Incoming Weird Guitar

JB_From_Hell said:
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 :)
Click to expand...

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 didn’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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Nsatke81 said:
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 didn’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.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

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 :)
 
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.
 
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...
 
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.
 
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