Carving an Les Paul Top
Greg W. Zoller
use my handy Dremel tool with flex-shaft accessory.
I've made a contour pattern out of scrap
wood and practiced a little on some scrap.
I have a wonderfully unfounded sense of confidence.
Unlike modern LP's which have a maple top glued to
mahogony, I've got a piece of solid mahogany so
I've got one "easy" shot at this. (Replacing
a botched job is possible by extremely unpleasant.)
Is there any last minute advice from someone who's
"been there... done that" which might prevent a
tragic mistake? ;-)
Thanx (I thank you... my mahogany thanks you.)
gwz
pp0...@interramp.com
I carved a Les Paul top in curly maple usings a Black and Decker router. I
first drew contour lines on the top, like a topographic map. then set the
router so it would carve a few mm up from the final height. When carved this
gave me a stair stepped top which I smoothed out with a belt sander. It sounds
a lot scarier than it was to do. I routed the pickup cavities first. Just
remember that its only wood, you can always get another piece.
Jay Andriot
Greg W. Zoller
|> I carved a Les Paul top in curly maple usings a Black and Decker router. I
|> first drew contour lines on the top, like a topographic map. then set the
|> router so it would carve a few mm up from the final height. When carved this
|> gave me a stair stepped top which I smoothed out with a belt sander. It sounds
|> a lot scarier than it was to do. I routed the pickup cavities first. Just
|> remember that its only wood, you can always get another piece.
|>
|> Jay Andriot
Good idea to use the topo lines! One nice reference is that
the contour that follows the fingerboard towards the pickups
is flat, and then starts to curve around the area of the
pickups.
While true, wood is only wood... getting a solid 2 1/2" piece of
mahogany wasn't cheap. I'm going to make every effort to do
it right the first time. ;-)
gwz
cr...@ac.dal.ca
Mahogany isn't exactly cheap... but the bookmatched AAA flame maple I used
for my top cost $120US from Luthier's Mercantile. Wasn't gonna use a router
or a belt sander on that, thanks!
Andrew
Greg W. Zoller
[clip]
|>
|> Mahogany isn't exactly cheap... but the bookmatched AAA flame maple I used
|> for my top cost $120US from Luthier's Mercantile. Wasn't gonna use a router
|> or a belt sander on that, thanks!
|>
|> Andrew
Ah, true... I agree. However I'm more than willing to
adapt the topo-line technique for use with my handy Dremel
Tool w/router attachment. That'll give me precision control
I can't get with the big routers. Then I'll use a carving
bit with a flex-shaft to smooth the "stair-steps" created
by the routing process.
Wood is really getting *expensive*! I'm getting more
careful all the time... as a cost-containment measure.
gwz
M. Verhoef
>From: g...@n8pph159.nt.com (Greg W. Zoller)
>Subject: Carving an Les Paul Top
>Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 13:17:23 GMT
>I'm about to carve my first LP top. I intend to
>use my handy Dremel tool with flex-shaft accessory.
>I've made a contour pattern out of scrap
>wood and practiced a little on some scrap.
>I have a wonderfully unfounded sense of confidence.
>Unlike modern LP's which have a maple top glued to
>mahogony, I've got a piece of solid mahogany so
>I've got one "easy" shot at this. (Replacing
>a botched job is possible by extremely unpleasant.)
The original LP Goldtop/Standard also had a maple top glued onto a mahogany
body, only the Custom (Fretless Wonder) had a solid mahogany body (except of
course for the Specials/Juniors).
Mike
///////////////////////////////////////
Whoa mule, whoa!
-Yosemite Sam
///////////////////////////////////////
m.ve...@let.rug.nl
050 - 731966
Doug Woodall
>Path:
>ticipa!tilde.csc.ti.com!cauldron!csc.ti.com!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net
>!torn!nott!bcarh189.bnr.ca!corpgate!nrtphaa9.nt.com!brtph560!n8pph159!gwz>Message-ID: <1994Oct3.1...@brtph560.bnr.ca>
>Sender: gwz@n8pph159 (Greg W. Zoller)
>Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 13:17:23 GMT
>Lines: 17
Good Luck on carving the top. I just wonder how Gibson or PRS really do it. I
assume that use really large wood shapers, but does anyone know for sure how
they do it?
Doug Woodall, Texas Instruments, Process Automation Center
Voice: 214-917-2466 Fax: 214-917-5512 Internet: dwoo...@lobby.ti.com
David Morning
>In article <1994Oct5.0...@ac.dal.ca>, cr...@ac.dal.ca writes:
>[clip]
>|>
>|> Mahogany isn't exactly cheap... but the bookmatched AAA flame maple I used
>|> for my top cost $120US from Luthier's Mercantile. Wasn't gonna use a router
>|> or a belt sander on that, thanks!
>Ah, true... I agree. However I'm more than willing to
>adapt the topo-line technique for use with my handy Dremel
>Tool w/router attachment. That'll give me precision control
>I can't get with the big routers. Then I'll use a carving
>bit with a flex-shaft to smooth the "stair-steps" created
>by the routing process.
Nothing to beat a good, well set cabinet scraper for this sort of shaping.
jeffrey william green
GoodGod! Do Not buy from a guitar part dealer!!
Go buy a Fine Woodworking mag, and look in the back. You might have to
buy sight unseen, but if you talk to the mills, you can usually feel
them out, and see who is more rightious to the guitar builders.
