Brand spanking new setup :: 2016 Gibson Les Paul Standard [9.3 lbs]

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A gorgeous brand new flame top Les Paul in for a setup.  The original setup was actually pretty decent but a little too low for this player.  I ended up straightening the neck and raising the bridge slightly.  I also filed and polished out the saddle slots to keep the strings from binding.  My only pet peeve with this guitar is the bridge location.  Note that the saddle positions are pushed all the way to the rear of the bridge.  This guitar is properly intonated with 10's and I'd like to see these saddles end up more in the middle of the bridge to allow for more flexibilty in string gauges (ie bigger strings need the saddles to be pushed back further).  Kind of odd considering Gibson has state of the art manufacturing facilities, but maybe I'm missing something in their decision.

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Neck carving :: Chubbuck Mousa 003 hollowbody

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The neck on the Mousa 003 hollowbody is rough carved and ready for me to finish getting the body together. This time of year is always crazy busy so I'm looking forward to getting this one into the booth once the dust settles.

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Wood that didn't make the cut on the neck carve. Kind of a bummer to realize that more of the raw lumber ends up on the floor than in the guitar. But like any sculpture, you find what you need concealed inside and cut away what's unnecessary.

Fingerboard glue up :: Chubbuck Mousa 003 hollowbody

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The final step in the neck raw assembly on the Mousa 003 hollowbody is gluing up the fingerboard.  Next up will be inlaying the side fret markers and roughing out the neck carve.

Headstock build :: Chubbuck Mousa 003

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This is from a couple weeks ago.  Here I'm clamping the headstock overlay on Mousa 003 neck build. I learned from my days at Santa Cruz Guitars to pre-bind the overlay before you glue it to the neck. Then you can use the headplate overlay as a routing template to shape the peghead. Pretty slick.

Peghead ears :: Chubbuck Mousa 003

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Gluing up the peghead ears on last week's Mousa 003 neck build. I like to do full ears as opposed to just adding corners. The difference is that you can't see the ear joint from the side on full ears where just gluing the extra corners looks sloppy and lazy. The extra effort is a pain but totally worth it.