Building a Les Paul DC need some ideas

[Luke Forbes]

I'm building my first guitar and I've decided to make a les Paul dc style solid body. I have a very nice book matched piece of quilted maple I'd like to use as the top. Unfortunately it's not quite wide enough. Any suggestions on how to add some width? I need to gain two inches. I thought about using an accent stripe down the center, or perhaps two thinner ones on the outside but I'm looking for something that will flow nice and doesn't look out of place.

[Mark Swanson]

I much prefer a stripe down the center as compared to two on the edges, but if you need two inches that makes a pretty wide center stripe. I suggest just finding a new top to begin with.

[Warren May]

I agree with Mark that you probably should look for another top for this build and keep the bookmatched maple for another build, especially if it's a really nice bookmatch. I think it would look odd to split the bookmatch on maple and may look like what it is, wood stretching.

If you do go ahead with it, you could get some ideas by searching the images on the web for "through neck" guitars. With a 2" wide strip, you could give that impression...or you could actually do a neck through which might look pretty cool.

Carl Thompson basses are a good place to look at designs for multi-piece bodies and necks. He does a sort of "faux" neck through look that a lot of people comment on. He keeps things relatively simple but does some awesome choices of contrasting woods.

[Luke Forbes]

My other thought was to use two 1" strips on the outside and cover them up with an opaque burst into the translucent center. Does that seem plausible? I've never sprayed something like that but I have plenty of scrap to practice on.

[Eric Baack]

Yeah, If you have to use that piece, I'd do a neck through body and that will give you plenty of width.

You could possibly laminate 3 pieces of 4/4 lumber for the neck as well to give an extra stripe down the center.

[Warren May]

Could you post a picture of the maple pieces to get a better idea of what you are working with? How wide are these pieces and are they already jointed so you won't lose any more in the glue up? You need about 13" or so for an LP so these must be 11"-12" when joined, correct?

You can cheat down a little on the lower bout width and use a wide binding. It won't be exactly an LP but I've made 12" tops work and they look pretty good. Again, not historic copies but most won't feel a huge difference between 12" and 13".

The 1" on each side you would need will be in the lower bout area for an LP. You will have cutoff pieces from the waist and upper bout areas that you could use to make a 4 piece top. Gibson did use 3 piece tops of unfigured maple on Les Pauls but I don't know about the value of a 4 piece top. I suppose you could hide it. It's your project, so go for it if you feel it will work for you.

[Rodger Knox]

The 1" on each side you would need will be in the lower bout area for an LP. You will have cutoff pieces from the waist and upper bout areas that you could use to make a 4 piece top. Gibson did use 3 piece tops of unfigured maple on Les Pauls but I don't know about the value of a 4 piece top. I suppose you could hide it. It's your project, so go for it if you feel it will work for you.

If you take the waist offcuts, swap sides, and flip them over, you'll usually get a decent grain match.

[John Catto]

I've done it with the insert in the middle and seen other people do the extra bits on the sides. In my opinion if done cleanly the section down the middle is both considerably better looking and a nice effect

[Mark Swanson]

I can't even find the seams if that one has a center section! Wow!

[Luke Forbes]

This is what I'm working with glued together it will measure out to 11-1/4" wide. I think 2" might be a bit to much to cheat the shape. At the same time this build is going to be far away from Gibson specs so I'm not worried about that. I like the idea of taking the cut outs and using that for my extra strips and if I can make seams 1/2 has clean as John's there I wouldn't be scared to dye over it.

[Eric Baack]

Could hide the edge with a more opaque burst possibly

[John Sonksen]

This is what I'm working with glued together it will measure out to 11-1/4" wide. I think 2" might be a bit to much to cheat the shape. At the same time this build is going to be far away from Gibson specs so I'm not worried about that. I like the idea of taking the cut outs and using that for my extra strips and if I can make seams 1/2 has clean as John's there I wouldn't be scared to dye over it.

Just checked mine and it's 13" on the nose at the lower bouts, I like Rodger's idea about taking some wood out from cutting the upper contour and gluing that onto the lower section to get the needed width. You're likely going to lose a little in the middle when you clean up that joint but if you're really careful it will be minimal.

John that top looks incredible! I found the section but it's not obvious and it doesn't detract at all. The finish on that thing looks great too!

[Warren May]

Great looking guitar! That's a good looking piece of quilt maple, too. If you want to commit to trying it, you could join the bookmatched top and roughly cut out the LP outline. That would give you two pieces to play around with from the upper bout area. Sometimes, if you flip over on the back side, the grain won't go all the way through but this one looks really heavily quilted so it might. But it looks from here like you could get a close enough match on the outer edge without flipping and as you've suggested an opaque finish would hide the rest.

Go for it. If it doesn't look as good as you would like, you can always use the pieces for other projects. I would glue it up, though, before cutting or cut 1 1/4" pieces from the upper bout/waist area but leave the lower bout alone so you have something square to clamp to.

[Luke Forbes]

I think that's what I'm going to do. If it doesn't match up well ill burst over it.

[Luke Forbes]

[/hide]Do you guys prefer a certain brand or type of wood dye for figured tops? I'm thinking I would like a color scheme similar to this one. I've done a good bit of research over the past few months and it seems like trans tint is the popular brand.

[Eric Baack]

I've had good luck with transtint

I'm trying the LMII aniline dye on my current build.

[Art Davila]

I have tried trans tint on 3 practice bodies "cheap guitar that i bought just to practice on finishing" so I didn't care if I messed them up.
All 3 turned out nice. not perfect mind you but better than I thought for my first attempts.
Finishing has alway been my biggest fear of buying high priced wood to build with.

[Greg Robinson]

Hi Luke,
Did you take that photo yourself? We ask that you only post images you made yourself due to copyright concerns.
Thanks.

[Luke Forbes]

I apologize Greg I did not

[Luke Forbes]

Have you ever used mixol tints for opaque colors?