They KNOW what a good flame top is. Guitar builders are always calling
them. You will be surprized if you haven't done this allready. Some even
have a catalog/newsletter/flyer isting prices for primo chunks specific
to guitar. (i.e. 2" thick 9 x 18 slabs of mohogany, koa, bubinga, etc.)
My AAA flame maple top was about 45$ if I remember correct.
It is absolutley beautiful! So beautiful that I haven't cut it yet.
(It'sbeen a long while. . .)
Just get on the phone, find a little po-dunk mill that specializes in
maple or whatever, and negotiate, shmooze, inquire, whatever, and you'll
get your wood.
I had a mill on Hawaii go out and hand pick a couple slabs of flamed koa
for me, and made sure that they were visually matched and pretty by
description over thephone. They did pretty well. . .(BTW-that one wasn't
as cheep. about a hundred bucks.)
good luck!!
ciao
jeffrey green
Greg W. Zoller
[clip]
|>
|> Good Luck on carving the top. I just wonder how Gibson or PRS really do it. I
|> assume that use really large wood shapers, but does anyone know for sure how
|> they do it?
|>
|>
|>
|> Doug Woodall, Texas Instruments, Process Automation Center
|>
|> Voice: 214-917-2466 Fax: 214-917-5512 Internet: dwoo...@lobby.ti.com
I don't know how Gibson actually does it (I'd be curious to know
too), but I can guess two likely possibilities:
1) They might use a pattern and a router/copy jig. This
method would be the fastest. Of course you'd have to have
an original contour to copy from :-).
2) There are hand-planes with convex soles designed specifically
for carving archtops. It is possible that if you're a
Gibson factory worker who makes several of these a day,
you'd probably have no problem doing it by hand pretty
accurately.
Note to fellow Les Paul builders:
If you bought the Stew-Mac plans, you know why carving the
top is a bit challenging... They didn't include head-on
and/or tail-on profile drawings! That means you have
to make an educated guess from pictures and examining the
real thing.
I've finally settled on the technique I'll use. I've decided
to draw a topo-line around the body to denote where the arch
tapers into a flat plane (around the edges). Then I'll use
my router to cut a rabit groove that follows the edge of
the top.
Careful about the width of that cut! The arch transitions to
flat wood about 1" from the edge for most of the "round" part
of the body, but seems to stop 1/2" from the edge of the "thin"
part of the body. In other words... this distance (D) is not
constant.
|<-D->|
******** _
* ^
* |
* about 1/2"
* |
* V
******* -
*
Side--->*
*
(Side profile view)
Then I'll use my dremel to carefully carve the arch... sharply
at first:
********
*
*
* <-- sharp "rounding" of arch
*
*****
*
Side--->*
*
(Side profile view)
Then using some template guides (mainly to help achieve
symetry), I'll continue to gently ease the severity of
the arc until I achieve the desired effect. (The desired
effect being something that "looks" like a LP and also
has proper alignment with all the vitals such as bridge,
nect, etc.)
********
***
***
**** <-- eased "rounding" of arch
***
*****
*
Side--->*
*
(Side profile view)
The only exception to this technique is where the neck
connects to the body (fingerboard actually). There I
need a nice accurate, flat surface. I will likely use
a small plane ("thumb-plane" or similar) or chissel here.
These archtops are loads of fun! :-)
gwz
Trent Andrew Riggs
I thought $120 was a little steep, but I'd never looked into flame maple so I
wasn't sure! I bought a slab of beautiful bird's eye maple with a strong tinge
of curly maple in the background for my LP top for $35 (I don't think it was
AAA bookmatched as it was one long slab instead of one piece from under the
other, but it matched up very nicely).
When I went looking for my 2" & 4" thick mahogany and specialty maple, I had a
heckuva time finding any place that carried anything anywhere near that size,
could you post a list of wood shops where you got your goods for future reference Jeff? (or anyone else).
gary watts
THere was an article in Guitar Player in the early 80's with a
Gibson factory tour. They don't show the inner workings of
the machine but you can see 4 bodies mounted vertically on
a fixture with four sides. The fixture is rotated to do each
body and load the next one while it's running. I believe
it is a shaper and template followere arrangement.
PRS uses a profile tracer that follows a master aluminum "top".
I saw this in a magazine recently but don't remember where.
: Note to fellow Les Paul builders:
: If you bought the Stew-Mac plans, you know why carving the
: top is a bit challenging... They didn't include head-on
: and/or tail-on profile drawings! That means you have
: to make an educated guess from pictures and examining the
: real thing.
I too bought the Les Paul plans from S-M. I was rather disappointed
that there wer VERy few dimensions. I was interested in having the
various radiuses and locations marked for them. As it's done,
you could trace a Les Paul yourself for all the good the plans do.
I plan on building a Les Paul this winter.
It would seem that you could make your own shaper blade easier than
all this hand work. You can buy blanks for standard spindles and spend
your time grinding it to suit. This also lets you practice on some
fir or other srcap wood first before cutting the real thing.
Gary Watts
jim
Many Factories use a Panagraph machine to copy the top. This
machine follows a metal or wooden mold. It use large saw blades
to shape the top. I have seen some small Panagraph jigs that
fit on a regular router, This will also copy the top, I beleive
that the company that sells it is called Norfield Tool and
supply company, You can call 1-800-555-1212 and ask for their
800 number, They will send you a free catalog.
The way that I carve the top is easy, I have made 4 templates
with a horseshoe style shape. Each one is bigger than the next.
I start from the center and I step route 4 times from the
center to the outside each time I change the template I
increase the depth. After I have finished their are 4 levels of
wood on the top. Then I hand sand them even and I have a carved
top.