And so it has begun....
After finding on of the LP replica bible threads - on a Fender forum no less, and watching a bunch of videos from a guy in Finland make a similar copy, as far as trying to emulate the tone and sound, I felt comfortable in a couple of choices...
1) It seems that Gibson uses one piece 2' thick stock to make the bodies. Since they are hugs, they can get those rough blanks easily or maybe they get huge planks and re-cut onsite. Either way, the blanks are one piece. I could order those blanks online, but I wanted to find Honduras Mahogany, not the more common African variety that is being used today. Honduras M. is scarce and not easily available. In fact, the US bars the export of H.M. (as well as Brazilian Rosewood - another rare wood). Stock that remains in this country is heavily regulated.
I have to glue up two 7"x2"x20" boards to make a blank. Not unheard of and after last night, I'm convinced that the tone will not really be affected.
2) The guy in Finland created the neck out of 4 pieces. I'll go more into that in the next few days as I start to cut the wood for that. The neck will be extremely strong, especially at the transitional weak spot on the headstock of the LP.
That said, here are some pix from today. I wasn't planning to actually start today, so iPhone it is and due to time constraints, I did not take pix of the board being cut into three and using the jointer to get the two halves to ready for glue up.
The primary set of plans I will be using. I will have at lest two more copies of this made, so I can cut them up for templates. I have to other plans from other sources that I am using to verify measurements and fill in a few missing ones.
The Honduras M. that will provide the body and neck.
Checking the seam before final glue and clamping.
Everything looks good, lets go! Glue was spread out to cover both surfaces entirely.
Clamped and cleaned up. Clamps will come off tomorrow afternoon and the blank will be run through a large sander to get rid of the slight ridge on the seam. Then put aside until I get more copies of the plans.
After watching a video of the Finnish guy gluing up his blank, it was decided to leave out the biscuits, since they only really server to help line up the two pieces.
Onto the neck tomorrow...