Chris Builds Guitars: Les Paul

It's pretty simple stuff at this stage, just following similar steps as those carried out in my earlier telecaster build.

I wanted to finish off the internal routing of the mahogany prior to putting the maple on top. Probably unnecessary but I first drilled out a bit of the wood from the channel that connects the pickup toggle cavity to the main control cavity:

Then set up a fence from an offcut, attached using masking tape / superglue and routed the channel out:

Yielding:

Next up, I tidied up the control cavities. They'd been drilled out using forstner bits, but weren't at their final size yet. The template was reattached to the body, and a follower bit used to route both the control cavity and selector switch cavity out.

First I used a top bearing, running against the template:

Yielding:

However, my router bit isn't long enough to reach all the way through the guitar, so I flipped the body over and used a bottom bearing bit to finish off the cut (it runs against the shape already routed):

The control cavities are now finished. From the front:

And back:

Now, all the body routs are done. I'd been leaving the mahogany slab in one piece as it makes it easier to work on and gives the router a larger, more stable base to sit on. Now, however, it's time to make it guitar shaped.

On my cheapo bandsaw at least, it's tricky to cut accurately to a line without veering *too* close to or over it. I traced around the outside of the template using a small washer as a spacer:

This gives a second line which will be used as a visual aid:

You can then cut right up to this line on the bandsaw, without stressing too much about touching it or going over it a little. My bandsaw is a hobby grade tool, which is close to it's limit cutting through wood this thick :]. I make plenty of relief cuts as I go: