Blues Creek Gibson L1 replica in figured maple

Take us through building your guitar step by step. Post pictures and tell us what you're doing.
Dave Sayers
Posts: 85
Joined: Thu Mar 28, 2013 8:19 am

First string up and set up.

Post by Dave Sayers »

The maple L1 replica is pretty well finished now, and it has been strung and played. It's definitely a different sound to mahogany or rosewood. So far it hasn't needed any adjustment to the action, so perhaps all that time spent adjusting the neck joint and paying careful attention to the construction has paid off. In fact the action is very low indeed, although there is no string buzz at all. It might even have to go up a bit, but I'll leave it to settle down for a few weeks, and play it.

Now it's time to get on with my first violin build. I can do quite a bit of that indoors if it is too cold in the workshop.
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Dave Sayers
Posts: 85
Joined: Thu Mar 28, 2013 8:19 am

Re: Blues Creek Gibson L1 replica in figured maple

Post by Dave Sayers »

So, looking back through my notes on this build the tonewood was of very good quality and I liked the rosette and inlays. The plastic binding got the old heave ho and was replaced with imported wood binding. There was nothing wrong with the supplied tuners except they were silver and the heads a bit small so I replaced them with black ones. The facing veneer didn't cut the mustard for me, I like the grain to go in the same direction as the strings and neck and this didn't. It also had a crack. It was replaced with ebony to continue the black and white theme. The fret wire supplied was a bit short by the last two frets, but luckily I had the same gauge in stock. I really do like the ebony fingerboard.
I had all the parts for a black ebony Les Paul style floating ebony pick guard ready and waiting but decided against it.
Minwax high gloss tung oil does it for me on the finishing, but I'm going to try the non gloss version on the Sapele L1 that may be visible in some of the pictures at an early build stage.
The neck caused me the most problems. While it is a lovely three piece with ebony stripe, I was sure there was the tiniest of kinks resulting in the fingerboard surface not being truly flat. This was indeed the case, but some adjustment to the bridge saddle negated this. The neck heel and joint were way to big and had to be cut back by quite a lot. Now, you can call me a silly old sausage if you like, but in these days of computer controlled machines, surely two sizes of neck heel and inner block would be possible? One for big guitars and one for little guitars?

And the final thought, apart from the fact that it plays and sounds lovely? That would be to focus on getting that neck joint and alignment right first time. It was an unexpected positive that having to work the neck and heel into a small body guitar meant I had to pay careful attention to this. As a result the action has so far needed no adjustment after first stringing, and the slight movement caused by stringing improved it. It's time to start thinking hard about how to achieve the best alignment first time every time.
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