2016 Holo Traditional 12 Fret Short Scale | Blog

Bob Holo · January 2017

Bones wrote: »

Oh yes, you can really see it in those pictures. Nice! It looks like the pliage goes all the way to the sides but I'm assuming it must die off to nothing right at the sides since the top of the side is flat right?

Thanks

For the most part, yes. But pliages weren't all identical and some were a bit awkward where they met the rims. Selmers have some very distinct commonalities, but also some subtle differences that seem to indicate different builders, different eras and different techniques across even their somewhat brief period of evolution.

Bones · January 2017

That's awesome thanks!

Bob Holo · January 2017

Hi Ted.

Check out the thread earlier up. It’s a slightly earlier variant of the J’Attendrai guitar with the same scale length but a different body-join. There is a picture of Django with Eugene Vees and a 12 fret 640 transitional like the 1934 transitional petit, but unfortunately Django is joking around and posing as if he’s the upright basist, so we’ll never know if he played that 12 fret transitional petit or if it belonged to a member of the Vees band. My guess is that it was Django's as Selmer would have wanted him to test new models. Guitar builders are always in the process of seeking feedback from players. Just knowing how guitar prototyping goes, my guess is that they tried altering the soundhole size to increase bass and focus the trebles to increase cut, then Django or others suggested that more frets clear of the body would be helpful as jazz was evolving and there was less of the sexy ballad Tsigane stuff and more of the up the neck shreddy stuff. I have no evidence to support that wild assed guess other than just working with artists and knowing what drives their feedback and also knowing that in prototyping you want to change only a few variables at a time so you can understand the effect each has; hence changing body tuning (Grande to Petit) separately from number of frets to the body, separately from the ultimate change in scale length - where increasing from 640 to 670mm gives greater string tension and more high-order harmonics to increase cut at the expense of a stronger fundamental.

Suffice it to say that it’s possible to know that the J’Attendrai guitar was a short scale (640mm) guitar because there are three variables in the equation and two of them give clear visual indicators. One variable is scale-length, another is frets-to-body, and the third variable is bridge placement. Change one and it necessarily changes either or both of the others. If you keep the scale length and go from a 14 to 12 fret guitar (as from the J’Attendrai guitar to the 1934 guitar) you are essentially sliding the fretboard toward the tailpiece and the bridge moves back by the same amount because the bridge is always half of the scale length from the 12th fret. FWIW, I’ve built the bridge-forward 14 fret short scale guitars. Stephane & Roy’s guitars are short scale... well, they're 648 scale to be precise. I built them at 648 because it’s a common Jazz guitar scale so they could be comfortable swapping between their GJ guitars and jazz-boxes. Anyway, a picture is worth a thousand words, so - here’s a quick powerpoint mockup (photo attached to this thread) of the 1934 petit transitional on the left and the 1938 petit transitional on the right so you can see what I mean. That's how I know the J'Attendrai guitar was 640mm.

Frank Wekenmann · January 2017

I have difficulties understanding the importance of the pliage in the j'attendrai guitar. I assumed that the pliage was meant to more or less support the bridge area. So when the bridge is at a totally different place, did they also move the pliage or (what I think is more likely) did they just move the bridge? In the latter case, is the pliage still of structural importance?

Buco · January 2017

The bridge on that DRH guitar still is where it should be as relating to scale (12th fret in right in the middle between zero fret and the bridge).

Frank Wekenmann wrote: »

So when the bridge is at a totally different place, did they also move the pliage or (what I think is more likely) did they just move the bridge? In the latter case, is the pliage still of structural importance?

that's an interesting point, I'd assume the pliage is done with the bridge location in mind. Otherwise bending the top at the usual place and then placing the bridge behind would seem like an afterthought and I wouldn't think they were winging it with the construction process.
But we'll probable hear a proper answer soon.