The Gretsch "Chaturangui"
| Our friend Eli wanted something different. He had a vision to transform his Gretsch hollowbody jazz guitar into something akin to an Indian chaturangui, or Pat Metheny's Picasso guitar. He wanted twelve drone strings across the body, two "chikari" strings from the headstock to the bridge alongside the neck, all of which would run across sitar bridges, and a K&K transducer pickup to amplify all the additional strings. It was a real challenge to make all eighteen strings work together. |
 
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Here we stripped the finish and leveled the surface on the upper bout, where we will be installing an ebony cap that the drone string tuners will attach. We needed a clean, flat surface to ensure that the glue joint would be strong enough to support twelve strings, tuning keys, and a bridge. |
| We created a solid ebony base, mated it to the guitar top with super strong epoxy and screws. |
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Here's the floating fourteen string sitar bridge & tailpiece/string retainer, which is made of ebony with a bone cap. This was a tricky fit because of the curvature of the sides and the fact that it needed to be a very tight. Having twelve strings wanting to constantly rip it of the body requires the utmost in strength. The bridge is positioned so the strings clear the arch of the top by an eighth of an inch, and also drone off of the bone shelf on the bridge, giving it the classic sitar effect.
The drone strings pass under the guitar strings, and are tuned from C to B in half-step increments. |
This part of the ebony cap is essentially a break for one of the chikari strings. It is tuned from the headstock, but needs a much shorter scale length so it can be tuned one octave above the other chikari string. This solves the problem of needing a much shorter scale length, while still allowing the player to tune the string at the headstock. Enough space was left here in case Eli wishes to add another one or two strings here in the future.
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The original Gretsch bridge base was modified to allow the twelve drone strings to pass under the tune-o-matic bridge. An additional bridge was attached to the bass side of the bridge base. This is attached at such an angle as to allow the two chikari strings to vibrate off of the bone shelve in front of the string slots, giving a ‘sitar’ effect when plucked. The two chikari strings are attached via a smaller ebony and bone string retainer close to the tailpiece. |
This one was just so crazy that it actually worked - it came out great, and sounds amazing. This was too much fun.
Thanks Eli! |
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