# 3 fanfrets im building



## 72xmulch (Feb 23, 2013)

hi. i built my first guitar when i was 17, 15 years ago.. it came out "cool" but i fucked it up. i had no understanding about scale length/intonation and bought a premade fretboard i have no clue what it was meant for, so for years i thought everyone else was out of tune, ha ha... one day i will replace it. 
I dream much bigger than my budget will ever be and try to build everything i want because of that.. im sure i am getting in way over my head, but i dont care, gotta learn somehow and time flies too fast to "practice" so here i go.. 

for me and my band, i am building 2 matching 6 string guitars and a 5 string bass, neck though, "headless" fanned fret thingamabobs..







The bass scale is 32.5-31.5... he has tiny hands and cant/wont play a long scale bass, hopefully this will still work good tuned down to drop B.. what strings should i put on this thing?

The guitars scales are 27-25.5, perpendicular fret around 7?

first i cut out the neck pieces.. 3 flame maple slices 2 purpleheart slices.. wow, purpleheart realy is a pain in the ass to work with!! non stop annoying splinters, and almost impossible to hand plane.. i have to sharpen the blade every 3 minutes, so at this pace it will take me about a hundred hours doing the 6 pieces by hand.. hopefully this weekend i can use a friends electric planer..

then i cut out body pieces.. the bass is zebra wood, the guitars are purpleheart backs and what i thought was cocobolo fronts but i bought it YEARS ago and it could be something else..





























my original plan was to get strandberg* or ASM bridge/tuners untill i price checked them and realized itll be about $400 per guitar.. BAH! like i said, im broke... so after doing a bunch of research on how to make my own, i stumbled on watchkey/preston tuners used since the 1500's on mandolins and shit.. 









im basically doing exactly this idea but mounted individually for the fan fret.. the string riding on a screw in the front to adjust height, a notch in the bottom to screw into the body and adjust for intonation .. the tuning gets done with a "dowel nut" a hole drilled in it for the string to go through and a allen bolt.. costs about 1.50 each. boom. i was looking for tuning knobs and basically decided to go with the "watchkey" way.. but so we dont have to scramble for a tool drunk onstage in the dark, i am going to make a Key out of a chopped off allen wrench welded to a cool coin, attached to one of those retractable lighter/key chains hidden in the body just under the bridge..
heres a video of it working. i didnt take a picture of it.
Prototype headless fanned fret guitar tuner test - YouTube


so this is where im at right now. i need glue.. hopefully this weekend i can plane the neck pieces and glue it up. im trying to figure out what other stuff i can blow off so i can spend more time doing this..


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## Brill (Feb 23, 2013)

I want one.


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## skeels (Feb 23, 2013)

These look wild! 

Also, love the tuning key idea.

+1


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## Hollowway (Feb 23, 2013)

Wow, awesome body design! I love it!!


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## gordon_mlz (Feb 23, 2013)

Fuckin rad dude. That's how much first two builds began: no time to "practice" building, and my friend and I wanted 8-strings, sooo.. bought some wood and started building! Didn't hurt that I had an engineering degree, fine woodworking experience and already owned a lot of the necessary tools.

Can't wait to see the final results!


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## BillNephew (Feb 23, 2013)

That's awesome. I've never even heard of those types of tuners. I'm tempted to make a few of these myself for my frankencigarbox I built a year ago. I used wingnuts with the string hooked on the end of the wing attached to a steel plate and had to use a ratchet to tune the strings since I didn't have any thumbscrews on hand


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## Watty (Feb 23, 2013)

I HATE extreme guitar shapes...But these look phenomenal!


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## KITSCH (Feb 23, 2013)

So So gnarly! Kudos


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## 72xmulch (Feb 23, 2013)

Wow, thanks guys! I Didn't expect such a positive response for some reason, so that's cool. now I can't get lazy and abandon the project because people are watching me, ha ha.. and i found time today to plane the neck pieces! Tomorrow I start gluing them together


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## 72xmulch (Feb 23, 2013)

Hollowway said:


> Wow, awesome body design! I love it!!





Watty said:


> I HATE extreme guitar shapes...But these look phenomenal!



Thanks guys!! But, I can't take credit for it unfortunately.. its my version of an Auerswald Naomi 

HOME 






I don't know much about these guys but I read somewhere the prices start at +$10,000??!!


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## 72xmulch (Feb 24, 2013)

BillNephew said:


> That's awesome. I've never even heard of those types of tuners. I'm tempted to make a few of these myself for my frankencigarbox I built a year ago. I used wingnuts with the string hooked on the end of the wing attached to a steel plate and had to use a ratchet to tune the strings since I didn't have any thumbscrews on hand


Yeah It was a pain finding store bought hardware that can work without having to do a bunch of prepwork to the strings.. and, I'm really trying to make these look "professional"
So i think I'm going to make a cover for the whole thing.. it feels a little wobbly when its first put together, but the string tension springs it together pretty solid.. no buzzing or anything.. if you're not worried about it looking cheap, you can basically just use 
This 





And this with a hole drill through it for the string to sit


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## veshly (Feb 24, 2013)

Holy shit, really dig that body.


