Newbie with a few questions

[Rob Ficalora]

Ok, I'm new here, so maybe a little introduction is in order first. I'm knocking on 50 & have been woodworking for a good part of that time. I started in a Jr. High shop class (still remember the teacher - a guy named Mr. Odom -- he was one of those teachers who inspired us; not too many of them around any more, but I guess that's another thread of it's own) and have had access to a shop ever since. I now have a complete shop attached to my garage.

But, my woodworking to date has been custom furniture so I have a lot to learn about building instruments. I have two boys, one is 17 and plays Bass (along with Sax & keyboard); the other is 13 and plays electric guitar, trumpet, & learning drums. We've decided to build a custom bass & custom guitar for them -- starting with the electric guitar because my 17yr old hasn't yet decided what style of bass he wants to build.

The guitar will be a carved top Les Paul style but with a tremelo bridge (not sure if that's kosher but that's what he wants). The body is Mahogany and the top is flame maple. In the interest of time, the neck is was purchased from Warmoth but we'll be routing the headstock a little thinner & topping it with the same flame maple as the body. I also bought "plans" from Stewmack so I have full sized dimensioned drawings but they're not plans per se -- there's no instructions or sequence suggestions, so I have a few questions...

1. In terms of sequence, does this sequence make sense:
a) Route the pocket for the wires that runs from the treble switch diagonally across the pickups to the knobs, then
b) Glue the maple on, then
c) Route the pocket in the back for the knobs and the pockets in the front for the pickups, bridge, and neck then
d) carve the top
Or, is there a bettter sequence?

2. The neck we bought is a bolt in but I've read glue in is better for sound. Is there any reason we can't or shouldn't glue the neck in? And would doing so be of any advantage from a sound perspective given it's not as long as a typical glue in or neck through design?

3. Is there a preferred glue to use for the top (& neck if answer on #2 is go for it)? I have planty of wood glue & also have some PVA type (e.g., Gorilla glue).

A picture of our target is this...

[Copyrighted picture removed by staff]

Thanks in advance for any tips/advise,

Rob

[Jim McConkey]

Welcome to the Forum, Rob!

Sorry, but due to copyright laws, we do not permit anyone to to post any picture here that they did not take themselves, or have the photographer's explicit permission to post. You can still provide a link to a picture on its original web site, but please do not attach them to any messages. Thanks for your cooperation.

[Rob Ficalora]

Apologies! Definitely didn't intend to violate the rules with my very first post! Will be more careful going forward. I hope that won't shy folks away from chiming in on the sequence we should follow building the guitar.

[Warren May]

Welcome to our addiction, Rob. A couple of design choices you've made will require a little thinking and planning to make sure it all comes together. PRS and others use a Strat style tremolo so nothing wrong with doing that. First, the LP has a neck angle and the typical T.O.M. bridge and tailpiece sits higher than the Strat style tremolo so your StewMac plans will need a little alteration. I don't have those plans but usually the LP has a flat plane from the bridge to the neck of about 1 1/2 degrees or so and then the neck pocket is, say, 4 1/2 degrees or so. You would carve the same as an LP but your neck angle should be on the same plane as the 1 1/2 degree string plane, I think. I would leave it as a bolt on but you could glue it also. You are right that usually the glue in neck has a longer tenon that goes into the neck pickup cavity. The bolt on won't have that. Also, the bolt on usually won't be "square" at the ends but has a radius. That may need to be addressed...you could cut it square or leave it round. Personally, I might like it square so it butts up against the neck pickup ring but its just a design choice.

There are lots of ways to do the sequence and yours seems okay. I would probably do a little differently...
1) Make sure the mahogany blank's front and back are parallel by running it through my surface planer and getting it to 1 1/2 inches or whatever your plan calls for.
2) Leave the mahogany blank full size for now. Others might cut body shape now but I like to leave it full size to have a good surface for the router to rest on.
3) Locate the center line and use a template to mark and drill through the mahogany blank for the toggle switch hole and the electronics cavity. Route the wiring channel to connect these two. Recess the cover plates for these cavities on the body back.
4) Glue on the maple cap making sure to get the center line where it needs to be by using some locating pins so it doesn't shift. Titebond works here but can creep a little so the pins keep the center lline in place.
5) Route the tremolo cavities front and back
6) Get the playing field (1 1/2 degree angle) planed down on the maple cap if you are going for one.
7) Route the neck pocket while I still had lots of surface for the template to rest on. If the neck is 1", say, at the heel, route the neck pocket 5/8". Too deep and you won't have enough adjustment in the tremolo to get the action set properly.
8) Drill holes for the toggle switch and pots and finish routing the electronics cavities down to size.
9) Cut the body to shape, sand the guitar sides and round over the rear mahogany using a roundover bit. Doing it this way lets you adjust if anything slipped out of place a little but during the process. You want to be very careful around the neck pocket. The LP glue in or set neck doesn't show the neck joint but the Strat style does and you want to make sure things line up properly in that area. I usually leave the body a little oversize and use my oscillating spindle sander to bring it back down after bolting in the neck. Have to be careful or your hands will feel slight protrusions there. Not a problem but is a quality thing.
10) Carve the top and sand
11) Bind the top.
12) Ready for finishing

[Rob Ficalora]

Warren, great info. I didn't even know to worry about the neck angle. If I'm following, the goal is for the tremolo bridge to be higher than the nut such that the strings will have a 1.5° angle which may mean the neck pocket will need to be more shallow than the plans call for. Is that right?

