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I had a student build one a year or so ago. We did the traditional mortice and tenon style neck, basically right off the plan of the 58 Gold top ...never again, fitting is too much of a PITA, especially trying to get the neck to fit tight against the body, flossing that was tough .. I made a new set of templates for a current student, who is making an SG shaped Les Paul construction, guitar: (carved maple cap over hawg body, thick) The templates give you a slight wedged dovetail pocket fit for the end of the neck in the body, and makes the matching end on the neck blank too, slightly oversize, for final fitting. The pocket extends into the neck PU cavity space, and is made deep enough that routing the PU cavity itself still leaves about 3/4 to 7/8 of neck under the PU, so its plenty stable. Its pretty much a PRS style joint.

The trickiest part of set neck electric building IMO is getting the neck pocket right, and setting the neck at the right angle for the chosen bridge. Everything else is pretty much shaping, sanding and routing/drilling holes.

PUs.. depends what tone(s) you are after .. I am a fan of Duncans .. the Antiquities sound awesome, but you have to be after the old warn nickel cover look as they dont come in open coils, but for less cash you can get a JB and a 59, or toss in a Pearly Gates (Billy Gibbons PU of choice .... my current student is going JB in the bridge, and the P-rail in the neck (combo P90 and single coil rail - use separate or in humbucking mode) - P90 in the neck is a great tone ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Filippo,
I have built one Les Paulish guitar.I got the plan from Stew-mac or LMI-I can't remember-It was made by Don Macrostie-It is a good plan.
The neck joint is a simple shallow mortice and tenon.
When I made mine,I made it about a half inch thinner than standard and chambered some of it in order to reduce the weight.The originals are ridcuously heavy ,in my opinion.
I also made mine with only one pickup right below the fretboard and simple volume and tone controls. I used an archtop style bridge base with a tune-a-matic saddle and an archtop style tailpiece-really an electric guitar for jazz musicians.

Hey Filippo,
Here’s a link to Jeff millers site. It’s not a tutorial and he builds PRS style guitars but they are very similar to the Les Paul’s. The neck/body joint he uses is different then what Gibson used but it’s a sound joint and I think it’s simpler than fitting a traditional LP joint. As always, draw everything out on paper first and things should go smooth. You defiantly have the skills to do it.
http://www.guitaristjeffmiller.com/guitars12.htm

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Rich S

"The inconvenience of poor quality will linger long after the thrill of a bargain has been forgotten"

Now that I think back on it-I had the same experience as Tony fitting the fretboard to the top. It took a lot of work to get it "perfect".

we actually glued the neck blank in place, once we got the neck cheek/side fit and angle were we wanted it. The tenon was still a bit tall, and we planed that along with the top to get it all level before gluing the FB on. Like I said, I did that once, but never again. My new method is just too easy to use in comparison... there are no cheeks to fit at all ... its just a slight but full depth dovetail wedge

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Hi Filippo,
I'm new around here and getting ready to build my first acoustic. My first (and only) build was a Les Paul from a combination of the Stew Mac plans and John Catto body plans. I documented my build at http://eksomething.blogspot.com/. If you have any questions, let me know.

Eric

Weight is a real issue with these bad boys. If you aren't careful, it will be HEAVY. Even for an adult, let alone an 11-year old boy.

1) If you stick to traditional LP dimensions, you should consider chambering the body. I built an LP from the StewMac or LMI plans (can't remember which), and it weighed in at about 13.5 lbs without chambers. Heavy enough to be uncomfortable. A year or so ago I routed a large cavity in the back to chew away some weight. It cut about 1-1/2 lbs, which made a difference, but it's still quite heavy.

2) Honduras mahogany is your friend. I know, it's more expensive than some of the other mahogany species that are just as pretty under all that stain and dye you might be using, but Honduras mahogany is LIGHT, even compared to other mahoganies. Light is good.

3) I'm not trying to talk you out of a Les Paul, BUT . . . most PRS guitars are built on the Les Paul concept of a mahogany body with a maple cap, except the mahogany on a Les Paul is around 1-3/4" thick (I could be off a bit; this is from memory), while the mahogany on a typical PRS is around 15/16" thick. (The maple caps are roughly the same thickness on both.) So the PRS essentially cuts off 13/16" worth of mahogany from the body. That's a lot of weight! Additionally, the mahogany back on the PRS is contoured, removing even more material. All of these make the PRS much lighter. (I think there are some PRS guitars with a slightly thicker mahogany core than 15/16", but not much thicker.) I'm not trying to talk you into making a PRS (although that is a pretty nice guitar), but I am saying that PRS shows you really don't need pounds and pounds of excess mahogany to make your guitar sound great. If you are wedded to making a Les Paul replica, you'll have to find some other way to deal with the weight issue. But if you're open to reasonable modifications, you might consider making the body just a little thinner to reduce the weight.

