Just Scalloped My Tele!, Richie Blackmore style Options

[Kristofer Dahl]

So this one was long in the making...

My Fujigen J-Standard Illiad is probably my most versatile guitar, as well as the most lightweight and stable. So it's likely the one I would bring with me if I had to travel somewhere to perform.

But there is just one problem... the frets are vintage style and super low. Action on the guitar is great so if only I could fix this issue, it might turn this into my main guitar...

However re-fretting is difficult / expensive and to me doesn't really make sense if the frets aren't worn out.

Enter scalloping

I have already scalloped a guitar (Steinberger Spirit GT-pro) - however I was close to trashing that one and really did not have much to loose. So I tried a quick scallop with an electric Dremel tool and BAM - the guitar is now a monster.

This time around I did not want to opt for a quick and dirty Dremel job so I attempted to do it with traditional tools:

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Let's first remove the neck




Let's add a layer of protection with some paint tape




Let's get started!




Close-up




For this scallop, I opted for the Richie Blackmore school of thinking where you just remove the wood close to the fretwire where you would/should fret.




Still a little rough around the edges, but this is more than good enough for my 'player' needs. (At this point I had probably worked on it for like 5 hours I would say)

In fact, I couldn't help myself but restring quickly to try it out, oh boy is it a totally different guitar in terms of playability...





Let's finish this off with some boiled Linseed Oil




I was very pleased to see how this brought out some beautiful structure in the fretboard wood.




End result looks cool to me, and I highly doubt I'll be able to wait until that oil has dried 😅

edit

I did a quick recording with it, check 01:55 for some twang:

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[Kristofer Dahl]

Awesome you dig it 👊 they way it is now, it's more like a crossover between Yngwie and Blackmore

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