Neck

Well, the neck is now shaping up; the bindings are on (I remembered that I hate plastic bindings), and I have shaped the neck profile. I will put in the side dots next, but I'm going to leave fitting the frets until the neck is in place (unless I work out that this is a dumb order). My lad has checked the the neck profile fits his hand comfortably.

There was a minor issue with the wood for the front, as it turned out that the piece I wanted wasn't in stock, but I am happy with the alternative, a nice bit of quilted maple.

Fretboard

I have now finished the mother of pearl inlays on the fretboard. Here it is after all the little cavities were routed, and in the other picture everything is glued in and sanded flat. I also sanded a radius onto the fretboard.

I used a home made sanding block with the correct radius hollowed out , and with a coarse grit paper it didn't take much effort to get a nice rounded profile. I finished off by smoothing it with my micromesh pads. Finally, I prepared the tenon where the neck will join the body. The next job is to glue the fretboard into place and complete the binding.

Top

I have ordered the wood (from exotichardwoodsukltd.org.uk) for the top of the Les Paul. It appears to have a strong quilt figure which the customer, (older son), liked the look of, but I will have to see when it arrives. The outline drawn on it is not the proper shape, only a guide!

Meanwhile, I am getting on with the inlays on the fretboard. My mini rotary tool died in the process (with a small bang), so I've replaced it with one from Axminster . So far I'm very pleased with it.