Les paul mahogany kit build.

Gidday everyone this is my diary of the Les Paul build so far, here are some fotos of the neck join i fettled the wood to get the best tolerances i could between the body cavity and neck i wanted it streamlined and smooth with no gaps or noticeable protrusions in that area.
Here are some images if you dont mind.
So far so good hehe.
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I am going to spray it with nitro in a light blue colour with clear over the top lightly sanded between coats for a hi gloss finish, cant wait for the paint to come and the next kit i have ordered the tele also, they are great kits and with some care and thought and research you can build yourself a nice axe.
The neck needs some truss rod adjustment but i always forget which way is up or down lol righty-tighty-lefty-loosey il ask or googles it again before i adjust to get the neck dead flat before stringing it up and theres also the intontation has to be done proper good as well if you want it to ring properly.
I dont know if you guys post your music here but if you do i can post up some of my playing, but im new here so im just feeling things out,
thanks to Adam for sorting my Telecaster order this week, seems like a real gentleman and very pleasant & helpful to deal with, good on you for that sir.
Kind regards from dave b in melb vic.
I might buy a few more kits soon when im not so poor lol.

I've done a couple of guitars in nitro Daphne Blue.

The first was my 1995 Jap Strat.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/GeYbzB.jpg

The most recent was an ES1 I built for a friend, who saw my blue Strat and wanted the ES1 the same colour.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...923/6s0k4N.jpg

With mahogany, you are definitely going to have to grain fill the surface first as it does have a lot of pores that will take a lot of paint to fill if you don't grain fill it first, and nitro isn't cheap.

I'd also then apply a couple of coats of shellac as a sanding sealer before spraying nitro on the surface. I've used nitro sanding sealer/filler from Rothko and Frost/Dartfords in the past, but it is very soft and powdery, so best used as a coat to sand down almost back to the wood, and just use it to do a final grain fill IMO.

I personally wouldn't sand each coat of nitro unless there are big dust particles or insects that need removing. And then only very lightly. If you get a paint run, you can leave it until the final flat sand to remove if you want. Otherwise, wait at least two days before sanding a run, as it takes the centre of it quite some time to dry hard enough to sand. Sand too soon, and you'll create a pit where you've pulled away at the soft centre where the solvent has softened the layers underneath.

Are you painting the whole guitar blue, or just the top, and doing a standard stain and clear coat sides, back and neck?

Also, if you are planning to fit full-sized pots as replacement for the kit ones, check they will fit in the control cavity. On some kits, the cavities are quite tight even for the mini-pots, and you might have to work at enlarging the cavity around the pot positions. A drum sander attachment on a Dremel is useful for this if you don't want to use a router.

Heres the sanding fill done now, the nitros arrived, its coming along quite well so far, the kits from here, i was thinking of doing some inlay but decided on the next one. Hope the spraying goes well and thanks @ Simon Barden for the advice above it all helps, thank you sir.:cool: Il take your advice on the sanding between coats if i dont have to i wont and yes you cant spray your way out of mistakes lol learnt that the hard way before. Daphne blue is the colour with a white nitro undercoat. Doing the whole body & neck, might get a pearlised sticker made up through a mate for the headstock, my brothers asking him today hes got 100k printing machine apparently that can print stickers and bang it on before the clear, if i was to lightly dust sand between a coat id probably use 1600 - 2000 wet/dry but il see.
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Hope it goes alright very much enjoyed the process so far.

If you plan on fitting full-size CTS pots, you’ll find the shafts are wider than on the mini-pots in the kit, so you’ll need to drill or ream out the potentiometer holes at some point so they’ll fit. If so, it’s easiest to do it now without risk of damaging the lacquer later.

Ok noted, they're 250k pots arent they usually?
I might salvage some vintage ones i was thinking, im pretty sure even if there not 2500 a resistor across can fix that from memory.
Heres after the sanding, im going to get some 1000 grit to go over it now as well, the fine foam pads are great but not quite fine enough.
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Im doing it for my brother so its up to him on the pots, i know he was going to get some pickups later on, il let him know tonight before we go ahead spraying etc. I dont have a dremel but i can loan one.
Its decent of you to give me the heads up as it would not have occured to me either.
Thank you sir. david.
P.S. The guitars in daphe above look the proper lovely to me. Great job.:cool:

500k audio/log taper volume pots for Les Pauls and humbucker-equipped guitars is standard. Tone pots are normally 500k as standard, and can be either audio or linear taper to personal taste. I prefer audio tpoer for tone.

