Les Paul Kit build

eSully · September 2023

Been meaning to get around to this for a while. I picked up a body and neck from Crimson guitars stand at The Guitar Show this year. It was from their kit guitars run but b stock/damaged and unfinished. I didn't mind that too much and was happy with the price so picked it up.

So this is the condition I got it in:

Cleaned up the cavities a bit

Was really eager to do a MOP inlay on this one, ended up finding the stage design below and mocking it up in Inkscape on top of an existing template. Certainly not perfect but for a first effort with a jewellers saw cutting and embedding MOP I'm pretty happy. It really pops out visually on the headstock too as you can see below:

This was a first attempt at using spirit stains from Axminster to get a Tobacco burst style effect. As you can see it's not great and the darker surround is poor and inconsitent .. so this got sanded back completely and restarted

Much happier with the feel and look the finish below. I've sealed it with a coat of tru-oil now and buffed that back with steel wool. Plan is to finish the neck and back with a light amount of tru-oil but go for a gloss finish on top.

Image: https://i.imgur.com/96w1Uv1l.jpg?1

Most everything is drilled that needs to be drilled now and the neck has been glued in, no picture yet but will add later! Will add more as I get to it