Incoming Weird Guitar

[Kac]

Can’t wait to see this bad boy!

[Ashurbanipal]

Nice work there. I have one of those guitars (tomato burst and chrome parts) and was thinking a few months ago it would be a good candidate for this kind of job.

[ICTGoober]

One more showing the beautiful grain...

https://i.imgur.com/FbP4YO9.jpg

[jeremy]

anything more than maybe two or three notes would be hard for sure

[Mincer]

https://i.imgur.com/S1RRYm4.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/uD0G3pu.jpg

Wow, that looks great! While I have played fretless bass, I am not sure I could keep entire chords in tune on a fretless guitar.

[ICTGoober]

https://i.imgur.com/S1RRYm4.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/uD0G3pu.jpg

[ICTGoober]

And he did... It went well. Frets came out easily. Seems Epiphone used wood binding on the neck and notched the frets. Usually only see that on high end stuff. Filled the fret slots and sanded the board smooth. It had been dyed black, and sanding revealed the grain of the fingerboard. It's quite attractive. No idea on the species - it had no odor, so it's not rosewood. Got the action down to a gnat's hindquarters, so now it makes all the right rowr-rowr noises. I might up the string gauge from 10's to 12's to help the sustain. No need to bend strings anymore. I think the client will like it. Posting pix next...

[ICTGoober]

So a client has been wondering about having me make one of his cheap Epiphone Les Paul's into a fretless. I have some maple veneer I could glue into the slots. If he pops for it I'll take pix of the process.

[JB_From_Hell]

A couple of years ago I removed and filled the frets from a Yamaha nylon string classical guitar. If you close your eyes and play slowly at first making sure all your notes are in tune, it helps a lot. Also, try to phrase horizontally with lots of slides for register shifts rather than jumping from string to string. You will hear the qualities of the fretless more. It didnā€™t sound like an oud as I had wanted but it was still pretty cool.

I also removed the frets from a Mexican strat around the same time which was cool for solos and playing stuff that sounded like Nile.


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I’ve had a fretless Warwick bass for about a year. It was terrifying the first day I had it, and got to be no big deal pretty quickly. Agree about not looking at the neck.

Also, cool to see another fretless enthusiast

[Nsatke81]

I’m torn between not showing it to any of my local guitar buddies for like a year, or taking it straight over to jam with one of them before I’ve even plugged it in. You gotta be fearless to really embrace something like this

A couple of years ago I removed and filled the frets from a Yamaha nylon string classical guitar. If you close your eyes and play slowly at first making sure all your notes are in tune, it helps a lot. Also, try to phrase horizontally with lots of slides for register shifts rather than jumping from string to string. You will hear the qualities of the fretless more. It didnā€™t sound like an oud as I had wanted but it was still pretty cool.

I also removed the frets from a Mexican strat around the same time which was cool for solos and playing stuff that sounded like Nile.


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[JB_From_Hell]

Fretless guitar? Wanna see the Falbo pics right away, but for playing demonstration, I'll wait for that 59th demo video

I’m torn between not showing it to any of my local guitar buddies for like a year, or taking it straight over to jam with one of them before I’ve even plugged it in. You gotta be fearless to really embrace something like this

[Demanic]

The first instrument I learned how to play was a cello. No frets there.
If you were to pass that beauty to me and say "Give it a shot", I would.

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[JB_From_Hell]

I wanna hear what this thing sounds like!

There’s a short clip of him playing it on Facebook. He using a good amount of gain in the clip, and doesn’t really get into the nuances. He sent me pics of a double neck (fretted and fretless) he’s making for someone else, and mentioned the guy sent him a Sustainer to install on the fretless side. I’m definitely buying an e-bow to use with it.

[Mincer]

I wanna hear what this thing sounds like!

[JB_From_Hell]

Wow, what are the specs on this thing? That is beautiful.

Body is solid maple, routed around the edge, which makes it look like multiple layers. Neck is chunky mahogany, board is rosewood with some finish added to polymerize it a bit. Frank says it still feels like wood, but it’s harder than untreated rosewood. There’s no truss rod, and he says it hasn’t moved in the 8 years since he built it. If it was anybody else, I’d have lost interest at that point, but Frank really knows what he’s doing. Also, considering the deal he offered, if the neck shifts and becomes unplayable, I won’t hesitate to have him build another one for it.

No clue on weight or anything. The hardware is kind of whatever stuff he had around at the time, pickups are obviously PATBs, 3 way, volume, tone, and he’s adding a PRS-style coil split. He asked if I wanted a push/pull or a toggle, I said whatever you have on hand is fine.

Oh yeah, one of the coolest features... a wood nut. I didn’t ask, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did it so the open and “fretted” notes have a more similar tone.