Whoops sorry, I thought you were one in the same. Well The book I own, the collection is something I never will so assembling to book was a better deal for me and I get to take you to bed at night too LOL

[Basvarken]

Uwe is the one with the red clown bass. I'm the one with the purple clown bass.



You see, we're identical twins. So your mistake is forgiven. 

[Grog]

Wow! That's impressive!
Thank you for sharing this build step by step. I love seeing all the different stages.
Very inspiring.

And welcome to The Outpost.

+1 

It's nice to see someone building a beast such as these using skill verses Cad Cam machinery! Great job & welcome to the LBO!

[Christine]

+1 

It's nice to see someone building a beast such as these using skill verses Cad Cam machinery! Great job & welcome to the LBO!

Thank you   If I had a CNC I'd be using it but this is much more fun

[Christine]

Uwe is the one with the red clown bass. I'm the one with the purple clown bass.



You see, we're identical twins. So your mistake is forgiven. 

You're a lot younger than I imagined, I thought you would be around my age, 21 LOL

[Basvarken]

This pic was taken 7 years ago.
I'm actually joining the old fart club shortly, as I'm turning 50 in july... 

[Dave W]

This pic was taken 7 years ago.
I'm actually joining the old fart club shortly, as I'm turning 50 in july... 

You're still a young whippersnapper. 

[Christine]

This pic was taken 7 years ago.
I'm actually joining the old fart club shortly, as I'm turning 50 in july... 

Not far behind me then