Nugget

A fretless guitar is really a misnomer; it is genuinely a separate instrument from a fretted guitar. The playing technique, the sonic space it occupies, and the tone itself are a completely different experience. It’s more a sort of steel-strung electric oud. Thus, the shape of Nugget is an interesting hybrid of oud and guitar.

A light, minimalist body was essential- after all, the experience of playing fretless requires a close personal connection to the instrument, and I didn’t want extraneous decoration to get in the way. The body was a fast-growing yard tree that blew down in a storm- a California redwood with lovely wavy grain. Since a purely teardrop-shaped form would have handling limitations, I added a lamination of two rosewoods across the top, serving as the mounting point for the strap button and a leg rest for seated playing.

The neck is especially important to the fretless player- it must be smooth and slick to enable glissandos, stable enough to maintain a perfect fretboard plane, and hard enough to withstand the direct pressure of the flat-wound steel strings. This spectacular billet of Mekong tulipwood (a variety of true rosewood from southeast asia) with an eye-catching sapwood edge fit the bill perfectly. Planed under string tension on a Plek machine, it has the perfect shape and relief for a consistent “mwhaah” tone over the whole board.

To encourage playing by ear, the fretboard is only marked at the edge. The one-of-a-kind 3d printed metal bridge-tuner combo is uniquely designed for a fretless instrument with no need for intonation adjustment, making it compact and simple to make.

The single neck pickup is an “Abraxas” model by Bareknuckle, with a fluid, singing response. It is mounted in a unique way, hanging underneath the two ovoid forms (also 3d -printed metal) which serve two functions: one is a simple finger-rest, and the other contains a sliding volume control! Swells and fades can thus be done with the thumb while simultaneously plucking.