Sketchup is so friggin cool!

[BigM555]

I'm slowly pulling together the materials and equipment to build myself a Les Paul. I've always wanted to build my own guitar and a "real" Paul with the specs I want is going to be way out of my acceptable price range.

Well, I've been unsatisfied with most of the "drawings" I've been able to find and I'm the kind of guy that likes to see things in all dimensions anyway so I had planned on doing a 3D model at some point. It's kind of like a little pre-build exercise as well. It boosts my confidence when I actually go to put a tool to an expensive chunk of flamed maple.

Anyway, I like playing with Google Sketchup and thought maybe I could find a model to start with. Some of them were quite good but none of them included the carved top that I was really trying to get a grasp of.

So I did it myself!

Obviously, I'm not completely done yet, but I'm pretty proud of how it's shaping up so far.

Now on to the neck......

Edit: I'm not digging the cream binding after looking at it. I think I'll change that......or go without.

 

[Shawn]

Pretty cool design. I'd have alot of fun with that. I design alot of guitars on Kisekae and MS Paint, Photoshop, etc. Nice work. It looks nice.

 

[Horizon Whore]

haha looks good man, reminds me of a goldtop, but not quite

 

[BigM555]

Yeah, colors aren't right in those shots above. I haven't bothered trying to get Sketchup to render the colors properly.

I'm shooting for something more along these lines.

 

[Shawn]

I'd actually prefer a gold top with a cream vintage pickguard.

 

[Horizon Whore]

Yeah, colors aren't right in those shots above. I haven't bothered trying to get Sketchup to render the colors properly.

I'm shooting for something more along these lines.

tasty!

 

[Ancestor]

That's very tasty indeed.

 

[BigM555]

Neck is coming along slowly but nicely. Damn it's tough to get all those compound curves right in Sketchup!

 

[darren]

That is coming along nicely... i've played with SketchUp a bit, and it is a really challenging application to work with, especially for compound curves. Nice job!

 

[Shawn]

Nice job on the neck, that's looking awesome.

 

[robanomoly]

Great work with Sketchup! If you can print to full size you'll have a pretty good template to work with. If not, hopefully you can dimension with Sketchup.

Here's how I contoured the top of the most recent guitar I am building:

Picture 1: draw contour lines on the body and label the depth of cut
Picture 2: rout to depth, working from deepest to shallowest
Picture 3: use a chisel to remove the steps, then use a finger plane to smooth it a bit more
Picture 4: use a scraper and sandpaper to get to finished surface

 

[robanomoly]

Yeah, colors aren't right in those shots above. I haven't bothered trying to get Sketchup to render the colors properly.

How about this?

 

[BigM555]

Thanks Rob!

That is exactly the way I plan to do my carved top as well.

As for the 3D model in Sketchup I have already printed out a full sized copy in a more CAD like format and it looks great. Fortunately I have access to a full sized plotter at work.

Here are (almost) the latest sketches I have... Sorry can't upload the actual Sketchup file it's too large.

Those colors are close. I'm looking to get just a bit darker. What was your dye/staining process to get that?

 

[Pauly]

Is Sketchup a NURBS modeller?

 

[robanomoly]

That looks amazing! Excellent job modeling the guitar! Have you built guitars before?

My staining process went like this:

Picture 1: stain with one coat of red mahogany (Stew-Mac colortone concentrated liquid) applied with a foam brush
Picture 2: sand it down so the color is lightly visible in the deep part of the grain
Pictures 3 - 5 : apply 3 coats of vintage amber (Stew-Mac colortone concentrated liquid) applied with a foam brush

Then I sprayed two light coats of sanding sealer (sanding between coats), then started sparying the clear coats.

The vintage amber goes from a yellow to an orange, to almost a brown/orange. Definately test it on some scrap first. Another coat of amber would have accented the brown. You may want to try tobacco brown.

 

[Apophis]

You really have skills

 

[BigM555]

Is Sketchup a NURBS modeller?

I had to google NURBS. From what I can gather it can handle them to some extent but I don't think it's considered a NURBS based modeller. More than adequate for my purposes though.

That looks amazing! Excellent job modeling the guitar! Have you built guitars before?

Thanks!

And especially thanks for the detail on your staining process. Looks like you took plenty of pics. I really need to pull my together and start taking some of my process. Not too late yet as I've only just surfaced the boards but I hope to start cutting soon.

I have not built a guitar before. This will be my first guitar. I'm going against the bulk of advice that I should start off more simply (ie, non-carved, bolt on neck, plain woods, etc). I'm not that worried about it though. I'm 38, pretty bright, employed as a full time problem solver, pretty handy, have a decent collection of tools and experience with them. I've also got the advantage of time. I am excruciatingly meticulous when it comes to this kind of stuff. Just ask my wife.

I'll be satisfied if my first effort turns out almost as well as this gents first build.

 

[Shawn]

Great work with Sketchup! If you can print to full size you'll have a pretty good template to work with. If not, hopefully you can dimension with Sketchup.

Here's how I contoured the top of the most recent guitar I am building:

Picture 1: draw contour lines on the body and label the depth of cut
Picture 2: rout to depth, working from deepest to shallowest
Picture 3: use a chisel to remove the steps, then use a finger plane to smooth it a bit more
Picture 4: use a scraper and sandpaper to get to finished surface

That looks awesome. Nice job!

 

[robanomoly]

Thanks!

And especially thanks for the detail on your staining process. Looks like you took plenty of pics. I really need to pull my together and start taking some of my process. Not too late yet as I've only just surfaced the boards but I hope to start cutting soon.

I have not built a guitar before. This will be my first guitar. I'm going against the bulk of advice that I should start off more simply (ie, non-carved, bolt on neck, plain woods, etc). I'm not that worried about it though. I'm 38, pretty bright, employed as a full time problem solver, pretty handy, have a decent collection of tools and experience with them. I've also got the advantage of time. I am excruciatingly meticulous when it comes to this kind of stuff. Just ask my wife.

Sounds like you have a good mindset for building your first guitar. Take your time, research, think through each step and it's implications. My approach was very similar to yours (draw/model then build). (laughing) Speaking of meticulous, I actually made an Excel spreadsheet with all of the build steps so that I could sort them into the best order. For example, my solid mahogany guitar has a set neck, which meant I had to drill the hole for the neck pickup wires before glueing the neck. I'd be happy to post the spreadsheet if you would like to give it a look.

Would a picstory be helpful?

That looks awesome. Nice job!

Thank you!

Sorry BigM555, didn't mean to hi-jack your thread.

 

[BigM555]

(laughing) Speaking of meticulous, I actually made an Excel spreadsheet with all of the build steps so that I could sort them into the best order.

GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!!

I was contemplating the exact same thing. Half thought of doing it in a Program Management app. Shows you how anal retentive I am.

I'd be happy to post the spreadsheet if you would like to give it a look.

I'd love to see it.

Would a picstory be helpful?

Lord knows we love pic stories around here. Depending on how many pics you have though it might almost be better to fire up a thread over at Project Guitar. I'm not sure if Chris and the mods want a lot of duplication of that kind of stuff here if it's going to get too in depth (Admin/Mods correct me if I'm wrong here!)

Sorry BigM555, didn't mean to hi-jack your thread.

Not a problem. Stick around here and you'll find few threads stay on topic for any more than 2 pages. Or at least until JJ shows up.



jk JJ