I also saw this a while back but honestly didn’t pay much attention after they said it was aluminum. I‘m not a metallurgist so I obviously don’t know about different grades of the materials but alu doesn’t sound so long lasting to me. 

On the plus side it seems to make sense somehow and could possibly offer a sound benefit but personally I don’t see the need.

Has anyone here seen this wacky thing that turns your dreadnaught into a 12 string? That thing is an accident waiting to happen, I’ll see if I can find it...

Unless it makes a guitar sound more like something made in 1959, then most guitarists aren't going to be interested ....

I found it...

I would like to add that I think this thing is goofy as fook and has some obvious pitfalls but, progress right? 😆

but, progress right?

Hmmmmm ...

@tv101

yeah that’s why I put in the silly smiling emoji... 

@mattbeels
Somebody asked a question about refrets on their FAQ page, and the answers are interesting but not fully reassuring.
Apparently it is a pretty tough alloy, but they talk about (and give figures for) its strength, not it's hardness, while seemingly seeming to believe that it is in the same league as at least normal fretwire for hardness. It could just be that things are being lost in translation (English is not their first language) but they also mention that is has an "acceptable ease of machining" which makes me wonder.

The second interesting part is how they envisage a "refret", their idea is that you would just reduce the thickness of the fretboard pieces, exposing more fret.

I'm not convinced, but if nobody ever tried anything new we'd all be playing unamplified boxes with catgut stretched across them, so I view it as an interesting experiment if nothing else.

Has anyone here ever got their hands on a bond guitar with the stepped fretboard? I saw one in a shop many years ago but never got my hands on it.

@jonhodgson

Yeah I doubt it’ll catch on but you never know. We all know that (until now at least) guitarists are rather conservative and tend to not embrace newer designs. This particular one is a bit radical and to me seems like an idea that will be a rather tough sell. I suppose it’s exclusive to that particular brand. Good luck to them though.

However I believe that we as guitarists are evolving (somewhat) with regards to the design of the instrument. Just look at all the headless and multiscale guitars on the market today and how popular and widely used they are. I know that headless and multiscale are nothing new but their widespread acceptance is.

Now THAT is going to be an expensive refret job!

I would always applaud innovation and technological advances but this isn’t doing much for the planet. Have they mentioned costs anywhere? Unless they are expecting to produce hundreds of thousands I can’t see that lump of CNC machined aluminium coming in at much under £1000!

Now THAT is going to be an expensive refret job!

@darrenking That’s the first thing I thought. 

However I believe that we as guitarists are evolving (somewhat) with regards to the design of the instrument. Just look at all the headless and multiscale guitars

I’ve got a multiscale / fanned fret guitar, mainly just because I wanted to try out something different.  It was oddly un-different to play, though people would always do a double-take and say “what’s that?”.

Compared to this “idea” though, a multi-scale is pretty tame.

I’ve got a multiscale / fanned fret guitar, mainly just because I wanted to try out something different.

I’ve had a couple of Djent customers who are obsessed with fanned frets ...can’t see the appeal personally but if that’s what they want !