ragman

The new guitar for Mr.Fastfinger is ready. It is called "Qian". Mika visited me and tested the guitar in any detaills with different amps and in context with a band. He was amazed by the guitar and Mr.Fastfinger will use this guitar in the future. You can hear some soundfiles on his site very soon, but now here are pictures of the guitar. http://www.benreuters.de/pics/qian/qian_ganz.jpg http://www.benreuters.de/pics/qian/qian_back.jpg http://www.benreuters.de/pics/qian/detaill_1.jpg http://www.benreuters.de/pics/qian/detaill_2.jpg http://www.benreuters.de/pics/qian/detaill_4.jpg http://www.benreuters.de/pics/qian/detaill_5.jpg Ben __________________ watch out: www.benreuters.de

Thanks for the nice words. The sound of this bass is very nice in my opinion. I use electronics of Noll, a german company, which makes nice active circuits. You can choose between the passive mode by pulling the volume knob a little bit and the active mode. In the passive mode you can already feel the attack of it, the tone is very clear. And when you are in active mode, you can equalize your sound with the knobs. If you give more bass and treble to the sound it is really growling. But you can also realize some funky sounds with the right adjustment. The pickups are also from a german company, rough crystals. They are controlled with a balance knob. Perhaps the picture helps: The single string bridges are nice. You can adjust your own string spacing. I like that very much. This bass has a little narrower spacing than ordinary 4 strings.

OK, I am back with the final result. I sanded the whole body, so that I could take epoxy-resin and stabilize the wood with it, it works great, thank you for that hint. Furthermore I made a new sunburst with a two-component-lacquer. Well i am so happy to post the new result. Here are the pictures: body-front body-front2 back body_back Because you cant see the pictures from the past, here is a link to a short documentation of "zero". docu Thank you for your interest. regards ben

It ´s been awhile since I started this bass-project, but finally I have finished the bass. I sprayed very many aerosol-cans on this bass, because the lacquer soaks into the spalted maple very much. Well here you can see the body after a few clear coats: body1 But here you can see a little mistake, I drilled through the body, because that spalted maple has a very soft consistence: body2 Ok, I did not want to accept this and had to find a solution by making a sunburst finish. It became a deep blackburst, but I like it very much: Another view on it: body4 The headstock got the same finish and my brand logo: head1 head2 Thank you for you interest and tell me how do you like this finish. Ben

Well the price of a custom build guitar vary between 2000 and 2500 Euros. You can understand that the wood and parts have very much influence on the price. Furthermore I concentarte on the designs I have built in the past(at the moment). I do not build Les Pauls i.e. But I plan to make a kind of a little series of that fastfinger guitar. You can choose only the wood, pickups, colour and so on... but the design is the same. I hope I can give this guitar for about 1500 Euros away (this prize will be updated when the guitar is finished and I know the work on it). Ben

So a shred guitar is a guitar that allows such playing. Of course every guitar could be used for this, but there are guitars which are better for it. As you said: low action, good access to high frets, and I think a versatile sound for different styles. So you have to choose the right the pickups and electronics. We agreed on the Seymour Duncan SH-2 in the neck and the SH-10 in the bridge. You can switch both of them to Single Coils. I will describe the electronics properly when the guitar is ready. Mika and me designed a guitar which will be perfect for shredding, a mixture between a "old-school" Strat and a modern "Jem" guitar. Best of both worlds. A Les Paul is guitar for Rock, but not for Shred. This is my opinion. As visual features I use that Carbon-fibers everywhere a normal guitar has plastic.

Hi, I want to present my new project on a shred guitar for Mr.Fastfinger. I designed this guitar together with Mika Tyyskä, the pubisher and guitar player from http://www.guitarshredshow.com/ So here you can see the progress of the guitar: http://www.benreuters.de/shredguitar_progress_eng.htm Any statements are welcome. Thanks for your interest. Ben

Hello again, because i had to do some practical courses i could not work on my project . But today i had some time do shape the neck. Here you can see the newest photos: I used the same wood as for the body. The shape is my own design, at least i do not know the design - perhaps there is a company who made it before...The fretboard is ebony. http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/320836...seite_klein.jpg http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/320836...tlich_klein.jpg The whole neck: http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/320836..._ganz_klein.jpg I hope next week i can shape the body. You will get the photos soon... Greets Ben

