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Siggery Heresy Fan-Fret 8-string

"Achthund"

 

This is a thoroughly nice guitar, but is as mad as a ship's cat.  Seriously, this MUST have been the result of an afternoon building session following a long lunch in the pub.

 

Before I get onto the specification, this was handmade in England by Marty Siggery.  Marty is a great guy, but stopped making guitars in early 2015, which I think is a dreadful loss to the guitar world.  Anyway.  Once it was made, this was exported to the States to the original owner.  It was then sold by him to an internet-buddy, then was bought by me.  As Marty always seemed to have a CRAZY waiting list, I didn't mind paying a premium for this ... I ended up paying FAR more than I would have done for a new-build.  Whatever.  Easy-come, easy-go, right?

 

What I didn't realise is that my attempts to import the guitar BACK into England would be the stuff of nightmares, which culminated in a stand-off with Customs that meant the guitar sat in a warehouse for bloody months before I finally got it.  Then, Customs saw fit to charge me £300 (THREE HUNDRED QUID) import tax.  Which sucked balls.  What's worse is that the warehouse was obviously very cold (this was during a crazy cold spell over here), as the fret ends were all razor sharp when it landed. So, it went straight off to Siggery's workshop for a nice feet dress and set up, now she's as good as new. 

 

The body is "200 year old mahogany". I don't know if that means that it was an unusually old tree, or that it was cut down 200 years ago (maybe an old church pew or something?). Truth be told, I don't really give a damn ... it looks nice, and feels nice, so all is good. The thick maple cap is the most obscene bit of quilted maple. Now I'm certainly no fan of guitars looking like expensive furniture, but I'll make an exception in this case, simply because it's bloody awesome! Another nice touch is that the black body binding kinda disappears around a chunk of the body edge ... it's all very nicely done, so whatever. It certainly looks good.

 

There are two major points to note on this one. Firstly, the more observant of you wil have noticed that it's an 8-string (it is tuned e-B-G-D-A-E-B-F#, by the way).  The low B is great, but the low F# is just obscene, and runs a 72 gauge string ... like a drain-pipe / scaffold-pole / drain-pipe!  Secondly, the frets are fanned.  The idea is that the bass strings have a long scale length (28" for extra low frequency goodness) and the treble strings have a shorter scale length (25" so they're nice and responsive, cutting the flab that you'd get with a long scale length). 

 

Practically, it LOOKS awesome, like the sort of guitar that Mr Spock would play.  If he DID, however, he'd have to keep his wits about him ... those fanned frets are a little confusing to begin with, as is having an extra two strings. I've had this for a while now (and it gets lots of use) and I STILL find myself completely lost from time to time ... noodling around quite happily one minute, then the next ... where the hell did that D# go? Not to worry. An awesome guitar, and one of my main players. By the way, if forced to, it DOES djent. The bridge is made by Siggery (string-through), as is the pickup, which I'm told Marty winds himself. Sounds come via a three way toggle. I don't know how, but that toggle does a great impression of a two pickup guitar ... maybe full humbucker, coil tap and both coils out of phase?

 

The link, by the way, shows this very guitar on Siggery's web site.

 

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