"Aqua P" Build - Introduction.

“Aqua P” Build – Introduction.

The following blog will walk through the process of building the “Aqua P” Guitar. The “Aqua P” is loosely based on the design of a traditional Les Paul guitar with some important modifications. The design includes a one piece mahogany…

"Aqua P" Build - Part I

“Aqua P” Build – Part I

The timber and the jigs for the instrument are all to hand.. In this case a single piece of Mahogany for the body, a single roughed out mahogany blank for the neck and a book matched piece of quilted maple…

"Aqua P" Build - Part II

“Aqua P” Build – Part II

Now that the body cap is jointed the mahogany body is routed to shape and the pickup control routs and channels for the controls are cut using the templates before the cap is cut to size and glued to the…

"Aqua P" Build - Part III

“Aqua P” Build – Part III

Next step is to cut the mortice and the tenon on the neck pocket and neck. This is cut horizontal to the top for now and shallow as the neck pitch and final fitting will be done later. For now…

"Aqua P" Build - Part IV

“Aqua P” Build – Part IV

The pickup plain is at 1.3 degrees and runs from the end of the neck to the bridge line. Not a very steep angle but important to get the pickups at the optimum position under the strings… Now that the…

“Aqua P” Build – Part V

“Aqua P” Build – Part V

The fingerboard used here is rosewood and the first task is to thickness it to 6mm. The fret slots are cut and the inlays are recessed into the board. Finally the inlayed board is radiused to 12″ and the taper…

“Aqua P” Build – Part VI

“Aqua P” Build – Part VI

When the rough profile is done I move on to fretting the board… I dislike fat frets so I’m putting a standard height 2mm wire on this. I also dislike binding nibs which is why I bind and then cut…

“Aqua P” Build – Part VII

“Aqua P” Build – Part VII

Binding an archtop body presents a few challenges. The curved nature of the arch dictates that a router can not be used off the top edge of the body as the router will not run perpendicular to the edge. To…

“Aqua P” Build – Part VIII

“Aqua P” Build – Part VIII

I wanted a specific pickup design on this guitar. Based off the p90 style the neck pickup has been designed to have a bobbin and wind gauge that reflects the Charlie Christian pickup. The neck pickup is based on a…

“Aqua P” Build – Part IX

“Aqua P” Build – Part IX

Often the sprayed sunburst finish found on many factory instruments can lack finesse and the transition from one shade to another be too hard or heavy. The best sunburst finishes are nearly always those that are rubbed by hand rather…

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