The Fan-Fret Builds — tyson hand-did

The Fan-Fret Builds | Since I posted I have built two guitars: one as a "big brother" to the Ukulele I built for Sara earlier this year and a second that I built for my buddy Steve McIntyre. Both are multi-scale instruments, or fan-fret guitars, and the process of designing and building these instruments has been a revelation for me.

Why Fan-Frets? As you can see, the frets on this guitar are not straight.

So here is the deal, at least one explanation that is simple if not the whole story: the thicker, lower strings sound better being longer, the higher, thinner strings sound better being shorter.

Here was the revelation: the tone and sound of the guitar is first determined by the scale length (the length of the strings). The wood simply flavors this primary tonality.

Here are a few more pics.

As you can see the figuring of this Black Limba wood is just gorgeous.

One innovation on this guitar is a "drop in" pinless bridge. The strings just sit in a hole in the back without the need for pins or anything else. Makes for very easy string changes. Thanks to a design by Charles Fox for this idea.

I am pulling together all my build pics for the second fan-fret, #5 that I build for Steve McIntyre. That guitar just turned out spectacular. Keep an eye out - I'll be posting those build pics soon.