Don't Lose Control

Next job is carving out the control cavity.  Whilst there is only going to be three controls - Volume, Tone and Selector Switch I've decided to allow space for a pre-amp and battery due to the pickups being relatively under wound and probably not very powerful.



First of all I drilled through where the controls are going.  This helps me to plan the cavity location on the back and will also allow me to see how close I am to the top when I'm carving out the back.



Again lots of holes drilled to remove lots of material prior to reaching for the drill.



Half way there, this meranti is a flip of a lot softer and easier going than the oak was!



Done, just needs a bit of smoothing out.



Sandpaper on a piece of dowel, perfect for getting those curves nice and smooth.  I then checked that the controls fitted okay.



Now for the cover rebate



Nearly there...



One rebate finished



Mounting holes drilled and counter sunk.



And fitted, quite nicely too!



I want the control knobs to be made out of the same rosewood as fingerboard and pickup surrounds.



First of all I cut out some rough shapes about the same size (there's three so I have a spare) and taped them together...



Then using sandpaper I started rounding them off...



...taking shape...



Roughly how they'll look in place.  At the minute I'm not too happy with how they're shaping so I've ordered some pre-made ones from Amazon to use for the mean time while I come up with a better method of hand making them without power tools.

Woody Decisions

I was originally planning on using some of the left over rosewood to make the headstock facia however the grain runs the wrong way so I thought about using a piece of black walnut instead.



I put this out to both my facebook friends and my friends at My Les Paul Luthiers Corner.  It was pretty damn unanimous for the walnut.



The walnut was far too thick so I grabbed my trusty saw and carved a 4 mm slice off...



...one slice of walnut - sounds as nice as it looks!



In order to remove the rough sawing lines and get it down to the 3mm I want it at I used a nifty trick I got from Crimson Guitars.  Using masking tape on both the work piece and surface and then supergluing them together you get a fantastic bond that is more than strong enough to hold the piece down but will simply and easily peel off without tearing splinters up the way double sided tape can.



One rough piece of walnut...



...and after 10 minutes with a plane and sanding block we have a lovely smooth piece.



Which is a nice uniform 3mm thick!



Perfect for the headstock facia...



...and control cavity cover.

P'up pockets

Next job was to carve out the pickup cavities.  This was done the same way as the neck socket where by I drilled lots of holes and then knocked the remaining bits out with a hammer and chisel.



Nearly done the first one which was made a lot easier by having it open to the neck socket.



That looks pretty good, now on to the bridge pickup...



Before that though I drilled the neck pickup wiring channel through to the bridge pickup.  Even though it was a brand new augur it still took ages to bore my way through that oak!



After another load of holes it's time to sharpen the chisel up again...



...half way there...



...and done!



Each step takes us closer and closer...

Getting on board with the neck

Now that the fingerboard is finished it can be glued on to the neck thus allowing me to finish shaping the neck taper.












I masked the truss rod so that the glue won't accidentally drip down and affect the truss rod operation, this will be pull up after the spreading the glue just before the board gets fitted.

I also tapped in some pins and super-glued some bits of veneer to the excess neck material in order to prevent the fingerboard from sliding out of place whilst being glued up.



Using an old bicycle tyre inner tube stretched tightly around the neck I "clamped" the board to the neck.  This is a great way to ensure even clamping pressure is exerted against the radiused board during gluing.



I used a plane to remove most of the excess material and then sanded the edge of the neck down to fingerboard












I think it's ready to fine tune the neck / body joint.



Slipping sand paper between the joint helps the two bit's to match up more closely



Not quite ready for gluing up but it wont be long!