Thank you for your comments . Ok, where can i find the rules of pic posting. I changed the links, as you can see . I hope this is ok. greets ben

Hi, thank you for your comments and that you remind me of the pic rules. Now you can use the links. Of course i know that these woods come from america. The walnut for example is called "amerikanischer Nussbaum". But i also know, that your(american) guitars are made of quite normal woods, too. I never saw a spalted maple top on a gibson or fender. I think the word "exotic" does not say something about the origin in this context. I use it for quite unusual and beautiful. The electronics will be made by myself. It will be an active circuit and i thought about some onboard effects, like an autowah or an tremolo. I will use some very good pickups called Rough Crystals. It will be an four string, fretted bass. Some explanations to the first picture: In the front you can see the wood, in the back there is a mirror with a paper body on it. This is a printing of an photoshop made design. Greets Ben

This is my newest project. For the first time i designed the whole intrument from my own personal taste. Furthermore i only use exotic/nice woods. Here you can see the top wood-spalted maple on the walnut body: Here is the back of the guitar. The electronics-cover will be made in "continious wood" style. http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/31589162.jpg/korpus2.jpg The neck is build of three pieces of flamed maple: http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/31589178.jpg/hals1.jpg I saw the head angle with a japanese saw. http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/31589194.jpg/hals2.jpg Here in coarse stage: http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/31589210.jpg/hals3.jpg And here ist the german sheep dog loaning his name. Zero: http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/315895...kstatthund1.jpg Greets from germany Ben

hi, long ago, but i got round to give my baby a finish. it is a high polish transparant finish with open pores. i love such finishes and can not understand why you can never get such a finish regularly (at least in not in germany). it looks so cool on mahogany. here you can see it. http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/31850186.jpg/lack5.jpg details: http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/31850122.jpg/lack1.jpg http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/31850138.jpg/lack2.jpg http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/31850170.jpg/lack4.jpg ciao ben

Hi, i wonder why nobody gives a comment to my project, is it so good or so bad???Hmmm probably the pictures are not so expressive. Well i tried to make some interesting photos. This is my first trial in making an inlay. Because the body shape is called buzzard, i made an inlay which shows a buzzard who swoops. The real buzzard http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/306758...pg/SMMB0089.jpg The progress of cutting the inlay out of mother of pearl. http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/306756...pg/PICT0014.jpg http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/306756...pg/PICT0015.jpg http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/306757...pg/PICT0017.jpg Here it lays on the fretboard http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/306757...pg/PICT0018.jpg In the next two picture you can see the trussrod cover, which i made of macassar ebony, the same is used for the fretboard. http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/306757...pg/PICT0019.jpg http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/306757...pg/PICT0020.jpg The whole guitar, almost done And a little details of the neck through constuction. http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/306757...pg/PICT0022.jpg I hope you like the new pictures more. If you have any questions, i will answer them. Greets from Germany

Hi, my last project, an explorer shaped guitar turned out to be a very nice instruments. so i decided to build some more instruments. this project is a 5 string bass with a buzzard shape that john entwistle designed with warwick in the eighties. here are the first steps: i sawed the body and head out of oddments(mahogany) of the explorer project. the neck is made of three pieces of wood(kambala and jatoba). http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/304935...pg/PICT0003.jpg first i tried to laminate graphite pieces between the wood. unfortunatally it was a disappointment, bacause the epoxy could not join the pieces of wood properly. i finally used glue again.you can see it here: http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/304935...pg/PICT0008.jpg Here you can see the trussrod channel: http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/304936...pg/PICT0014.jpg In this picture you can see two steel rods. i put them into the neck and hope, that it adds sustain to the bass. i saw this at www. warmoth.com. http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/304936...pg/PICT0021.jpg My last photo till now: http://www.smartgroups.com/picvault/304936...pg/PICT0023.jpg Next Week i will take more photos. greets from germany ragman

Hi, ok, because threre is some misunderstandings in other forums (there is a guy who says he built my guitar ) i have to say that i use the name "benwolf666" in other forums, if the name ragman is no more available. Thank you for your understanding . So greets from germany again RAGMAN or BENWOLF666