I've always admired the Les Paul Standard, but it is way too heavy and has three strings too many. I was wandering around the shop and found a nice piece of 1 x 4 pine with only a few knots and wondered how hard it would be to carve that beautifully curved Les Paul top. So, what the heck. Some glue up, some isoline guides and I'm off and running.
I went with a body that is 67% of the full sized LP body. That seemed like a good proportion for a 3-string neck.
Some routing of the basic shape then a lot of work with a 5" disk sander with an 80 grit pad and I had a top.
Several days later and a good bit of sweat, I had a new guitar.
Some work with a cheap air brush and some different stains helped to transform pine from Home Depot into some "Tiger Maple-ish" finish.
The individual bridge pieces are from Gitty as are the pots for the tone and volume controls. It is a good player with a tone of sustain.
Surprising what you can do with basic scraps of wood.
Replies
Nicely done. A fun build. I've always been a big fan of Les Pauls, so this makes me happy.
Hi, yep that's a real good bit of work there, worth the effort.
Taff
Hi Taffy.
It is quickly becoming my daily player. The strings are fairly low tension so it does blues very well.
Looks sweet. I like the individual saddles. Love the carved top.
I was very interested in how hard carving a top would be. In the end, it was not as hard as I thought. Glad I did it.
Holy smoke! That is one hell of a job! The "only" thing I can do with a piece of wood is cut it too short and drill the holes in the wrong place!!
Hey, cutting things too short is how I get the scraps to build things like this. And boy do I have plenty of scraps to work with.
Thanks
LOL I do too! Its called firewood!
that's cool nice work
good job. looking good.
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