Building a Les Paul Deluxe style guitar

WhoFan

Tommyologist
Being a Who Fan i have loved the guitars of Pete Townshend's.... The SG Specials, The Grestch Chet Atkins, The Fender strat and Teles, the RIC's, the Shecter teles.... But my favourite guitars Pete used were the Les Paul Deluxes from 1972-1980... The Gibson Custom Shop has released extremely expensive signature models based on Petes Modded LP's.... Pete had changed the tuners, added a middle Dual Sound Humbucker and had the necks reshaped and resprayed.... I believe they thinned them out....

The best sounding LP Deluxes Pete used were the ones he used 1972-75.. These he used the stock electronics and Gibson made the necks out of Mahogany but by early 76 they had switched to maple.... In 76 Pete switched to heavily modded LP's and i really like the look of those.... I have a 76 Deluxe and like it but the neck is like a baseball bat! Huge! I would never moddify my old Deluxe like Pete's... But i have been wanting to built a Les Paul for years now! I want to take my time and do it right, or as right as my limited skills will take me...

First Question is what is the best inlay stock to make LP Deluxe/Standard style inlays from? How thick should the inlay stock be?

My 76 Deluxe has the 3 piece maple neck just like the new PT Signature guitars do..... i can faintly see the maple boards gain on the tip of the headstock... The inside piece of maple is cut differently then the outside pieces.... the gain in the 3 boards line up like this lllll==llll ...The little centerboard has the grain running sideways while the grain on the outside pieces is up and down.... Why would Gibson do this, for strength? Should i bother to copy this forum of construction or use a modern scarf jointed board? To do an exact copy i guess i need to copy Gibson.. The body i plan to use a 2 piece mahogany body so it will not be exactly like the original LP Deluxe i'm copying.... so maybe i should use the scarf joint neck.... not sure what to do....

I want to make more then one LP Deluxe... One i wish to make a Mahogany neck Deluxe, and the other a Maple version.... I have a set of Gibson mini humbuckers ready to go and some tuners....
 
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Re: Building a Les Paul Deluxe style guitar

Does anyone think i could cut these LP Custom inlays into Les Paul Deluxe/Stanadrd style inlays? Is there enough space in the inlays to make these inlays i wonder

www.stewmac.com/shop/inlay,_pearl/Pre-cut_inlays/Les_Paul_Custom_Inlay_Set.html

I have a large piece of flat sawed Mahogany in the basement that is 1 inch thick.... if i cut 3 inch strips and turned them on their sides, and glued the 3 strips together to make it wide enough for an LP neck, would this be pretty much the same as the Quarter Sawn Boards Gibson used to glue together on the 70's?

WhoFan
 
Re: Building a Les Paul Deluxe style guitar

You might try the Les Paul Forum. www.lespaulforum.com There are some very knowledgable people at the Les Paul Forum. Sounds like, and intersting project.

Sprinter
 
Re: Building a Les Paul Deluxe style guitar

Sprinter said:
You might try the Les Paul Forum. www.lespaulforum.com There are some very knowledgable people at the Les Paul Forum. Sounds like, and intersting project.

Sprinter

Thanks for the tip.... i'll check that out.... i've built strats and teles before.... but i have never done arch tops, binding, fancier inlays, angled necks..... this is all new to me..... I'm in the research phase now but i hope to be cutting into wood real soon.... saddly it looks like i'll need to spend some more money on tools.... which is ok but they get expensive for us Canadians to order from the States.... I want the router bit for doing binding that stewmac sells....


I think i'll try to tackle the fret inlays and neck binding first... Oddly enough the tech that rebuilt my Les Paul used a Pearloid pickguard for fret inlay material...... they look really white but after the last 10 years since the repair they are starting to age a bit.... i thought that was the strangest thing i had every heard of.... using pickguard material for inlays on an LP.....
 
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