Ben Liggett Fan-fret electric

[CoolerKing]

Full disclosure--I -might- have gotten a little leeway about posting an electric thread in the custom shop due to my volunteer works as a mod here, and I did clear it here with JR.

So, without further adieu, I give you Benjamin Liggett from Oklahoma. He is well known in the custom/one-off electric world, and consigns his guitars at destroyallguitars.com, one of the preemenint online electric dealers.

www.liggettguitars.com
www.destroyallguitars.com

Ben trained at Roberto-Venn in Arizona, where many of our friends including Mike Baranik and Jason Kostal trained. He moved towards electric and also moonlights as a finisher at a banjo company in Oklahoma, where he does hand rubbed sunbusts on maple routinely.

I decided on Ben because his aesthetic is above par, his stock pickups are either Lollars or Bare Knuckle, and he was willing to do a fan fret six string with acoustic neck dimensions which I'll elaborate later.

Specs are so far:

Six string pragmatist body style
1 3/4 nut ( weird for electric I know.)
Headless fan fret with locking nut and tremolo arm (cool Italian design)
Two BK or Lollar hummers wired to a six way switch for both single Coil split Knopfler tone and full les Paul hb sound.

Fan fret and scale yet to be determined.

Woods are:
Solid flamed maple billet book matched, carved so top is separated from body and then interior chambered, and the top carved and put back on:



We both want a retro aesthetic, so a heritage cherry sunburst seems appropriste:

[justonwo]

This is going to be awesome! Great looking wood there!

[Michael Watts]

You have my attention...

[ukejon]

Originally Posted by Michael Watts

You have my attention...

Yes indeed....nice chunk of wood!

[CoolerKing]

An update to our plans:

Fan fret chambered maple body,,headless, fan fret tremolo.

Maple body maple fretboard:



Maple body ebony fretboard:

[CoolerKing]

Laminated neck

[CoolerKing]

Liggett's most recent maple burst:



The shape of the guitar will be more like this one, except headless and more of a late fifties les Paul cherry sunburst. More to come later!

[CoolerKing]

Two piece full thickness flamed maple billet in house. Top will be cut off, body chambered, and then replaced. I don't think this has ever been done before with a book matched flamed billet to create an electric. Stay tuned!

[rogthefrog]

Cool! Looking forward to seeing the final product.

What hardware are you going to use?

[Marcus Wong]

My vote would be for the Ebony fret board

[CoolerKing]

Originally Posted by rogthefrog

Cool! Looking forward to seeing the final product.

What hardware are you going to use?

We went with a company from Italy:

www.technologyformusicians.com

Pretty much the only people we could find that were doing headless locking nut and fan-fret tremolo. Check out their site, pretty cool stuff. There was a guy in Sweden, Strandberg or something like that, doing similar stuff, but he stopped selling his wares recently.

Originally Posted by Marcus Wong

My vote would be for the Ebony fret board

I'm leaning that way too, but we're going to do a formal mock-up once all the wood arrives and make a decision then.

[Burton LeGeyt]

Everytime I see this thread on the main page I do a double take! My brothers name is Ben and lots of people mis-spell my name like Liggett.

The mock ups look cool! Can't wait to see it come together.

[rogthefrog]

Originally Posted by matthewpartrick

We went with a company from Italy:

www.technologyformusicians.com

Pretty much the only people we could find that were doing headless locking nut and fan-fret tremolo. Check out their site, pretty cool stuff. There was a guy in Sweden, Strandberg or something like that, doing similar stuff, but he stopped selling his wares recently.



I'm leaning that way too, but we're going to do a formal mock-up once all the wood arrives and make a decision then.

Strandberg stopped selling guitars, or just hardware to other manufacturers?

I hope it's the latter, because I've been meaning to try his guitars.

Cool project.

[CoolerKing]

Originally Posted by Burton LeGeyt

Everytime I see this thread on the main page I do a double take! My brothers name is Ben and lots of people mis-spell my name like Liggett.

The mock ups look cool! Can't wait to see it come together.

Small world right?!?!?

Originally Posted by rogthefrog

Strandberg stopped selling guitars, or just hardware to other manufacturers?

I hope it's the latter, because I've been meaning to try his guitars.

Cool project.

I'm not sure, the website is a little vague on that specific point.

Also, Ben wanted me to clarify that the above computer mock-ups are from Ormsby guitars and were only intended to show wood and hardware choices, no body style etc.

[GeoffStGermaine]

Originally Posted by rogthefrog

Strandberg stopped selling guitars, or just hardware to other manufacturers?

I hope it's the latter, because I've been meaning to try his guitars.

Cool project.

It's the just the hardware. He's still delivering his guitars. The wait list is quite long from what I've read on some custom electric forums.