[Warren May]

Not exactly, Rob. Go on Google Images and you can find a cutaway look at an LP that will help you see what I'm talking about (type in Les Paul pickup plane). The 1 1/2 degrees I'm referring to is the plane angle from the bridge to the end of the neck on the LP body. The neck pocket of the LP has an angle, too, and the TOM bridge compensates for that. A Strat body, on the other hand, does not have any angle and is simply a flat slab. The neck usually sits up above the body about 3/8" at the heel end, about 1/4" for the fretboard and about 1/8" extra which is partly covered by the pickguard on the Strat.

If you don't angle back a little bit, the binding on the LP body gets a little awkwardly large around the neck pocket, especially in the cutaway. But you can do a simple slab like the Strat and get away with it. I've done it both ways, with and without the body plane angle from bridge to heel of the neck. I haven't tried an LP without a neck angle, though.

Because you are mixing apples and oranges by using the tremolo but using an LP plan, you need to do a careful side view drawing. StewMac has some nice details of their tremolo bridges so you will know how high the saddles sit at the body end. Then, you can figure out how deep to make your neck pocket. Again, I would bolt it in for this one so you can adjust the neck pocket if you need to.

[Art Davila]

I would make a simple mock up out of mdf, or other cheap material, to show the arched top of the les paul body and then install the trem unit then you can make the neck pocket and using a straight edge check to see that the neck angle is correct. as you are making your own body, the neck angle will depend on how high the arch is.

[Rob Ficalora]

I pulled out the neck, the tremolo & the plans this afternoon and I think I'm making progress sorting this out. The tremolo appears to be able to be set at the same height as the regular bridge that 's on the Stewmac plans. It can then be adjusted about 1/4" lower or up to about 1/4 or 3/8" higher. Seems like that range should be sufficient to keep the neck angle the same as the plans call for. Do you agree?

Assuming so, then I think I just need to calculate the angle in the pic below, make a jig to hold the body at that angle, & then route the neck pocket.

I do like Art's suggestion of doing a mock up & probably will so my son can see if the strings are a good distance from the fret board.

[Art Davila]

I have to say that it looks correct in the photo but you wont know for sure until you have the trem unit mounted. Its always been my experience that you have the best trem set up when you dont have the saddles maxed out to set the string height. you should probably have some tinkering since your plans did not come speced out with a trm unit.

I got some plans from this web site.
http://guitarplansunlimited.com/images/ ... esPaul.jpg

the guy has this as a side business, but he has very nice plans which he can modify I quote:

"Any plan may be modified to suit your pickup or bridge preferences, just E-Mail me with your request and I'll quote a price. Most upgrades are free! Anything can be worked out, just send us an E-Mail."

At 15 dollars you can go wrong so give him an email and see if he can provide the design with the trm bridge and should help along.

[Rob Ficalora]

Awesome, thanks for the reference Art.

[Warren May]

Art's suggestions are right on target. The scale length will affect your design somewhat and needs careful planning. It might seem like you have a lot of adjustment in a Strat style bridge but you have to think about the break angle over the saddles being either too low or too high. I usually lay a nice long straightedge on the fretboard and measure the distance at the bridge location to get the right angle which means about 9/16" on the TOM bridge. I don't think the Strat set up needs to be that high or you will have a very sharp break angle over the saddles.

Try Art's mock up idea which is excellent. You can use a 2x4 scrap, even, to pencil in the side view profile from the LP neck and cut a slot to mount the tremolo and, then, whittle away at the neck pocket until you figure out the angle. It will save a lot of headaches down the road. Holding the neck up to a drawing won't give you the precision you need for this operation and it will be well worth the little effort to mock it up. The plans Art pointed to are a good idea, too, but you might still want the mock up to makes sure. Since PRS uses a trem, you might also see if you can find, say, a PRS singlecut plan. Really not a lot of difference in basic body shape from the LP but it might give you a little more to go on.

Edit: Notice you started on the body and template. Some of the African mahogany gets a little heavy and Gibson drills/routes out some of the body wood before gluing on the top plate to lighten it up a little bit. You can go either way. Since you aren't going for a historic LP build, I like tummy cuts in LP shaped guitars so that's another design chice

[Art Davila]

I was meaning to ask earlier but I forgot.
I see you bought the neck from warmoth, What Scale length did you buy?
you see warmoth has 25.5" scale as standard and 24 3/4" "pro Conversion" as an option.

You see many people ordering even a 3 x 3 head stock will opt for the 25.5 scale,
since most of the bodies out there are set up with the bridge set at that scale length.

So unless you specifically ordered the "pro conversion neck" which is 24 3/4" you most likely got the 25.5 scale.
Which means many of the reference for bridge placement state to measure from the 12 fret. so it matters greatly which neck scale length you have for that measurement.

Believe me when I say I have had this problem and could not figure out why the stupid thing would not intonate.
Turned out it wasn't the stupid guitar it was the stupid builder. Me.

Using the PRS is a great idea for helping since it an lp clone with a trem bridge, but I think PRS uses a 25" scale length

[Rob Ficalora]

The neck is 24 3/4 scale Art. We didn't special order it but my son picked it out from the ones they showed on their web site. I just called them too and they confirmed it is 24 3/4" scale. The guy I talked with there didn't mention the 12th fret info but did confirm the bridge saddles should be 24 3/4" from the nut so it sounds like I can verify it both ways.