250k audio taper for single coil volumes like Strats and Teles. 250k again for tone, though audio taper is normally used by Fender here but again, linear is an option.

Audio taper on tone spreads the operating action of the pot over a wider range of travel, and stops it being almost all right at the bottom.

Powerful single coils like P-90s normally use 500k pots for a brighter sound, and some very powerful standard single coils can benefit from 500k pots as well.

I quite like using 250k audio tone pots on humbuckers as the lower resistance also spreads the main tone affecting range of the pot travel out more - say from 7 to 0 on rather than 3.5 to 0, with not too much happening on the initial 10-7 pot travel.

250k tone pots will knock a small amount of treble off compared to 500k pots, but it is very small, and I prefer to loose a bit of treble in order to gain more controllability.

If you have very powerful humbuckers with high DCRs, they can benefit from 1 Meg audio volume pots to keep as much treble content as possible, as they can be very dark sounding.

Sometimes manufacturers can vary from the norm for specific reasons relating to the pickup choice. In the era of Gibson ‘T-top’ humbuckers (late 70s-early 80s), the bridge humbucker was quite shrill sounding, which was probably why they switched to 300k volume pots. But they also used 100k tone pots. Both choices reduced the treble content. 100k for a tone pot does give you tone control all the way from 10 to 0, but you have lost a good amount of treble to start with.

The tone control can be looked on as a simple 6dB/octave RC high-pass filter with the R being the impedance of the pickup coil and C the tone control capacitor (reality is slightly different as there are also the pickup capacitance and inductance to consider but the impedance and tone control cap are the driving factors here). The resistance of the tone control pot only acts to limit the amount of output signal being bled off through the capacitor to ground. So, assuming linear taper tone control pots, a 250k pot on 10 is like a 500k pot on 5, whilst a 100k pot on 10 is like a 500k pot on 2, or a 250k pot on 4. So tone pot value selection can allow you to fine tune the guitar sound if you want to.

If you are into sanding pads, then you’ll like like the 3M ScotchBrite pads. The dark red/maroon, grey and white pads are roughly equivalent to 0, 00 and 0000 steel wool respectively, but don’t leave the small pieces of embedded steel splinters that steel wool is prone to do on soft surfaces. They are fairly contour-following though, so you’ll want to ensure that you’ve sanded the surfaces flat first, otherwise if using a mist coat, it can look like there are no pits/dips left, but in reality you’ve sanded the bottom of the dips.

Much prefer log pots,
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linear is fine for stereos just my humble opinion.
Its coming along pretty goodlies so far this is the first guitar ive built but not the first time ive sprayed or worked with wood.
Im up to the 2nd coat of colour and its gone on great, must make sure the cans warm before application i used a saucepan with water and gently warmed can in it over the stove on lowest setting for 15 mins there are some slight flaws but im under the pump to finish it for my brother and hes not as fussy as me lol.
Its his axe.
I rekon by the 3rd coat of colour it will be pretty ok il do that coat tomorrow 2 a day is enough.
ive never spray painted a guitar before only semi trailer tankers a while ago but i have done a lot of house painiting so theres familiarity, i sanded the primer and refilled the grain ive also straightened the neck with truss rod to set it almost flat so far so good, few more coats and then il be soldering, Simon the kindly gentlemen above has suggested to upgrade the pots which will happen when the pickups are upgraded later on, im pretty handy with a dremel and can carve out the cavities without damaging the surface cos its my brothers its up to him when he buys some pikups.
Ive got a Tele from here happening too now so il get some pics of that up soon why not?
Good on you and enjoy if you are methodical and think before you do things and research take your time [best you can lol] you can do it just follow the process and learn as much as you can first, kind regards from david.
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Its curing outside today 3rd & 4th coats over the wkend now im loathe to sand without ity being somewhat cured there are some small flaws nothing to worry about when i do the next coats im only going to coat the front & back & headstock the rest is really good i will sand with 2500 first very lightly just a dusting with the sander helps the coats adhere and to produce more perfection over the few slight flaws.
Overall im very happy with the results so far and i love the daphe Blue colour with the cream scratchplates and covers its knockout vintage aesthetic appeal and looks great to my humble eyes.
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@Simon Barden
Hello Simon i managed to find those old pots i have yes there all 500k from an old squier strat but i only have 3 lol, il stick with the kit ones until i get another 4th and then il carve out the area as you suggested sir, i have a question if i may, can i connect a single coil up in place of a humbucker will it be alright in the circuit so as to have a single coil and a humbucker in the gibbo i politely wonder or do i need to do some circuitry black magic with a resistor etc for impedance variance would you know sir?
Here are some photos of the 3rd & 4th coats of Daphne Blue i have to say its come out prtetty good for my first effort i heated the cans up in a pot of warm water over the stove on lowest heat setting to make sure they were nice and warm but certainly not above 70c as acetone becomes volatile from memory above that temp, anyway it worked well in winter here in melb.
Heres some pics etc, next is the clear coat, there are a few very slight flaws but its my brothers guitar hes hassling me to finish it so he can play it lol i would have taken a bit more time myself but anyways.
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NEVER heat a spray can while the water is on a heat source. If the water is too hot for your hand then it is too hot for the can.
If the water is too hot the can will more than likely explode from the can over pressurising than the contents catching alight.

