Neck Through Hollow Body Les Paul

J_48_Johnson · Little Guppy Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Posts: 30

This is the first time I've ever posted here, and the reason I came here in the first place is that the Fender-Talk.com site was down a while ago, and I looked around and found this site.

Any of the people from Fender-Talk that are here will recognize me and this build, so if you're seeing this for a second time, sorry.

This is my third build, the first of which I made the neck. Making a neck seemed to be a daunting task, so there was no way I was going to make a neck on my first build. The second build was a "different" design to say the least, and I thought I had enough on my plate w/o making the neck for it. This being the third build, I grew a set big enough to try to build a neck. I figured that I may as well go for a neck through since I was making a neck anyway, I may as well go ahead and try to make it the best guitar I could.

Here are the first two that I built:

Flamecaster

Beatnick Mojocaster

As you can see, I like to get a little creative once in a while. The Flamecaster is a cross between a Fender Stratocaster and an Ibanez S470. I like some things from each guitar, and dislike some things from each. I married what I liked from both and made my first guitar. On the Mojocaster, well, that's all my design. Love it or hate it, she's different but a joy to play.

Enough about the first two and onto the third build...

Being true to my inner self, I couldn't make a normal Les Paul; set neck, mahogany solidbody. I am making a solid maple neck through hollowbody with an ebony fretboard.

I started out with maple boards, a box full of "stuff", and rattlecans for the finish. The boards I bought were flamed maple as was the chunk of wood for the neck.

The chunk is the far left piece and the far right one didn't go into the build. The yardstick is there to give you an idea on how big the boards were.

From there, I cut the chunk in half to have my neck blank. You can see the other half there in the background.

Got out the blueprint from Stewart MacDonald, and off we went making a neck.

J_48_Johnson · Little Guppy Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Posts: 30

I read a lot on how to go about making a neck. It didn't seem to be that hard to do, but still very daunting because everything had to be right on. With a body, as long as you get the bridge lined up with the neck, and it's at the correct distance from the 12th. fret, everything else can be moved around or changed. Not with a neck.

This build has a lot of firsts for me;

First neck build...
First neck through build...
First fretboard work of any kind...
First fret work...
First inlay work...
First ebony work...
First time using a spokeshave...

There's a LOT of things in that list that can go wrong.... and I figured would go wrong, hence the second piece of wood for the neck. Laughing

If I mucked it up bad enough, I had it sitting in the shadows ready to be used. I'm happy to report, it didn't happen.

I cut out the neck blank to be larger than needed so I would have some wood to work with the headstock. I didn't want to do a scarf joint, so it's one piece. I cut the blank to get the 10 degree angle for the headstock. Once the front of it was cut, I cut the back which was a lot harder to do than the front. On the front, you just lay it down on the tablesaw at the angle you want and give it a go. For the back of the headstock, you need to stand the wood up while you cut it or you'll just cut the headstock off of the neck. Standing a neckthrough blank up on a tablesaw while maintaining the correct angle of cut, keeping everything tight, and maintaining your fingers is no small feat!

Once it was done, I sanded it down, cut the headstock shape out, and marked the tuner hole locations. After finding the centerline, I cut the trussrod groove and installed a Stewart MacDonald Hot-Rod dual truss rod. After that, I glued the fretboard on, cut the neck to the width I needed, did the work on the fretslots, radiused the board to 12" and then worked on the fretwire. I also did a little open book design to the end of the fretboard because I've always like the look of something different at that end of the fretboard, rather than having it come down and just be squared off.

I saw on another website, a guy made a tool to bend the fretwire before installing it. Stew Mac sells one, but it's 40 or 50 bucks. I made one for about 8 dollars and it worked like a champ. I radiused the wire more than the board so the ends and the ends only touched. Once I had them all cut and the inlays were done, I pressed them in, and superglued them down.

For all of this work I forgot my camera. #Mad

I remembered it after getting all of this done, and started to work on it some more. Once the front of the fretboard was to a point I could move on, I trimmed the fretwire and put a 35 degree bevel on them with a handy dandy little tool I made to do the job. There again, you can buy this tool from Stew Mac, but it's cheaper to make one.

I drilled the holes for the abalone side dots, and for the special treatment the 12th. fret was going to get.

I wanted it to be different than the twin dots, so I bought a womans ring that had a single garnet, (no signifigance to the garnet, but I like the color of the stone), I took it to a jewler that I know and had him cut the band off of it, and smooth down and polish up the gold trim left around the setting. When I get done with the guitar, I'll paint the ebony that's under the stone white, and then set it in with clear epoxy.

After I had the holes drilled, I set the sidemarkers the same way as I did the markers on the front of the neck using black epoxy. I also used the black epoxy to fill in the tiny gap under the tang of the fretwire on the side of the neck.

