Fanned 5

[Skelf]

Thanks for the kind words I certainly try not to produce anything sub-par.
The better the parts before the pre-amp the better the output from the pre-amp no doubt about it. I thought you were saying that if the woods/pickups etc were good then a pre-amp could not really add much beyond that. Sorry if I got that wrong,we are in agrement.
Alan

 

[Al Heeley]

..out of respect for Sheldon and his revolutionary bass designs, I think you should alter your basses body shape. It wouldn't take much. Right now, it's a dead ringer for a Dinger, HEHE.

I have a great respect for Mr. Dingwall, the instruments are awesome to see and I'd love to get my hands on one, but as I've said before, I got this body shape from a trace round my Warmoth Gecko 5 and then gave it a bit more waist and a cut in the tail before I'd ever visited Sheldon's site, and yes it is too late to change the body now. My conscience on this is clear and I hope I have not offended anyone in this matter, for that was certainly not my intention.
I appreaciate the comments on the pickup quality and pre-amp issues. I am just picking up this craft so with my build quality I find it hard to justify top range gear at the moment. Hopefully after a few more builds my quality will start to warrant more expensive pickups but at the moment I'm getting the skills together and go for lower end more affordable hardware to get the instrument up and running.
If I ever came close to the magnificent instruments Alan and Sheldon produce then it's easy to justify £300 on a set of pickups and £130 on a pre-amp, though my own feeling is a pre-amp does more to cover the shortfalls in a lacklustre bass than enhance a truly great instrument.
Anyway, here's an update on the body progress - curves and contours added plus a couple of rub downs with tru-oil and a fine sanding sponge.
The shape is now finished, awaiting neck pocket and pickup routing.

 

[Darkstrike]

Damn' nice yet again.

 

[SDB Guitars]

You know, when I made my first fanned fret bass, I set the pickups perpendicular, and the owner still loves it. Come to think of it, there are Novax basses with pickups perpendicular to the body line.

I say, go for it. If you don't like it, you can always chalk it up to experience.

 

[JEDI BASS]

Not offended. Sheldon's cool with it, that's all that matters I suppose.

Sheldon has made some perpendicular pickup Dingwalls, in the earlier days. Fullrangebass has one. There's pics of it on one or more recent posts, probably on the dingwall owners post. He comments on it's tone and the differences between the angled pup Dingwalls. You should check it out.

 

[Al Heeley]

Thanks Jedi - I'll look this up in a bit.

 

[SDB Guitars]

...it's easy to justify £300 on a set of pickups and £130 on a pre-amp

Not *always* as easy as you might think... lol

Seriously, though, you should be able to get some pretty nice pickups for about half that price, and the same goes for the preamp...

 

[Al Heeley]

Progress started on the neck. Sorry, not a very exciting picture. Maple blocks glued together with a thin light wood veneer centre stripe to match the body.
Here the truss rod channel has been routed, truss rod installed and the wood fillet inserted over the top and and planed flat.
On previous builds I have really struggled to get a nice neat trim fillet after mucking about with planes and sanders.
This time I used a rasp and surform and got it flush and smooth in about 30 seconds. Marvellous! Never neglect those little hand tools, these silly little jobs can be a real pain with the big power tools and a small surform stands far less chance of taking nasty chunks out of your neck.

 

[Husky]

A new project is brewing. I want to put together a fanned-fret 5-string, low E to high C, 34.5" scale for the low E up to 32.5" scale for the C. 46mm nut, some wood left over from previous builds include some nice sawn and planed maple for a bolt-on neck, and a mahogany-zebrano sandwich body.
Here's first plan sketch

Isnt the fanned fret thing patented?

 

[Al Heeley]

Don't worry, this is a home build for my own interests only, I'm not about to launch a money making enterprise or start marketing the idea. There's plenty of other home build projects using fanned frets, les paul and telecaster shapes and even the occasional rickenbacker rip-off from some unscrupulous builders.

 

[SDB Guitars]

Fanned-Frets(r)(tm) are patented, and also trademarked, so the use of that term is restricted to describing the result of following their patented method, and requires a license from the patent and trademark holder.

Making a multi-scale fingerboard is not a violation of that patent, as they have been around for hundreds of years before there was a US Patent Office, much less a patented process and a trademarked name.

 

[SDB Guitars]

...even the occasional rickenbacker rip-off from some unscrupulous builders.

LOL... that's just too good. I wonder who *that* might be referring to, Al?

 

[Al Heeley]

Heh he hehee.... I'm thinking of a Dingbacker for my next project.

 

[SDB Guitars]

now *that* would be entertaining...

 

[pilotjones]

Wrong. The term Fanned-Fret(R) is a registered trademark. The patent on the fretboard design is expired, and therefore public domain. This is beyond the fact that even Novax, when supplying instructions to a licensee, gave proper instructions, and did not give instructions to follow the patent, which would have resulted in wrong intonation in any instrument that does not have parallel strings.

Novax no longer licenses the patent, because it is expired and therefore free for public use by anyone unfortunate enough to actually follow the method claimed in the patent.

 

[SDB Guitars]

I've heard conflicting reports on the whole "patent expired" item, but just because a patent expires doesn't mean that something wasn't patented. Having read the patent description, it is nothing like the actual method, to my mind.

Has anyone recently contacted Novax about the licensing?

Paul Booker's description seems a lot more accurate, and he's actually patented his version, too... should we be paying him licensing fees?

 

[pilotjones]

As I think I mentioned somewhere, I know a luthier who contacted Novax twice to license the patent. The first time, he licensed the patent. The second time, in October 2006, Novax said that the patent had expired in August 2006, and that they therefor no longer take licensing fees, as they no longer have a right to do so.


Booker's patent is on two different particular methods to produce a fanned board. He notes in the patent that his first method is not dead accurate, but can be close enough, and correctly states that his second method produces perfectly accurate design. Also, interestingly, the patent points out the error in the Novak patent.

In my mind (read: opinion), Booker's second method is intuitively obvious, and therefore should not have received a patent. The patent office did grant it, though, so a legal challenge would be required to dispute it.

Notably, Booker's patent lays claim to two particular methods of laying out the frets, and not to the fret arrangement thus produced.

There's a discussion of Booker's patent here.

 

[Smallequestrian]

I am sure if somebody with enough money not to care could have made basses anyway with non parallel frets as there are a few centuries of prior art.

 

[Al Heeley]

Some stuff arrived today, here's an impatient mockup to check proportions and ctrl spacing.

 

[FretFree]

Doesn't look like you're going to do it, but I really like the fingerboard dot pattern on the drawing! Maybe a bit less practical, but a nice variation.