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This just arrived late this morning and I've been having a good time playing it since then. I'll fill in more of the backstory later but the main features are a 24" scale length with ultra-wide fingerstyle spacing (1 13/16 at the nut and 55mm at the bridge) and a heavily chambered body that I designed. It's very much a Canadian guitar. The builder is Erik Hansen and the pickup is from MJS Custom, both in Southern Ontario.
Here's a quick first recording
And a couple of photos.
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06-16-2026 06:11 PM
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May she inspire your playing for many years to come!
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Looks and sounds beautiful!
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Demo sounds very promising! Congrats Jim.
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That sounds just like Jim Soloway.
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Yep - congrats, Jim!
Originally Posted by darkwaters
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Looks great and it's got that Jim Soloway sound.
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A 24 inch scale length with light strings could be just the ticket for us old guys to keep playing into the years where hand issues could make the longer scales uncomfortable.
At 68, a 24.75 scale with 11's is working great. In my 40's (and earlier) I was Ok with a 25.5 scale with 13's. Those days have passed. I foresee that if I live long enough, I might need a 24 inch scale guitar with 9's. We gotta do what we gotta do.
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It does and it was easy to get there but this guitar is much more about playability and feel than sound. I can get my sound out of most guitars but the feel and comfort are much harder to achieve. At almost 74, with the amount of aches and pains in my left hand and my shoulders, playability and comfort are everything. It's what allows me to keep playing. The short scale length reduces the long stretches that cause my hands to rebel while the extra width allows me to play complex fingerings in the tighter space. The body design brings the guitar to the right when I'm playing sitting down (i.e. always) which reduces the reach to the lower frets and puts my right hand exactly where I like it for picking. It's just day 2 with it now and I can't tell you how much more comfortable and more natural it feels than my Franken-stang that has been my main guitar for the last several months even though the scale lengths are identical. It just feels incredibly right. Originally Posted by sgosnell
That sounds just like Jim Soloway.
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Interesting.
I have a Taylor nylon string with the same nut width and it feels perfect for fingerstyle.
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I am eight years younger than you and for quite a few years I've been suffering from low back, neck/shoulder pain that was starting to limit how much time I could spend playing guitar and affecting other areas of my life as well. I've bought quite a few different guitars over the decades, tried sitting vs. standing, tried different ways of positioning them such as supports and footstools, crossing my right leg over the left to raise the guitar, etc. I finally noticed a pattern that if I made a change from A to B to C to D, things would seem to improve temporarily at each step. Then I discovered I could make a change from D back to A and would again have temporary improvement by going back to the thing that I thought was causing me pain in the first place. This suggested to me that the problem was not the guitars and was instead me, but I wasn't sure exactly how. I initially blamed holding my head in such a position that I could watch my hand, twisting my neck and craning it a bit forward (which is part of it). Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
I happened to watch one of Julian Lage's videos in which he talked about ways to prevent injury and mentioned the Alexander Technique,
I did not know that he was trained as an Alexander Technique teacher until then. Somehow it seems like Julian gets in more than 24 hours in a day than most of us, or at least me, given all the things he's accomplished.
Last summer I took a workshop and then in the fall took a class at the local university music school on the Alexander Technique for musicians. It has positively affected my life far beyond my expectations. I can play guitar much more comfortably. It's also improved sleep, daily activities, riding my bike, driving a car, etc. The dial on my discomfort has been turned way down in all aspects of my life. I have learned ways to avoid aggravating my low back problems (bulging discs and sciatica). My neck is much less painful on a daily basis, not just when playing guitar; I had, apparently wrongly, assumed that most of my neck pain was due to some known arthritis in my cervical vertebrae. Overall I feel much more supple. I'm not 100% pain-free but the reduction is about 90% or more.
One of the core approaches that AT uses is to help you learn how to identify and inhibit unconscious and habitual muscle tensions that cause problems, allowing the natural and functional postural reflexes to resume their normal role. I have found that I habitually tighten the muscles in my upper chest, drawing my shoulders forwards and in towards each other and my chest down, curving my upper spine forward, which then makes me pull my head backwards and down so that I can see where the heck I'm going. This interferes with breathing and has contributed to neck pain radiating into my right shoulder as well as shoulder joint pain (possibly a knock-on effect by misaligning the shoulder joints). I mention all this in case it might be helpful for you or any of us in being able to play our chosen instrument more comfortably.
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I had my hand and wrist x-rayed last week. I suspect they're going to tell me that the main problem is arthritis around the base of my thumb compounded by repetitive stress abusive but we'll see. But I'm definitely at the point where longer scale guitars are pretty much over for me.
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I like it a lot. The top grain and color somehow "works" perfectly with the body shape. Classy without being ostentatious. Enjoy for years to come.
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Just from my own experience,don't believe everything doctors tell you.17 years ago i had my thumbs x-rayed and was told that i would not be able to play much longer,but here i am still playing today.Things like drinking green tea,taking fish oil pills,holding the guitar more vertically,shorter scale neck like your guitar can all help keeping you playing longer with arthritis.My new favorite thing is these gel lined gloves you can buy on Amazon.I heat one in the microwave and keep another in the freezer and alternate between them on my hand before i play and they are quite refreshing on the fingers. Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
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Hmmm, looks a lot like one of those guitars named after the water bird with the long neck....
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Well spotted. I started the body design by tracing the body of my Gosling (which is identical to a Swan body except for the hardware placement and neck pocket and then removed the upped horn, drawing a gently curved line out from the top edge of the bass side of the pocket. So it really is just a single cut version of the original Soloway body. I think it worked really well. Originally Posted by Woody Sound
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