Dan Hehnke's Multi Scale Semi Hollow with Toone/Townsend Beta Hardware

[Dan Hehnke]

Here's my latest guitar, finished a few months ago. I was fortunate to be planning a headless guitar right when I ran across Rick Toone's site where he was looking for beta testers for his new hardware. I emailed and he was happy to have one "amateur" luthier try it out to get that perspective. It has been really fun designing a guitar around it, and it works extremely well. The nut system is fully adjustable for intonation, as well as the bridges of course, allowing for really precise tuning. Even though this is the beta version the action of the tuners is really smooth and stays in tune. I chose to mount it at 45 degrees for ease of access, but it can be mounted at 90 or any other angle as well. I'm really proud of this guitar, and it's really fun to play. Here's the specs:

carved walnut top
semi-hollow spruce body
multi scale, I think 25.75" bass side, 24.75" treble side.
cocobolo/maple/cocobolo binding (a real pain!)
curly maple and walnut neck with scarf jointed walnut headstock
cool old Filtertron pickups that were given to me, from the '70s
Sounds/plays great..

Let me know what you think! Thanks for any comments.

[Dan Hehnke]

one more

[Dan Hehnke]

and last one...sorry

[Charlie Schultz]

Beautiful work Dan!

[Jim Bonnell]

I was getting ready to post pictures of my latest build. No way now. I'm holding off for awhile. Very Very nice job!

[Mark Swanson]

That's great! But show us more photos of the unique parts of the nut and bridge!

[Dan Hehnke]

Thanks for the comments! Jim, oh no, I don't want to make anyone not feel like posting...post away! I spent way too much time building and planning this guitar.....so yeah.

Mark, I'll work on getting hardware pics up when I get home. You can also see details of it on Toone's site.

I forgot to mention the fretboard is a cool piece of Snakewood I got on special because only half of it had the snake figure. I like it this way anyway, so that was a bonus for me.

[Dan Hehnke]

Mark, here's a couple closer up pictures of the tuner hardware, and the nut. Doing the 45 degree route to mount the tuner block was a challenge, but I was lucky to have access to a manual drill mill to rough it out, then used chisels to finish it off. I can show details of the route if anyone is interested..

[Bob Francis]

The binding may have been a pain but sheesh! It is awesome!

[Dan Hehnke]

Thanks Bob! I really hope it looks good after all the pain and hardship it caused me

[Henrique Schneiter]

It looks gorgeous Dan. I was aware of the Toone's system, but I wondered if it wasn't just too much weight? That's a lot of hardware to put on the guitar.

[Henrique Schneiter]

Oh, and a pic of the entire guitar would be great!

[Dan Hehnke]

Thanks Henrique,

The weight was a concern for me too. The only part that concerned me was the tuner block, which is beefier than it needs to be in the beta version. The production version looks much lighter and sleeker, and Rick has said it is much lighter. I will report back when I get the production version on there.

The bridge parts and the nut are certainly no heavier than alot of common hardware, and for me the nut is worth it for how easy it is to adjust in so many ways.

-D

[Dan Hehnke]

Oh also the production version on my guitar will be a nice dark copper color that should go along with the warm wood colors better than the black I have on there now..

[Patrick Kirkham]

Nice one. You've made a dream machine out of the sort of hardware I had in mind.
Beautiful wood too.