Thread: A couple of new builds...

Hey Lenny nice looking builds there.

Your carve style on the black LP looks really good. It tucks in real nice at the tummy.

The flipped LP twin cutaway looks quite cool to. The bling is not too carried away (lets just say i've seen blingier!) Only thing i can see with it is weather it balances well? does it dip to the headstock?

them little flying V's look pretty groovy too. Bit of a retro danelectro or italia styling there.

Nice work Lenny

Cheers Keegs.


Edit. I like your headstock design to. is that your shape? nice and neat.

Nice work there Lenny....I like the double cutaway.

Very nice builds Lenny ! Thanks for posting them.

I'm working my way up to a Les Paul build, I'm interested to see the chambers you routed in the bodies if you have any photos ?

Cheers

Dave

tbkmagic - The 'tuck' is largely due to the size of the sander (150mm), and the tightest round I could get with the french curve scraper. Its certainly not the way Gibson do it. And the bling guitar is nicely balanced, I moved the back strap lock around toward the jack and this seems to work. The headstock was in reaction to disliking my first effort at an Epiphone like headstock, and afterwards discovered its almost the same as Melvyn Hiscocks, so maybe there was some sub conscious thing going on there - it was supposed to have been influenced by the Ibanez reverse flare design.
And yes the flying vs are deliberately retro, everything old becomes new again some time. The kids think they are cool, but the pale blue will probably become a darker royal blue in the fullness of time...

Kiwigeo - Im starting to like it more too, must admit I thought Id gone too far when it was first finished.
I guess we must be from the same side of the Tasman, judging from your forum name. Have you built any guitars with NZ timber?.

Those are nice looking axes Lenny, you have done well! I have a V build to do for my 11yo, any tips?

one can never get too carried away with 'bling' imo

lovely guitars all round

I got the scale length by measuring my daughter holding a normal guitar comfortably, and that worked out at 560mm. If you go a lot shorter than this you might have string tension problems. The pickguards are made from acrylic sheeting that I got as off cuts from a sign making company. I made the mistake of routing the bevel on edges over the entire depth of the pickguard - after cutting just about every finger on it, I would not recommend doing this, I would leave 1/2 mm or so unbevelled.
Get some decent PUs because the guitar will be worth it - I used EMG selects, which arent the worst, but will upgrade both to something better in the near future.
Get rid of as much wood from the body as is practicable.
Blend pots are a great selector switch, but the extra resistance will impact the sound.
The mini Gotoh tuners I used are no longer available from Stewmacs, but minis are better for the size of the guitar.
You will need to use a traditional truss rod (ie one that can be cut to any size) due to the scale length.
I would guess there was about 8 hours labour all up doing the 2 of them - bolt on necks with scarfed headstocks are much easier to build. Finishing wasnt too long either. But if you stuff up the wiring you have about 20 minutes just to get the things apart... I know this.

Cheers
Lenny