DLP Les Paul - 2 - Carving The Body

Happy New Year everyone, I have had a few new toys for Christmas including a band saw and a random orbital sander, both of which open up some interesting possibilities for me the first of which  is to have a go at making a carved top on my latest Les Paul project.

I used the band saw to cut out the body from a pine blank I had in the garage for a couple of months now. Then I cut out 7 carving profile templates which I printed onto 4 pieces of paper, taped them together and then cut them out, it took forever!  I then pasted the paper templates to some chipboard.

The band saw is a revelation, It made cutting out the templates so easy and a little fine sanding and they are ready to go. 

Each template represents 1/16" depth difference making a drop of about 1/2" from the centre of the guitar to the edge.

Not the neatest routing I know but nothing the palm sander wont cure.  My router made light work of the steps, It took 3 passes to get the first step routed as that was taking over 1/2" of material away.

I worked one side at a time using the palm sander to gradually smooth out the steps, the palm sander makes the task so easy although I only had 3 sanding pads and they all started to loose their grip and fell off after a while so I finished the final bits off with regular elbow grease!

There is still a lot of work to do with this body, a large piece ripped out and there are a few spots which need filling, but that's to be expected, pine is very soft and the body will be painted completely so any blemishes will be hidden.