On the electronics, I used the Seymour Duncan Antiquity Humbuckers, and I love them. The SD website used to have some nice audio clips of their various pickups in different configurations, which I found very helpful in choosing the antiquities. Maybe the clips are still on his site.

I built a Les Paul a few years back, and documented the build. You can find it here on my blog:

http://home.asparagine.net/ant/blog/?page_id=4

IMO the PRS style neck joint is easier, but to get the aesthetics of the neck right, you need to use the conventional mortice and tenon. I think the area where the body and neck binding meet on a LP is one of the coolest aesthetic touches, and it's virtually impossible to get this irght without a traditional M&T.

I didn't find the neck particularly tough to fit, and I found cutting the traditonal joint required less jigging up than the PRS joint, particularly for an angled neck like the LP.

IMO on the Les Paul set neck joint, it is a waste of time trying any kind of joint that has endgrain glued to endgrain. The best ones i've seen consist of a neck pocket designed to hold the full heel, and that's it - this has the added advantage that you can further shape and contour the heel for improved upper-fret access.

Sort of like this one (not one of mine):

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The member formerly known as erikbojerik....

The Les Paul joint is not and end grain to end grain glue joint. The glue area is on the flat grain and isn’t needed on the end grain at all. It’s a very stable joint. The majority of the load from string tension forces the neck back into the pocket against the body toward the direction of the bridge. The glue just keeps the neck from detaching from the body.
Gibson made a tenon that extends down into the body that is deeper than the pickup cavity that takes most of the load while PRS made the neck extend below the pickup itself.

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Rich S

"The inconvenience of poor quality will linger long after the thrill of a bargain has been forgotten"

Yeah .. I dont know for sure if Gibson puts any glue on the endgrain portion .. its needs to be really tight though or you will need to fill it somehow to prevent the finish from just wicking in there and looking ugly. try flossing that joint .. three sides, tough to do all at once, and get them all tight, I did NOT find that part fun.

I much prefer to carve away the backside of the joint as well on electrics, it makes for a smoother feel when palying up there. I always hated that about LPs, it was this huge block, that did just that .. block the access. Dont care for a typical Strat or Tele bolt on feel either, but thats just me. I much preferred a 60s SG (the one with the almost non existant heel, that breaks when you drop it !!! - should have never sold that one, or for something radical, a Firebird or Explorer)

as for the look of the binding .. it never really looked right to me that the body bind just ended under the FB bind .. might as well just do it up by the 20th fret and have the ability to carve a heel like an old BR Rich (I have a 1980 Mockingbird ... yes a little dated, but it FEELS great) . My student didnt bind this one anyway .. faux bound like a PRS so you can see the natural curl wrap over (the top was deep green trans on the curly).

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Along with Eric(likely one of my MLP colleagues-we have several Eric(k)s-)I can provide just about any guidance you need. I send out the "John Catto" #10 drawing that covers the errors in the StewMac plan. I charge a voluntary $3(it is a net loss;I do it as a service-I feel good doing it- I sat down at a Kinko's main computer and got the scale dead on and then bought a bunch of full sized;there were tense moments when I was trying to back seat drive the employee). The other hard part is the top carve-at least, if you are going for replica contours. There are also some contour maps for the carve. I have one full size that I would ask the original sharer about forwarding. The neck angle and highest point of top carve determine the playability and in fact, there is an additional tiny tilt used in routing the pickup cavities. You can direct email if you wish-in my profile-. With a few more details and the StewMac plan and Catto drawing, you get a very good start on a nice guitar. Best regards, Mike(You would be a fine asset to My Les Paul-please join us)

I know all about the Gibson LP joint - I have two of them apart on the bench right now, and I've done a few other neck resets. Yes they do put some glue on the endgrain where the outer part of the heel contacts the top of the body. Its a little hard to tell because it gets wicked up, but yeah its there. As Tony said, the thing would soak up finish all day if it weren't glued.

Like Tony I've never dug the LP heel, and you can knock down that blocky corner for improved upper fret access if you just let the entire neck into the body, then carve away as much as you like (the heel doesn't have to be as thick as the one on the photo, so you can leave more meat underneath it).

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The member formerly known as erikbojerik....