62 Tone Just Guitar

"The new guitar is great - all the notes sound, the intonation is excellent, and the bent frets are brilliant." -Jon Catler

The tuning system designed by Jon Catler consists of notes from 13 prime-limit Just Intonation modulated to several different keys.  The second octave has a subset of notes from the first, so that you can still get your fingers between the frets.  He spent months weeding out some ratios in favor of others to maximize playability and harmonic richness.

While building one of these necks I got the idea to bend some of the frets.  It makes string bending much easier and eliminates the annoying "click" that mitered frets make when you slide a string over the joint.  I designed special fret-bending pliers for this job and developed some unusual fretting techniques using both a saw and a miniature router.

LEGAL NOTE:
Ian Gorman from Australia has a US patent #5,760,322 Guitar with deviations to straight fret architecture suggesting that he discovered bent frets in 1996.  I was unaware of this when I built this guitar.  These pictures and text are provided for educational purposes only.  This instrument and ones like it are not for sale.  Anyone wishing to purchase or sell instruments with bent frets should contact Ian Gorman.