From there, I started with the spokeshave and rasps to get the radius I wanted on the back of the neck. I've never used a spokeshave, but I have to say it's on of the best tools I've ever used. You can make quick work of the wood if you have it set up right and sharp. I learned a lot while working with it, and soon found out, (trial and error), how it should be set up. I was pulling ribbons off of the blank in no time flat! I used the rasps to make a beginning and end of the radius for the neck. A little sanding and it was all good! Word of advise: buy & use a spokeshave!!!

Here's what I just said in picture form...

herb · Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:24 am Post subject:

Don't apologize for the "repeat"; it's a treat to see the pictures again! You must have the patience of Job; I don't think I could possibly go through all the work you have done. And if I did, it wouldn't turn out nearly as well! Wink

Great work! Cool

J_48_Johnson · Little Guppy Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Posts: 30

After I had the neck far enough along, I started the body wings. I cut the boards in half, drew the outline of the body onto them and started cutting them out to a very rough shape of an LP.

Once I had them cut using my bandsaw, I hollowed them out using a 1 1/8" forstner bit.

Once everything was hogged out, I cleaned it up with a router.

You can see from the next picture how much wood I had in the neck to cut away for the neck to body angle I needed for the bridge. It took me forever to get my head around cutting the neck blank three different angles and how to do it. One for the headstock, one for the fretboard, and one in the body.

Hey! It looks like a guitar!!!

J_48_Johnson · Little Guppy Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Posts: 30

J_48_Johnson · Little Guppy Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Posts: 30

From there it's on to drilling holes, rounding off the corners of the face, and working on the heel area. I cut it away so the body above and below just blend together. I couldn't do a double cutaway because I didn't leave enough thickness for it when I made it hollow. I just rounded it down, so I'll have to live with that, (lesson learned).

J_48_Johnson · Little Guppy Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Posts: 30

I bought cream trim to put on it, but I've always liked the look of wood pick up rings. I tried to make one, and layed it on the guitar next to the one I bought.

I had wood from the neck that was scrap to make them from so I thought I'd give it a shot. You can see that it looks okay, but the idea was doable. I made templates and made a couple that were good enough to use on the guitar. You can also see that I have one bridge post insert already pressed in just passed flush. The other was done after I got the internal passage drilled for the bridge ground.

J_48_Johnson · Little Guppy Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Posts: 30

Everything was sanded for the last time and I shot primer on it, sanded back, shot again, and sanded back my mistakes.

J_48_Johnson · Little Guppy Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Posts: 30

I started shooting the color and had Tru-oil on the back before I shot primer the front.

These are the last pictures I've taken since shooting lacquer doesn't really show up in pictures. Once I have enough on it, I do the normal process of waiting a month, sand, wet sand, and polish. Then installation of everything else, wire it up, set up and play!

herb · Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:37 am Post subject:

Gorgeous! Perhaps you shouldn't have painted it a color and left it natural or just stained! Wink

But it's still gorgeous! Cool

J_48_Johnson · Little Guppy Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Posts: 30

I've always liked the idea of a neck through, but I never cared for the front of one showing the neck wood all the way through. It always seemed to me that they were trying to hard to show that it was a neck through. The only one I have ever seen that I liked was a Schecter C-1, or was that a C-1 Hellraiser? Anyway, you had to look through the red stain to see that is was in fact a neck through.

Most of them are a laminate neck of very contrasting woods. For some reason to me that looks like a cutting board or a butcher block. I think higher than that of my guitars, and would never take a cleaver to one, so I wanted to hide that it was a neck through, until you turn her over and look at the back. Since the neck is only one piece, it isn't too bad even though the grain gives it away and she's still a dead ringer for a neck through from the back, I bought the wood for its beauty, I just couldn't, (nor did I plan), to cover the back.

SAguitar · Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 5:33 am Post subject:

Wow-wow-wow! That is just drop dead gorgeous, bud! Way to go! Cool

herb · Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 2:46 pm Post subject:

My koa Carvin is a neck through, but you can't tell it. Perhaps the koa mahogany is easier to match than flamed maple! Wink

Yeah, I wouldn't even want to try to match up pieces of flamed maple from different boards, that would be an exercise in futility....... Confused

tw001_tw · Tadpole Joined: 29 Apr 2008 Posts: 26 Location: St. Louis

J_48_Johnson, I want you to know, I have browsed this thread and the one
at FT a few times - each. You do great work.
Do you happen to have pictures of the truss rod groove or the truss rod
installed before the fret board was on? I'm only asking out of curiosity.

keep up the good work.
-tw

J_48_Johnson · Little Guppy Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Posts: 30