SAVANT Guitars - full solid handmade


All materials (and more) for 59 Les Pauls and 58 Flying Vs as well as 58 Explorers you can get now through our cooperating-partner "Eurospruce", check their webshop @ www.eurospruce.de


Below notes are just for reference

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We see no need for pointing out the usual building materials and tools, here we want to concentrate on some "specialities" that are hard (or impossible) to source elsewhere and might be of interest for your replica build:





1959 shape vintage maple tops:


We are CNC´íng the maple tops in batches for our own replica making, usually there are several tops available to choose from / available for sale.
Top curve was taken from a "real 1959 master" incl. recurve. We carefully measured the top curve at numerous positions and got a CAD-model done from this real top. 

Routed for a 4.0 degree (low profile) neck angle (= bridge almost down on the top wood).






Here you can find a webalbum with actually available tops. Eastern Hard Maple tops available on request, too.




Vintage Backplates and Jackplates for Les Pauls


We started to reproduce vintage backplates and jackplates according vintage specs (material and dimensions).

The Backplates were made of (rolled) Vinyl (2.2 - 2.3mm thick), outline was punched and has shearing marks, dimensions taken from a "real one" (original set from a 1959 Burst). Vintage shaped, will NOT fit Historic or modern. 29 Euro/set (+ shipping)
This is a discounted price because the back of the plates are not glossy due to thicknessing (not visible when installed).
We are working on an improvement of the process and will be able to offer "glossy insides" soon, too. Feel free to ask.


The Jackplate was made of 1.5mm thick ABS with different (lighter) color than the other plastics (bone-white), 35mm outline length (with 4.6mm radius), 26mm distance of holes (center-center), inside hole is 9,6mm, outline and inside hole were punched, the 4 screw holes were drilled, 15 Euro/plate. (+shipping)

Additionally we offer a CNC´ed do-it-yourself templates (5mm MDF) for the plates (holes drilled undersized, not chamfered), 15 Euro for the set of backplates and 7 Euro for the jackplate (this is WITH international shipping).













1.5mm ABS and 2.3mm vinyl available as stock material, as well as vintage correct screws (mild steel, nickel plated, Phillips head #3 x 3/8" oval head), feel free to ask.

More pics from the (making of) backplates and jackplates you can find here.
 

Template set for a vintage 1959 Les Paul:


Fitting our CNC´ed tops we designed a vintage correct template set for a 1959 Les Paul body (neck templates available on request) with all routings. Done from 5mm MDF for usage with a (ball bearing) flush router, 85 Euro/set. Pics you can find here.

Silkscreen frame for "Les Paul MODEL":

For the serious repair shop we made a batch of silkscreen frames with "Les Paul MODEL" burned into the mesh, ready to use with gold etching ink (Charbonnel).

The frames are made sturdy multi-ply birch to exact 1959 headstock shape so you can use it as a routing template for the outline, too.

End of template = top end of fretboard: the writing is positioned right, just place the end of the frame against the fingerboard and align the sides of the template to your existing headstock: the writing will be in vintage correct position.
 


Detail of the writing:


These silkscreens are made in our workshop exclusively and are not available anywhere else. Pics from making the silkscreen frames you can find here.

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Reg. glues:

For making of a - now vintage - Les Paul various kind of glues were used: UF-glue, fishglue and hot hide glue.

Took some time to source this UF-glue but finally we got it and we will use it just out of the reason to work with period correct materials. (Nice story about sourcing UF-glue: usually this is sold by wholeseller in 35 kg bags and because they are sealed no one was willing to share a reasonable quantity. Finally I turned to the manufactur and kindly asked for help if he knew a seller that was doing retail business. The technical director informed me that they are a big production company and that they are selling this stuff in lots of 32 tons to their customers ;-) ... but the kind man was willing to help the "guitar industry" and pulled out some kilogramms for us - it is the same stuff that SONOR uses for making their drums, btw.)



Below we show how we make UF-glue:

Being unprocessed the glue is a 2-system of glue and hardener (minimum 10% hardener by weight has to be added to the glue):



To get a quantity of a jar (ex strawberry marmelade) we start with (almost) 150 gr. of glue:


At least 10% hardener will be needed, instead of 15 gr. we take a bit more (19 gr.).




UF glue is water based, the hardener will accept any quantity of water, just getting it to a creamy consistency. If more water is applied the result will be finally a thinner glue (you can tune UF  glue to the desired viscosity by the amount of water being used for the hardener).



Then the solved hardener gets mixed into the glue:



Stirring does the job:


Well shaken ... got it - glue for several guitars:



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The top was glued to the body in the 1950´s using UF-glue (urea-formaldehyd), most probably the reason was that Gibson glued the top to the body using a stackering (stack press) method: the wood was stackered body-top-body-top etc., then the whole pile got pressed down from top instead of clamping each body/top individually ... UF glue has a longer open time and out of simple production reasons this kind of glue was used here (my guess).
Took some time to source this UF-glue but finally we got it and we will use it just out of the reason to work with period correct materials. (Nice story about sourcing UF-glue: usually this is sold by wholeseller in 35 kg bags and because they are sealed no one was willing to share a reasonable quantity. Finally I turned to the manufactur and kindly asked for help if he knew a seller that was doing retail business. The technical director informed me that they are a big production company and that they are selling this stuff in lots of 32 tons to their customers ;-) ... but the kind man was willing to help the "guitar industry" and pulled out some kilogramms for us - it is the same stuff that SONOR uses for making their drums, btw.)


Fishglue was used for glueing the frets into the fretslots (for this the whole fretboard was saturated with fishglue, darkening the BRW and resulting in a glaze you can still find on vintage Les Pauls with no re-fret or similiar had been done yet.

Hot Hide glue was used for glueing the fretboard to the neck and for glueing the neck to the body as well as for gluing on the "ears" to the headstock).


Reg. Binding a sneak preview to answer a question that came up: body binding was made of creamish ABS, neck binding was made of off-white celluloid (last being a bit whiter than the body binding). We will use the vintage correct material ... if interested in the right celluloid binding for the neck just ask, same for 2mm ABS for the body.


Reg. NC lacquer:

We use for finishing special vintage correct (pure) nitrocellulose lacquer without plastinizers, no pre-catalyzing or other modern inventions have been added, just the vintage correct stuff for replicas that will CRACK by the time ... this is custom made for us by a small German company and not available anywhere else. We offer this exclusively now for the first time to the public for 25 Euro/liter (plastinizer available separately for own mixing if a NOS look is aimed for).




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