Stewey's Singlecut

[Stewey]

Well it's been a little while between successful projects. I tried a hollow body explorer which didn't end up so well. (It collapsed on itself )

This was a bit discouraging so I decided to take it easy for a while and start doing some drawings. The basis for this project was a tracing I did of my LP. After seeing Ormsby's awesome white multiscale I got very motivated to get back into it.

Unfortunatley I didn't take many progress pics as I was very unsure of the outcome.

The plan of the body:

Here is the body rough cut, it's basswood:

The headstock rough cut with the fretboard placed on top, mahogany neck with ebony fretboard.:

Another view of the fretboard:

Fretboard

And the finished project:

A pick of the back:

Back

The back of the neck showing the volute:

Neck

Thanks for looking!

[juze]

Woah! That's one classy SC. I mostly don't like Singlecuts, but that looks like one I'd like Also I like its thickness, how much is it?

But yeah, keep up the good work!

-Juze aka Ghroath

[Metalhead28]

I'm not too keen on the body shape, but still it's a pretty cool guitar.

[WezV]

i am confused about your method for slotting the fretboard

it seems you slotted it whilst it was still a rectangular blank - i think most of us slot it once its tapered if we are doing this kind of thing.

if you measured your two scale lengths down each side of a rectangular blank i think you will have some tuning issues as each string will begoing across different scale lengths

i hope i am wrong

[SJE-Guitars]

i am confused about your method for slotting the fretboard

it seems you slotted it whilst it was still a rectangular blank - i think most of us slot it once its tapered if we are doing this kind of thing.

if you measured your two scale lengths down each side of a rectangular blank i think you will have some tuning issues as each string will begoing across different scale lengths

i hope i am wrong

As I've never considered doing a fanned fret guitar I'd never considered that! The scales should be measured on the actual tapered board since they will naturally narrow/widen on a rectangular blank, so say if it was a 27 - 25.5 cut on a rectangular board the 27 and 25.5 would only be at the edges which is cut away and what is left is a board with scales somewhere between 27 - 25.5. Is my logic right?

[Metalhead28]

i am confused about your method for slotting the fretboard

it seems you slotted it whilst it was still a rectangular blank - i think most of us slot it once its tapered if we are doing this kind of thing.

if you measured your two scale lengths down each side of a rectangular blank i think you will have some tuning issues as each string will begoing across different scale lengths

i hope i am wrong

I guess it would still work fine, but your min & max scale lengths just wouldn't be what you may have intended originally, depending on whether or not you took all of this into consideration?

[ihocky2]

That body looks small for some reason, but in a good way. At first I didn't think I was going to like the head stock, when it was rough cut. But it looks much nicer on the finished guitar. And there is just some part of me that is a sucker for a white guitar.

[Stewey]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Don't worry, I measured the fret positions down the tapered sides of the fretboard. I just like to keep the board square while I cut the slots as I find it easier to clamp.

The body is 1&1/4", just thick enough for a 3 way toggle switch. The scales are 25" to 27".

[WezV]

Don't worry, I measured the fret positions down the tapered sides of the fretboard. I just like to keep the board square while I cut the slots as I find it easier to clamp.

fair enough - i just wanted to clarify for anyone who hasnt made one yet... because it will not play in tune if you use the edges of a rectangular blank for your scale length measurements

[Vinny]

Nice job Stewey! It looks like the 7th fret in perpendicular to the neck, is there a general rule for which middle fret you want to fall in the center of the fan ? I understand scale length and fingerboard layout, but Im still trying to wrap my head around a multi-scale set-up. Does it play in tune with a guitar tuned to standard 440? -Vinny

[Kenny]

out of curiosity, how did you acquire that bridge?

also I like how there is a lot of motion in the guitar, I think the body would generally be disproportionate however given the rest of your design I think it works well.

and here is my theory on multi scale fingerboards

when I first designed my multi scale boards i did it using the taper as my reference. I realized however that since my reference was at an angle to a normal that my proportions would be slightly skewed and as the stings grew closer to a normal the intonation would be less accurate.