Looking good david bodycomb.

Re the single coil and the humbucker - lots of kits have a mix of both. Having a look at the wiring diagrams they usually still use 500k volume and tone pots.

What sort of single coil?

A humbucker sized P90 will be fine with 500k pots as that’s what’s recommended to use with a P90.

If you want a Strat-style single coil then apart from the mounting issue (you’ll need some kind of adapter plate), you’d be better off using a 250k pot for its volume and tone control and 500k for the humbucker volume and tone. The single coil will work with 500k pots but it will sound brighter than normal. So if you use a vintage Strat-style single coil in the neck position it could sound more like it’s in the bridge position. But a very overwound single coil can be quite dark-sounding and can benefit from a 500k pot.

If you’ve got a single coil and humbucker and a common 500k volume pot circuit (not your LP circuit with two volumes and two tones) then you can wire a 470k or 520k resistor between the single coil hot and ground outputs on the pickup side of the selector switch, which will give around 250k equivalent when in single coil and both pickups on mode and 500k in humbucker mode. This resistor is an easy item to add or remove, so you can try it without first, then add it in and if you prefer the original sound, remove it, or keep it in if you don’t. It will affect the pot taper slightly, but I doubt you’d notice. Note that you can’t make a 250k pot into a 500k pot, so the single volume pot needs to be 500k, not 250k.

Yes thats right im careful would never use any kind of direct heat source but its winter here and so cold i had to warm them up somehow so 15 mins on lowest electric stove heat setting in a half pot of water did the job nicely, im glad you said that as folks need to know those cans are full of volatile chems like acetone so i believe etc, im no expert but know enough usually.
Cant imagine being burnt by a can of acetone explosion.:(
Thanks for your reply sir.:)
david

And certainly what Dickybee said. You’ll probably see warnings on the can about not storing above 40°C. If you warm it, just fill a bowl with water from your taps that’s no more than body temperature, but ideally a bit less. The contents need to be brought to between 20°C and maybe 28°C. Too hot, and apart from the can explosion risk, too much solvent can evaporate between the can and the surface resulting in too dry a spray. If you are spraying outside below say 15°C then you really want to bring the body/neck inside first to get them to room temperature, then go outside and spray as soon as possible.

I knew youd have the answer for me thats very kind of you sir thank you, i was thinking p-90 myself at the neck id have to get a 250k pot then, beauty!!
Thats great to know and easy to do too,
also have another question if its no trouble, this sounds highly unorthodox, however, i did it once to a guitar with a bolt on neck with the truss rod at the headstock end of course, i glued the neck on using super strenght 2 part boat glue and it improved the sustain of the guitar immensely lol, i know i know its against the rules but im having inclinations to try it with the tele im building, i know shimming becomes out of the question and its there forever too lol but hey isnt it that lovely sustain from the glued in neck what we love about gibson guitars?
It gave the single coiled jazzmaster the best sustain i ever heard from a cheap squier fender......very unique.;)
Youve never heard a fender sustain like the one i glued the neck on & bolted it up as well!!!
[Now you can tell me why its a dumb idea to do it again on the tele sir];)

