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Ugly Guitar, Interesting Material Concept


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Check this guy's stuff out. I really doubt it's going to take off as that guitar (in my opinon) is ugly as sin and the fit and finish is pretty poor.

Anyhow, I have one specific question about it. In this picture you can see the string anchors/ferrules, but I've never seen these before. They aren't true "string-thru" ferrules as they clearly (from other shots) are installed from the top. Perhaps a clever new design? Anyone seen these before?

-Dave

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Greg: Yeah, and even more so the designer is an ID guy. In my experience too many ID "designers" creat a single prototpye, take lots o pretty pictures, and then make a pretty website aroiund it with crappy info about the development process and materials. This site fits that MO exactly.

However if they really have developed the mass production technique, it might be simple to make a bunch more. That said, their necks are still of the traditional variety so it's not all that unique in the end.

Bertbart: agreed, and this guy claims he wanted to create the epitome of guitar design. Quoting his "artist's statement"

Why the spherical form? Adam Wehsely-Swiczinsky: "I wanted to create an erotic object, the Venus of guitars, to support the special relationship between the musician and his/ her instrument. lt was important to me to create a homogeneous body. Away from »cut away«, towards one form."

Really, though, I'm just interested in those string-anchors. If those are off-the-shelf I'd love to get me some of that.

-Dave

Edited by davee5
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I see that the strings do not go through the body a'la telecaster. My guess is that the ferrules are removable in order to insert the string akin to the pins used on an acoustic.

Yes, it's ugly, but then, there are a lot of guitars out there made by major manufacturers that I think are ugly, yet, they sell.

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If you blow up the picture you can see that each of the ferrules have small notches, pretty much like this http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailp...es.html#details

OK That is a completely different bridge, but you see what I mean

And it’s right up there at his web page. The first prototype was finished in November 2006. After that the took the photos, made the wed page, so yeah it is highly possible that this is the only existing guitar.

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I think SwedishLuthier wins. it does look like it's just a broken up version of a slotted plate. As for the other ideas proffered, here's my take on some innovative ideas.

- GuitarGuy's balls-wedeged-in-comparably-sized-holes: this might work, but I think it would be really unstable, with teh threat of the ball end popping out at any time, especially when finally getting them up to tension.

- Cherokee6's bridge-pins-for-an-electric: this is an interesting idea. You could create a slightly oversized hole in the body, slip the ferrule over the string like a necklace bead, and then use the same wedging principle from GuitarGuy's thoughts to hold the ferrule in place. This would probably be relatively stable, but hell on the wood.

If you could locally harden it up, or were using pretty dense/hard woods in ferrule/locking bead region that would be pretty slick. Especially cool woiuld be if you made it of the same wood as the body, with small string openings. Then, if you pulled it off, it would look like the strings are just randomly coming out of the body with no distinct anchor point. If I wasn't 7000 miles from home and my tools right now I would totally protoype that with some maple.

Anyone wanna try this for me? I could sketch up what I mean if you like, but I get half of the royalties!

-Dave

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- GuitarGuy's balls-wedeged-in-comparably-sized-holes: this might work, but I think it would be really unstable, with teh threat of the ball end popping out at any time, especially when finally getting them up to tension.

Ouch!!! That sounds painful.

I have a tailpiece design I've designed for my current lapsteel build that's similar to the ideas discussed here. Will post a pic when done.

I also like the look of this guitar. Creativity is the spice of life.

Edited by MCH
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