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## UnderTheSign (Feb 24, 2013)

Seems interesting, I'll definitely keep an eye on this thread!


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## capone1 (Feb 24, 2013)

I've thought about doing a headless build but didn't want the cost of the strandberg system either. Thanks for doing the R&D work for the rest of us. 

Thread watched!


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## BlackWidowESP (Feb 24, 2013)

8th fret should be perpendicular


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## 72xmulch (Feb 24, 2013)

why the 8th?


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## 72xmulch (Feb 24, 2013)

i was under the assumption that it didnt matter, am i wrong? i put it lower because i spend most of my time down there and it seems like it would be more comfortable.. but i can still change it if need be


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## 72xmulch (Feb 24, 2013)

capone1 said:


> I've thought about doing a headless build but didn't want the cost of the strandberg system either. Thanks for doing the R&D work for the rest of us.
> 
> Thread watched!


heres a thread on another board with detailed pics on a similar design someone else did.. i more or less did the same thing but with bought hardware and mounted individually 
Travel Guitar With Build In Gt2 - Page 4 - In Progress and Finished Work - Project Guitar Forum


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## BlackMastodon (Feb 24, 2013)

72xmulch said:


> i was under the assumption that it didnt matter, am i wrong? i put it lower because i spend most of my time down there and it seems like it would be more comfortable.. but i can still change it if need be


No, you aren't wrong. The perpendicular fret is a matter of personal preference as far as I can tell.

The way I see it, the perpendicular fret should be as close to where your fret hand's elbow is when holding the guitar, so it should be even with your arm when it's perpendicular to the neck. This makes the most sense to me from an ergonomic standpoint.


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## 72xmulch (Feb 24, 2013)

BlackMastodon said:


> No, you aren't wrong. The perpendicular fret is a matter of personal preference as far as I can tell.
> 
> The way I see it, the perpendicular fret should be as close to where your fret hand's elbow is when holding the guitar, so it should be even with your arm when it's perpendicular to the neck. This makes the most sense to me from an ergonomic standpoint.


cool, thats what i was thinking..


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## 72xmulch (Feb 24, 2013)

today i glued the neck laminates. i made a little jig to hold them straight while theyre all slippery and clamping down on em.. covered it in plastic wrap so only the neck sticks together. i wish i had more clamps but this seems to work


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## 72xmulch (Feb 24, 2013)

i still havent figured out what im doing about pickups. heres a conversation i started about that
http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/lu...ckup-instead-slanted-6-string-multiscale.html

i am going to take apart a junk pickup for practice on making a slanted pickup because even if it works, i think it looks too weird having a crooked pickup in there.. im also thinking about winding my own, because i have a broken sewing machine that will work for it..


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## ElRay (Feb 25, 2013)

Nice work!

Check out Building the Ergonomic Guitar: Guitar Designs. Ergonomics. Guitar Making. there's a bunch of threads with alternate headless tuners.

Ray


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## ixlramp (Feb 26, 2013)

Nice design, i like Auerswald guitars too.


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## Thrashmanzac (Feb 26, 2013)

good god that is a great design. I look forward to seeing how this turns out!


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## BlackWidowESP (Feb 26, 2013)

72xmulch said:


> why the 8th?



That's just the way I was taught to lay them out, I never really wondered why


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## 72xmulch (Mar 1, 2013)

im pretty close to the 8th fret right now, but i might move it back closer to the 12, i dont know yet.. so the neck blanks glue dried and on the jointer i squared everything up nice and clean. now i have to figure out the neck angle and hopefully this weekend cut it so i can glue the wings on. or should i route the truss rods in first? I also just realized that i cut the neck blanks to REALLY close tolerances so at this point i cant really make any mistakes without having to change my plans.. next time ill be more careful to leave much more play room.. also, while i feel confident that i can make my own tuners all by hand and look good individually, making all 17 of them consistently matching each other and not looking sloppy with too much variance between eachothers filed/sanded shape.. not sure how to pull that off. Now im thinking about having the "tubs" machined out of brass so they all match. i wonder how much that will cost?
















right now i have a little notch dremeled in the bottom so it can be moved back and forth before screwing down to adjust intonation, but i would really like to use saddles instead of a screw for the string to ride on so ill probably change the front end of it a little..


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## Pikka Bird (Mar 1, 2013)

^That's a pretty nice concept there. What did you make the "tub" out of? And is the tuner screw loose enough to turn by hand when the string is close to pitch?


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## Kroaton (Mar 1, 2013)

How is the little aluminium thread/ball end post attached to the black screw?


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## 72xmulch (Mar 28, 2014)

the black screw pulls the silver "bolt", i drilled a hole in the bolt to hold the string. so now im thinking about making a box to hold all 6 tuners and mounting it inside the guitar, tuning it from the back.. using bridge pieces like these will take care of the adjustability issues..


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