It was warm to the touch but certainly not hot, just nice and warm, i slid the pot over so that only a small % was really over the heat, And it was just on, i was paranoid of over heating, kept and eye on it too.
I got away with it because im older and kind of know from being a house painter over the years but others no probably best they dont, there was no sun here the other option was in front of the air con i guess.
Good to know that over heating dry,s the paint and yes i did bring the guitar from inside the house where its curing in a seperate room sealed from the house to the spray booth i made outisde wore a proper painters mask as well.
I really enjoying this process its making me want to invest in more kits now and do mods and be inventive etc.
I kind of like that sort of thing, i used to find old valve radios on hard rubbish yrs ago disconnect the radio tuner section find the inputs and wire them up for guitar jack with speakers etc that kind of thing.
They worked nicely, i loved collecting vintage gear too anything valve hehe.
Its great speaking with you all here, thanks hey good learning experience im greatful.
david.

I haven’t really noticed much difference in sustain between Fender and Gibson guitars. I did some rough testing on a few guitars a year or so ago and there was maybe 1 second difference on average. And you could probably attribute that to the greater string pull of the pole-piece magnets on Fenders. I briefly had a beaten-up ESP LP-style guitar with a bolt-on neck and that sustained for longer than my proper LP.

On bolt-ons, it’s normally people’s experience that you get better sustain if the neck is firmly seated against the end of the neck pocket. There are pressure waves travelling up and down the neck which transfer better to the body if they are touching. Otherwise you’re reliant on shear forces through the screws and bottom of the neck contact for that, which is less effective. Even a small gap can reduce the sustain.

With your guitar strung up and tuned, slackening off each neck screw until you hear a small ‘crack’ (normally no more than a turn) allows the strings to pull the neck tight against the end of the neck pocket. Once all four screws have been loosened, then tighten them up again.

If the neck was already touching, then you’ll hear no difference. But if there was a gap that’s now closed, there should be an improvement.

Gluing on the neck on Squier may have done a similar thing, as it will have filled in any gap between the end of the neck and the back of the neck pocket. I’d never recommend using a permanent glue for a neck pocket - Gibson either use regular Titebond for standard models, or hide glue on the custom shops, as you never know when you might need to remove it. But on a cheap guitar, it’s your choice.

A friend used epoxy in the poorly fitting neck pocket of a very cheap Tele copy, but wrapped the end of the neck with cling film before clamping it to the body, so that the epoxy made a tight fitting pocket once it set. The cling film pulled away from the glue and the neck then bolted on as usual. He ended up with a guitar that was just as good sounding as any of his Fenders.

There are many things that contribute to the natural sustain of a guitar including the the particular woods used to make it and as every piece of wood is different, I’m not just talking about choosing between maple, mahogany, ash etc. Some bits of wood simply don’t resonate the same way others do, and that can kill sustain regardless of the neck joint type.

A good bolt-on neck joint can be just as good as a glued-on neck joint, but it has the ability to be worse. A glued-on neck needs a tight-fitting pocket for glues like Titebond to work well. Too big a gap and you get a spongy glue layer that’s not good for transferring vibrations, so a hard glue like epoxy that will fill gaps might be a better choice if that’s the case. But it is a permanent solution and if the neck angle is out, there’s nothing you can do.

@Simon Barden
I needed to hear that, il refrain from glueing it on now as maybe its overkill and just not necessary. The neck fits quite flush as it is i did some very slight fettling & tuning on the end curves with s/p but only minimal the tolerances seem pretty good to me anyway yeah your right its complicating something that functions fine as it is.

I have another question and i hope im not bothering you in any way sir,
Im about to lacquer in nitro clear now, do i clear lacquer over the binding on the body or leave it taped and sand the paint ridges after clearcoating the body?
You and Trevor & mrbee here have been a great help thank you to you both personally from me.;)
P.S. I love the Daphe blue with the cream scratchplate, covers and pickup holders its very very 1960,s cool!!
@Dickybee007 no il never heat cans that way again sounds too risky now, paranoias kicked in hahaha.:D

Yes, it’s standard practice to spray clear over the binding. You don’t have to, and I know a few people on the forum kept the bindings taped up. If you don’t spray over the binding you’ll probably get a step round the edge of the binding. The clear coat is a very good way to remove any height difference between the binding and the body.