I decided the best method for me was laying out the two scale lengths parallel to each other, even though the strings go through multiple scale lengths I did my best to make it so the outer most strings only angle 1.5 degree or so from the normal. I just felt that the intonation would be more accurate this way. I think its also important to note that no guitar is going to have perfect intonation since the strings are angled across the frets, multi scale guitars really just solve the issue of tension IMO, and they look cool as heck

time for jury duty...

Kenny

EDIT: teach me how to spell

Edited April 30, 2009 by Kenny

[Stewey]

Yeah the 7th fret is the perpendicular one. I did a few drawings with the fret at various spots and 7 looked the best to me. You can place the perpendicular fret where ever you like, just remember that the further you go from the middle of the board the more drastic the angle will be at the ends.

I have it tuned standard and it plays and intonates great.

I made the bridge myself. It is simply a piece of angle aluminium, 3mm thick. I borrowed the saddles off of a cheap strat bridge.

Kenny - thanks for the comment. I also thought the same as you when I started drawing my neck design, however I started to think that it may be more accurate to measure the scale down each tapered side as then you are effectively measuring your scale down the strings. The whole purpose of the design is to set a different scale length on each string.

Does anyone else have a theory on this?

[WezV]

i think we need some cunning diagrams!! i know there was discussion on how the parallel vs straight edged board affected the validity of the novax patent but cant remember why.

so far i have done it 3 times with measurements on the tapered board and intonation has been great all across the fretboard. i know for sure that the outer strings are not crossing across scale lengths becuase that is where the scale length is measured. i am fairly sure the other strings just fall into place between that - but i would need to draw it out again and measure to be sure the scale lengths were correct at each fret location... i am not going to. doing the scale lengths parallel so the string obviously crosses scale lengths seems crazy so i am not sure how you think thats better kenny, maybe i am being dense

obviously the importance of this is dictated by scale length difference. a large fan and these small differences become very important

[Galaga_Mike]

Beautiful! This really makes me want to do a fanned fret guitar.

Do you need to do anything special to the nut since the strings don't leave the nut perpendicularly? I would guess that the angle is small enough to not pinch a string.

[Xanthus]

I'm curious as to how the pickups sound, being straight on a fanned fret guitar. The bridge pickup on the lower strings must sound more like a middle pickup, no? Which would be great if you were doing a baritone build, but I'm not so sure on a regular guitar.

That's really the only thing preventing me from building a fanned fret - having to make pickups that follow the scales instead of getting straight pickups.

[WezV]

so far i have used straight pickups on all 3, this is because i wanted to use a particular brand rather than simple laziness... honest. i have worked on the theory that it works out not too different to how a bridge pickup is angled on a strat. it never hurt van halen!!

[Stewey]

Thanks Galaga Mike, with the nut you just make it as regular while taking the angles into account.

I had the same resoning as Wez with the pickups. I wanted to leave the option of using any humbucker in the future. I also looked at it like a strat angled pickup.

[MP63]

I love such individual originals.

Great work.

[Cam]

^ rail pickups might combat that no?

I like fanned fret guitars in general so i like yours. Although i'm not to found of the body, looks long and skinny.

[Stewey]

Thanks MP63.

Rail pickups might solve which problem Cam? Angling a normally spaced pickup?

The body looking long and skinny is a bit of an optical illusion. It is really not very different from a standard les paul, it is probably about a cm difference on most of the edges except for the horn which is quite a bit smaller.

[Cam]

i was replying to the last post of the 1st page. Every now and then i stop thinking and just think that a thread is only one page long and don't click to the next page

[Stewey]

Ahh that makes more sense, you need to set more posts per page.

[Geo]

Beautiful design and beautiful work! I think the "lopsided" body works great with the unequal scales. The design looks like it's in motion in many directions at once. Very cool!