[Justin Bailey]

those are some sick geetars brother.

[Chellee Guitars]

Here's some shots of an old Carvin I modded. It was an instrument that had been abandoned at the shop I was working at. It was originally built with a Kahler Spyder tremolo which was trashed. Kahler was not producing guitar parts at the time so I had to come op with an alternative. The guitar was painted all black, but had some checking in the finish. I noticed that under the finish it looked like a solid maple guitar, so I proceeded to strip the guitar. I ended up plugging the front and rear cavities with maple, but wanted to cover them up so that I could put an oil finish on the guitar. The sun inlay design is one that I came up with a few months before and had already used to cover a top-mount Kahler cavity on a 7/8 start Warmoth body (that guitar ended up being fretless). I added a moon to the back to cover the plugged spring cavity. I also didn't like the hockey-stick headstock and opted for straight string pull. Not exactly one of my original from-scratch guitars, but a nice piece just the same, and also not on my web site. Enjoy!

[Apophis]

Awesome work

[TheMissing]

Nice!

[Horus]

I have a serious question about scalloped frets. The consensus in forum boards is that scalloped frets improve the speed of how you play, and possibly work against the idea of weakening the effects of painful calluses from extensive playing time.

What does it do for you? Is it worth playing around with one of my older guitars to see for myself instead?

[Chellee Guitars]

The short answer is that a scalloped fretboard = really REALLY tall frets. Playing faster cannot be attributed to a scalloped fretboard, but here's my two cents on why this is thought to be true:

When many players start playing guitar they start on a cheap guitar. Whether it is acoustic or electric it is usually not setup well, especially the nut. I have found that every guitar that comes through my shop can use having the nut slots cut deeper, unless I have already done it. Since most people start learning guitar in first position that means that most of us are forced to work harder with our fretting hand to make clean notes. This gives us a reference point of pressure that we eventually translate to the entire guitar. Most players press the fret down until their finger stop moving, or hits the fretboard. The result can be premature fret wear, wear ing of the wood on the board between string (especially in rosewood) and basic intonation problems from bending the string down with pressure.

You cannot play that way on a scalloped board.

There is no wood under the strings to stop you.

What I found was that, being fortunate enough to receive a well setup guitar as my first instrument I did not have to make much of an adjustment in my playing style, but it did still take me a while to get used to. After a while though I began to feel the point where the string made contact with the fret and stopped added pressure at that point. What happened was I began to work less to play guitar. Because I exerted less force when I played, I did not tire as easily. I also had less distance to cover when picking my fingers off the notes. Because the scalloped neck forced me to refine my left hand technique, I now play faster. Now that I feel the point of fret contact when I play I have no problem playing that way on a non-scalloped neck. They are a great teaching tool.

The advantages I still experience with my scalloped necks is in bending and vibrato. With nothing under the string you can get more of your fingertip next to the string so that you don't have to work as hard to bend notes. Because of this the strings feel almost a full gauge lighter than they are. I have .011-.049" on my guitar (6 string, 25" scale) and they feel like .010"s. I like the tone of heavier strings. Also you can get the action lower with heavier strings (less rotation distance). The action is about 3/64" all the way across. I usually like it a bit lower and have no problem getting there with .011s, but this guitar hangs on display and most of my customers can't hang with my action.

On a side note, I never felt a huge advantage to the four scalloped frets on the Vai guitars. With a fully scalloped board you can bend a full step with .011's tuned standard on the first fret and not kill yourself doing it. If you're going to play with it, then do the whole neck. It's worth the effort IMO.

[ShawnFjellstad]

goddamn. with that last one i think you cemented my ideas of eventually getting a custom from you.
the moon on the back is incredible.

[Apophis]

Originally Posted by Chellee Guitars

The short answer is that a scalloped fretboard = really REALLY tall frets. Playing faster cannot be attributed to a scalloped fretboard, but here's my two cents on why this is thought to be true:

When many players start playing guitar they start on a cheap guitar. Whether it is acoustic or electric it is usually not setup well, especially the nut. I have found that every guitar that comes through my shop can use having the nut slots cut deeper, unless I have already done it. Since most people start learning guitar in first position that means that most of us are forced to work harder with our fretting hand to make clean notes. This gives us a reference point of pressure that we eventually translate to the entire guitar. Most players press the fret down until their finger stop moving, or hits the fretboard. The result can be premature fret wear, wear ing of the wood on the board between string (especially in rosewood) and basic intonation problems from bending the string down with pressure.

You cannot play that way on a scalloped board.

There is no wood under the strings to stop you.

What I found was that, being fortunate enough to receive a well setup guitar as my first instrument I did not have to make much of an adjustment in my playing style, but it did still take me a while to get used to. After a while though I began to feel the point where the string made contact with the fret and stopped added pressure at that point. What happened was I began to work less to play guitar. Because I exerted less force when I played, I did not tire as easily. I also had less distance to cover when picking my fingers off the notes. Because the scalloped neck forced me to refine my left hand technique, I now play faster. Now that I feel the point of fret contact when I play I have no problem playing that way on a non-scalloped neck. They are a great teaching tool.

The advantages I still experience with my scalloped necks is in bending and vibrato. With nothing under the string you can get more of your fingertip next to the string so that you don't have to work as hard to bend notes. Because of this the strings feel almost a full gauge lighter than they are. I have .011-.049" on my guitar (6 string, 25" scale) and they feel like .010"s. I like the tone of heavier strings. Also you can get the action lower with heavier strings (less rotation distance). The action is about 3/64" all the way across. I usually like it a bit lower and have no problem getting there with .011s, but this guitar hangs on display and most of my customers can't hang with my action.

On a side note, I never felt a huge advantage to the four scalloped frets on the Vai guitars. With a fully scalloped board you can bend a full step with .011's tuned standard on the first fret and not kill yourself doing it. If you're going to play with it, then do the whole neck. It's worth the effort IMO.

I think scalloped fretboard is awesome teaching tool how to play smooth and without extra preasure. When you can play that after a while, non scallpoped fretboards are much easier to play, because your fingers using those like scalloped, so playing faster is possible then, no matter scalloped or not.
Even playing full chord, power chords, etc. on non-scalloped is much easier and more fun, but with scalloped at the begining in a real pain in the ass But again if you can play them correctly using scalloped fretboard, with non-scalloped you'll nitice much improvement in your skills.

[Chellee Guitars]

You also extend the life of your frets. When you don't drive the strings into the fretwire you don't gouge holes in the frets. Granted I don't get to play as much as I used to, but I don't wear frets easily. I can't remember the last time I did fretwork on one of my guitars because of wear. Your intonation is improved dramatically also. If you don't sharp the notes from pressing to hard and you don't flatten out the frets from wear, you can rely on a well intonated instrument for quite a long time. Once you lighten your fretting technique the benefits carry over to every instrument you play.

The only exception is the few individuals who already play this way. Those are the guys that pick up a scalloped neck for the first time strung with .009"s and have no real adjustment issues.

It's definitely easier to get used to with slightly heavier strings.

[Apophis]

I agree that with heavier strings it's easier to used to, but I play scalloped fretboard using even 007, so imo, when you can play using thin strings, non-scalloped fretboards will be nothing scarry then