Ice, Ice Baby

Mocked-up,
The Iceblink One
Luvvin' it

Well, rather amazingly, the early promise of the day has trundled along and basically delivered some progress as far as The Iceblink One goes, here in Jookyland.

The rather spiffy looking fretless 'board is complete, lacquered and dried (OK, drying) and looks rather nice. Well, apart from one bit which is a little raised. Hmmm, bit of flattening to do there. Never good to get splinters.

The body now has a wee-bit-rough, split and slightly corrugated ebony scratchplate, which I'm falling in love with. With just the pickup and wiring needed, it seems like a good day.

OK, strap pins, I forgot the strap pins.

I also changed my mind about the Jaggy little extension to the scratchplate where the knobs and jack will sit, and put the wood on there too. I'd had a look at a couple of the earlier mock-up fotos, and it just looked better, and that is good enough. That is screwed into place and has been lacquered too.

As for the neck, I've decided to stain and oil it, but that will come once the 'board is proper dried and hard-like.

As for the nut, I've got one but I think I will need to lower it somewhat as there are none of those metal fretty things in the way and the action can be lower than normal. So that will be sandpaper time again, I guess.

One thing I'm not sure about is the string gauge/type to use. I've been reading around and some people swear by heavy flatwounds, whereas others suggest as-light-as-possible normal roundwound  8s or whatever.

Now I'm guessing that the light ones are suggested as a fretless is meant to lose some of the top end and they should jingle more. Whereas the flatwounds do that and I guess overall you are going to get quite a jazzy sound from it.

Which way to go though?
I'm not entirely sure.

I don't mind trying both, but once I've set-up the nut for 14s or something, it is going to be like spaghetti in the Albert Hall if I then go with the 8s.

Saying all that, I'm not even sure if I could feel 8s anymore.

I guess it depends what the guitar gets used for. If it is Guthrie-esuqe speediness, the 8s maybe make more sense. If it is as a tone machine, the flatwounds.

A nice chap called Eric suggested I use D'addario Chromes as they are a brighter flatwound, so I may well do that. Makes sense to me, which is a rarity in itself. And 11s are apparently OK too, so maybe that is the answer.

Anybody else got any suggestions?

So in summary, all a bit of a shed but I still can't be waiting to play the thing...