Is a Jaguar/LesPaul out of bounds for this site?

[royb8s]

Here's a photo of Lenny's back side for those of you who are interested.

[royb8s]

Heres my fret bevveling tool I built. It works like a dream.


Leveled the frets, re-crowned, and polished.


Installed the tuners


Glued in the unbleached bone nut.


Married the neck to the body.


Mounted the Fender twin head Modern humbuckers into the rings that I made, and just set them in place for now to get a look. I amd really getting pumped to play this thing. I think it's gonna be a good one.


Next step is electronics. I'm gonna wire it in a classic 59 les paul style, except I'm gonna be able to could split each humbucker off the tone controls. Same way I wired my les Paul and I love it. Gives me lots of options for tone. I'll try to get photos of that process tomorrow if I have time. It is fathers day after all.

[Thomas]

The string spacing on the bridge looks like it'll need sorted out.

[royb8s]

Well, I just about got Lenny completed. Just waiting for the back covers to dry so I can install them, and it's Road-ready. Here's a couple of photo's of finishing him up
For the wiring I went with a vintage Les Paul layout, except I used orange drop caps instead of oil filled, and as you can see, I added a coil split to each tone control for both pickups. That seems to give me the best of all worlds in getting different tones.

[royb8s]

Here's a quickie little vid I made right after I got intonation set. It was the first time I had ever played it. Sorry the quality is not very good, but I just had my little Princeton Chorus there for setup purposes, and there was a fan running in the background. Also just recorded it on my smart phone. I am planning on making some better vids tomorrow, and I'll post them as soon as I get them done. Meanwhile for your listening pleasure, I present to you Lenny and his first notes.

[youtube][/youtube]

[royb8s]

Here's a little vid I just made showing off a book that I just had printed up.

[youtube][/youtube]

[royb8s]

I went over to my good friend Dan Kucera's house today to have him try out Lenny and Chub. He is an Ex band mate from back in our high school days, and plays way better than I do, so he agreed to let me video some clips to show the versatility of both guitars. Lenny the shark has modern Fender twin head humbuckers, which are definitely a lot hotter than Chubs Vintage twin head humbuckers. The difference between the two guitars is definitely huge. He said that personally he favored Lenny over Chub on the pickups and action, but liked the weight of Chub. Neither one really had a neck carve that he would prefer, but I knew that because he is primarily a lead guitar player, where I am primarily a Rhythm player. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the clips. I had a blast hangin out with Dan this afternoon in his mancave, talking about the good old days.

[youtube][/youtube]
[youtube][/youtube]
[youtube][/youtube]
[youtube][/youtube]

In the next two videos Dan ran both guitars in single coil just to show them coil tapped
[youtube][/youtube]
[youtube][/youtube]

[serfx]

beautiful work
sounds and looks amazing.
thank you for all the demos!

[royb8s]

So here is guitar number three. Had one small problem to overcome with it so far.


I de-soldered the chrome covers on these. just wanted a more modern look.


While I was opening up the hole between the switch pocket and pickup pocket, the flute caught on the edge of the hole and you can obviously see the problem. It will be mostly covered up by pickup ring. Like grandpa said. There are no mistakes, just opportunities.


I was able to CA glue in part of the chip, and then re-stain the other part, and fill it with epoxy. I think it make a pretty clean repair.


Went to my local hobby shop and found waterslide decal material. I wasn't going to decal them, but enough people said that I should.

[royb8s]

I got to preside over a beautiful marriage today. It was a hot July day but fortunately it was an indoor wedding. I proudly present to you mr. Chip Jaguar Bates. I have posted a few wedding photos here for your enjoyment. The neck and body were both fully prepared for the wedding the only one nervous was me. They won't be going anywhere for their honeymoon tonight I just provided for them a cool dark case for them to stay in for the evening. Tomorrow after church hopefully I will have some time to do final adjustments and see how they play together.

[sunshiner]

Beautiful. I'm sure it sounds as good as it looks

[royb8s]

Thought I would post a conclusion to this story. My brother came out from North Carolina this week, and I finally had a chance to give him his guitar. Here are a few photo's. We also put on a little mini concert that weekend while we had a big family get together. I think there's some pics from that floating around on facebook somewhere. I'll see if I can find some of them.

Here is my brother corey shortly after he saw it for the first time. I didn't realize it, but this is the first electric guitar that he has ever owned. He has always just played acoustic up to this point.


I wanted to get a couple of pics of all four guitars that I have built all together one last time. The Les Paul was the first guitar I built, and I play her a lot. I call her Mahogany Rose, my big boned gal. She's the big sister. The other three are the little brothers. from left to right Lenny the Shark, Rose, Chub, and Chip.


A quick Line-up shot of my dad on the left, Me in the middle and my brother on the right.


Of course I had to post at least one photo of us all in Rock n Roll ready position.

[Shaguar]

Looks amazing. They all look amazing. Bloody awesome finish.

[jamba72]

awesome..
master class builds..

the headstock form is a cool design ( reminds kind of iceman)


these are wood nuts?

nr 3 with the bubble problem on its sides, when finishing it, this often happens with ash, I´m quite sure..ash pores opens much more than alder.

I , too like that Gibson scale but I only have Wraparounds on mine, for resonance reasons (I only have double cuts)

maybe a short Telecaster bridge ( those with brass saddles) would look nice, too on yours.

[royb8s]

This is a little recording I did with the Red Jag that I call Lenny the Shark. The lead guitar and one of the rhythm tracks was with Lenny.

[youtube][/youtube]

[NickS]

Nice treatment, Roy, something different and interesting.

You did some nice work on those guitars and I love the pictures of them all together.

Does your brother have to buy an amp and stuff now?

[royb8s]

Thank you NickS. I got a Boss gt100 a couple of years ago, so I gave him my old Boss gt10. He had an Acoustic full range amp already that he used with his ovation.

[royb8s]

I am just finishing up the third guitar. I made it to sell, so I could recoup some of the expense of building all three. It has the good straplocks, Fender tuners, Schaller hardtail bridge, Evo fretwire, Fender American Standard vintage humbuckers, and les Paul wiring with coil taps for both pickups. It would also come with a AKG Jaguar hard case. I am trying to find a reasonable price to sell it for, and where would be a good place to list it. I have thought about craigslist or etsy or Ebay, but have never sold anything online before. Any help and honest opinions would be greatly appreciated.
[/img]

[Nick]

I would list it on reverb.com for a price slightly higher than what youd like but also include a best offer option to get a feel for what it's worth to others.

They take far less of a cut than eBay.

Nobody's buying custom guitars for fair prices on craigslist.

[royb8s]

Thanks Nick. I know that handbuilt stuff is all subjective, and only worth what someone is willing to pay. I know that I am not a known builder, and buying a guitar is a very personal thing. Personally, I would never buy one online, just because I would want to feel it and play it first, but that's just me. Would $1000, $1500, or $2000 be anywhere in range or am I just dreaming? I honestly don't have an idea.