With a bound neck, the common practice is to spray clear over the binding on the sides of the neck, but to keep the top of the fretboard fully masked and to scrape off any clear that creeps under the edges, so the upper binding surface sits flush with the fretboard. Spraying over the binding on the side is another way of ensuring a smooth transition between neck and binding. Any ridge here can feel awkward under your fretting hand.

Unreal exactly what i thought and exactly what il do thanks so much now i can go ahead,
actually its great to have you here. :cool::cool::cool:

Alright its coming along proper goodlies now i put the transfer on of my brothers intials he got made up from his mate and ive taped the fretboard so now i just have to do the clear coats, its not bad but not flawless however the next one i do for myself will be if i can help it, tricky stuff that nitro hehe, but not impossible, thanks to all here for the support and help as always too.
Nothing wrong with being grateful what?
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It’s looking good!

+1 for looking good.

Yeah its not bad for a first attempt i think but there are some minor flaws that personally i would have not been happy with however as its for James my brother i cant take forever finishing it for him and he is very happy with the results so far so thats why i wont be as fussy as i would like to be etc.
Not going to use nitro on my Tele build i cant justify spending as much on paints as the guitar itself lol so some cheaper cans of enamel or equivalent will do for that.
I really like the Daphne blue with the cream regalia its a very 1950,s look that reminds me of the dash of a car from that era or a radio or the like.
Looks better in person.
Great to have you & Trevor here as a resource gentlemen.
+1 from david for the help kindly sirs.

Going pretty goodlies now third coat clear.
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Curing with the heater on lowest heat.

I finally finished it woo hoo gosh it dont sound and play too badly at all, il make a sound sample if you like and post it up soon.
I love these kits for the money they are great fun, i think it turned our proper goodlies for a first attempt, the wiring was a bit tricky but i got it sorted.
Nah i luvs it!!
Looks a real bit of alright too what?
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I have a bass with a daphne blue and creme color scheme. I's one of my favorites. Yours looks fantastic. If it plays as good as it looks that's icing on the cake. Will look forward to hearing it.

@fender3x @Trevor Davies @Simon Barden Gidday gentlemen & thank you for your help on here most gracious of you all,
Re LP kit, the action is so high its ridiculous so my brother James ordered a measuring and tuning kit so we can lower it down as the bone nut is off the charts high and the bridge needs filing the saddles its set at its lowest point but still way to high etc, but the neck is very straight and i adjusted it to have a very slight curvature, as it stands its about 3ml+ at the nut and 5 ml at the last fret haha, heres a sample of it playing through my Fender Deville it sounds pretty good, we are both very happy with it just have to do some tweaking when the string adjustment file kit comes etc.
Its my first build i loved the process & hankering to do more now it's so much fun.
Thanks for replying sirs your all proper gentlemen yep.
Kindest regards always from david.
Heres a sample of it through the Deville. New strings so tuning is settling in.
Im not much of a guitarist just a self taught backyard hack but its a lot of fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siVlILS4PpQ&t=330s

Looks great and sounds great. I hope can get the action a bit lower. Hopefully lowering the nut action will fix these issues.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Yes, it’s standard practice to spray clear over the binding. You don’t have to, and I know a few people on the forum kept the bindings taped up. If you don’t spray over the binding you’ll probably get a step round the edge of the binding. The clear coat is a very good way to remove any height difference between the binding and the body.

With a bound neck, the common practice is to spray clear over the binding on the sides of the neck, but to keep the top of the fretboard fully masked and to scrape off any clear that creeps under the edges, so the upper binding surface sits flush with the fretboard. Spraying over the binding on the side is another way of ensuring a smooth transition between neck and binding. Any ridge here can feel awkward under your fretting hand.

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I'm about to start applying poly on a guitar with binding on the body and neck and was wondering how to go about the neck. I used the search bar to find this topic and deep down I knew that you would have helped someone else with the same question. Thank you, Simon!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Juanito

I'm about to start applying poly on a guitar with binding on the body and neck and was wondering how to go about the neck. I used the search bar to find this topic and deep down I knew that you would have helped someone else with the same question. Thank you, Simon!

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Hi Juanito,
Simon has not been around the forum lately!:(
On my DSCM-1 kit I sprayed clear on the sides of the neck binding, but not the top of the binding. I scraped any that did end up on the top of the binding. Yes - like mentioned on SB's second paragraph. Then oiled the fretboard.