I am designing a new gig-bag, taking into account my own thoughts from having traveled by air, land and sea, as well as commuted on bicycles and trains with my prototype. The image above shows the prototype, which is a conventionally shaped bag, just 100 mm shortened in the neck portion. One thing that I like in particular is the laptop pocket and “fully loaded” organizer pocket in front. I have biked to the day job as well as gone on business trips with laptop, iPad and all other necessities in this bag alone. In addition, the shoulder straps are comfortable and can be fixed to the back of the bag with velcro strips, which are cleverly hidden when not in use. The one thing I noticed is that when I ride my bike (and I do most of the time, and I wear a helmet too) the bag hits me at the back of the head, especially when wearing a helmet. Also, when the bag is squeezed into its waterproof SKB shell as in the picture above, the remaining space could be used more efficiently. The new design addresses both of these issues: As you can see, the bag is asymmetrically shaped, as some hard cases are. It...
Learn MoreMost EGS guitar orders are for stainless frets, which, if you’ve ever worked with them, take a lot of effort to work with. Accurate seating of the frets makes for less leveling work, which in turns leads to less re-crowning work and saves lots of time. I have always hammered my frets in, which doesn’t always meet the above criteria, so I wanted to try pressing in the frets. Conventional presses (read Stewart-MacDonald) come with brass inserts for set radii. But with a compound radius fingerboard, or a multiscale fingerboard, there is a lot of variation of the radii across the fretboard. Additionally, the StewMac inserts are only 63.5 mm (2 1/2″) with isn’t enough for even a 7-string multiscale fingerboard. After a lot of experimenting, I have come up with a preferred compound radius formula starting with 16″ at the zero fret and reaching 20″ at the 24th fret. For a 25.75″-25″ scale on a 7-string with a neutral 4th fret, the following picture shows the radius that each fret describes: As you can see, the increase in radius between each fret is not linear, but less at the first frets and the last frets, due to the angles of the frets. The idea of making the press...
Learn MoreI am designing bass hardware on a tight schedule. If you want to take part and influence in this process, and make sure it meets your requirements, contact me ASAP!
Learn MoreThe baritone hybrid prototype neck is finished enough to mount on a guitar, and I chose #4 since it has a conventional scale. Since this was an experiment, I built the neck in the cheapest possible materials so I could throw it away in case it didn’t work, but it looks like I will not have to do so! A close-up of the headstock: This neck is destined for another demo guitar that I’m building, which will feature the new tremolo. So, as soon as it is finished and someone has figured out how to play it, I will get some sound samples up. Here is how I mounted the string locks, showing just how flexible they...
Learn MoreIn preparation for Tosin Abasi’s (and John Mason’s + possibly more) I have been prototyping the baritone hybrid concept to work out the best way of carving the “headstock” and placing string locks. I could develop a new string lock especially for this, that is more out of the way, but I really want to use the standard one to showcase its versatility. Here’s what I have come up with so far and at least with my playing style, it will work. I aim to get this onto #4 ASAP to try it out. Scale lengths are 28.66″ – 25.5″. Note custom colored (~bronze) hardware slated for Tosin’s guitar, which will have flamed maple top and rosewood...
Learn MoreAnother world first: an easy to use dual-mode locking mechanism for a top-mount tremolo. While at NAMM, Ziv Cohen, Creative Director at an internet outfit, came around to the .strandberg* booth. After seeing the two holes in the new tremolo (giving the option of mounting the tremolo arm on either side for optional left-hand use), he said that “why don’t you give an option to mount a screw there to make it non-floating?” What an awesome idea! I could easily supply an extra wood screw that you could screw into the wood just under where the hole would end up, and then mount a screw in the hole. By tightening the springs and adjusting the screw, the position of the tremolo can be adjusted, and it can be made dive-only. But on the flight back, I thought a little more. So, here for your comments, please check out the “Tremolock” option for the EGS Pro tremolos. In the unlocked position, the tremolo pivots freely, both down and up: Turn the knob a quarter of a turn to make it dive only: Turn the knob a half turn to lock it completely: The Tremolock consist of a small plate that is mounted flush in the body of the guitar, against...
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