Benedetto Frankenstein

**Woody Sound** · 08-01-2022, 05:59 AM

Pheo 3/4 Five (Modified Benedetto Andy) | Reverb

**JWMandy** · 08-01-2022, 09:09 AM

Saw that some time back. Aptly titled in your post, clearly one man's treasured good idea travels less well in the eyes of others. The Benedetto Andy is otherwise a great instrument for what it does. The neck I get. The bridge baffles me, and the finish something akin to the highly detailed car paint jobs more common some years back. Maybe it's a period piece?

**marcwhy** · 08-01-2022, 09:56 AM

Woody, I think you spend way too much time finding guitars just to make our blood boil!

You may enjoy this one, though ...

Benedetto Frankenstein-banana-jpeg

**nevershouldhavesoldit** · 08-01-2022, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by JWMandy

Maybe it's a period piece?

Sure is - I don’t like it at all…….period

I understand the urge to create art, and I get the drive to improve. But I don’t see any of those mods as an improvement except maybe that moving the scale center closer to the neck pickup could have tonal benefits. But that crazy bridge design seems to be an attempt to move the point of major string downforce and energy transfer further onto the arch of the top.

The two questions there are how that contact is distributed throughout the base frame and how internal construction affects energy transfer. I doubt that the thin wood base frame into which the bridge / tailpiece is set is even stiff enough to achieve any energy transfer forward of the pickup. It looks to me like it may have the opposite effect - the front of the frame may well be damping top vibration rather than enhancing it.

Sacrificing even that model Benedetto seems tragic to me. I’d feel the same way if Warhol had painted a beard on Mona Lisa - why destroy one piece of art to make a lesser one?. There are many small guitars in need of improvement - why ruin a perfectly good one?

**Woody Sound** · 08-01-2022, 01:57 PM

Originally Posted by JWMandy

. The bridge baffles me,

He says the bridge saddle couples with the square piece around the pickup to better vibrate the top. Actually quite clever if it works.

**Jimmy blue note** · 08-01-2022, 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by JWMandy

The bridge baffles me,

Yeah I'm that way with all 32 bar songs.

**Jimmy blue note** · 08-01-2022, 02:16 PM

Originally Posted by marcwhy

Woody, I think you spend way too much time finding guitars just to make our blood boil!

You may enjoy this one, though ...

Benedetto Frankenstein-banana-jpeg

I love this guitar. I read that the luthier who designed it wanted to create something to celebrate the experience of fatherhood. So he built a guitar that was inspired by his son...unfortunately his son was a fetus at the time.

**nevershouldhavesoldit** · 08-01-2022, 03:12 PM

Originally Posted by Woody Sound

He says the bridge saddle couples with the square piece around the pickup to better vibrate the top. Actually quite clever if it works.

I understand why he thought it would. But simple geometry says it won’t. At most, the saddle is halfway between the tail and the vibrating area of the top. So half or more of the energy transferred from the strings to that little wood frame is being dissipated in the rigid outer edge of the top between the saddle and the rim. If those screws in the tailpiece are directly into the rim, even less energy is getting directly to the top.

**sbeishline** · 08-01-2022, 03:26 PM

I sorta get his motivation to create something of that size and portability - hence my current build design. Most of those ES-140ish guitars are short-scale and other normal-scale carved archtops with super small bodies are few and far between. The Fibonacci Chiquita is 12.8" with normal scale and the Andy is 12" with short scale. I'm building mine at 12.5" with 24.75" scale.

I agree.. it's quite wild looking, but it's cool to see him realizing the obstacle of getting the scale increased and addressing the bridge issue.

To each his or her own!

**nevershouldhavesoldit** · 08-01-2022, 04:06 PM

Originally Posted by sbeishline

it's cool to see him realizing the obstacle of getting the scale increased and addressing the bridge issue.

Agreed - but I don't think he's doing it at all effectively. If it were me, I'd use a short, low trapeze tailpiece and lean that saddle forward at least a few degrees and/or slant the saddle surface down and back where it contacts the string. It might need forward support from tiny struts or wings to keep it from tipping. But this would direct more of the string force forward rather than downward into the base of the bridge. That way, there'd be more pressure and better vibration transfer toward the front of the frame / base than will happen the way it sits in poor Andy.

And I'd eliminate the screws that seem to secure the tailpiece into the rim. They're just another focus of string energy transfer into a non-vibrating mass.

Having said all that, I'd love to hear this thing - I'll happily eat my words if it sounds great. The ad says "There are sound samples on Soundcloud on the PheoGuitar14 page". But this is what comes up searching any reasonable variant of PheoGuitar14:

Sorry we didn't find any results for “PheoGuitar14”.

**sbeishline** · 08-01-2022, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit

Agreed - but I don't think he's doing it at all effectively. If it were me, I'd use a short, low trapeze tailpiece and lean that saddle forward at least a few degrees and/or slant the saddle surface down and back where it contacts the string. It might need forward support from tiny struts or wings to keep it from tipping. But this would direct more of the string force forward rather than downward into the base of the bridge. That way, there'd be more pressure and better vibration transfer toward the front of the frame / base than will happen the way it sits in poor Andy.

And I'd eliminate the screws that seem to secure the tailpiece into the rim. They're just another focus of string energy transfer into a non-vibrating mass.

Having said all that, I'd love to hear this thing - I'll happily eat my words if it sounds great.

Yup - I think you're onto the physics there!

**nevershouldhavesoldit** · 08-01-2022, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by sbeishline

Yup - I think you're onto the physics there!

Thanks! I didn't add an S to the words in the ad. FrankenAndy sounds like a tin toy to me in that clip. Phil's obviously into tinkering with his toys, and that's great. But turning a Benedetto into a steel stringed ukelele seems like a fool's errand to me

**sbeishline** · 08-01-2022, 08:19 PM

Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit

Thanks! I didn't add an S to the words in the ad. FrankenAndy sounds like a tin toy to me in that clip. Phil's obviously into tinkering with his toys, and that's great. But turning a Benedetto into a steel stringed ukelele seems like a fool's errand to me

LOL This axe is calling for some LaBella Tapes to make it a bit less metallic.

**John A.** · 08-01-2022, 09:28 PM

Maybe he started with a guitar that was already trashed and didn’t have to sacrifice one? Otherwise, I have trouble wrapping my mind around spending Benedetto bucks, then who knows how much more on the mods to try to sell something no one will buy.