A New Model.

A new version with incremental but important improvements.

I am currently building two of my latest version of the Sycorax.

There are several changes and improvements.

• Added a smooth curve where the neck and pegbox join. This will improve strength, and may also feel nicer, although it isn't an area you usually touch while playing.
• Added a carbon fibre rod through the neck/pegbox join and partway up the back of the pegbox, to make that area much stronger.
• Removed the fingerboard support that was added in the 2020 model, as I felt that the resonance created from the projection of the fingerboard is beneficial to the tone, and was being eliminated by the fingerboard support. However I have added a fingerboard support at the neck join that extends a short way under the fingerboard, while still allowing most of the fingerboard length to vibrate.
• I now coat the inside of the pegbox with an epoxy / carbon fibre powder mix for strength.
• Changed the print slicing software, so the printed parts make use of some more sophisticated settings and should be stronger.
• Printing at a hotter temperature, for better layer adhesion and greater strength. This currently causes some minor imperfcetions in the surface finish, but I think the stringth is more important.

Changes and Revisions

Since the initial release of the Sycorax I have made quite a few changes. Some are tiny and not worth mentioning here and some are more significant.

Changes in "late 2019" model:

The "late 2019" instruments are the earliest ones I still have for sale and they are being sold at a discount. They are not all identical since I was trying out a few slightly different designs, but they are all similar and all the things I tried worked much the same. The changes for these included:

• Inner brace moved to give more clearance from top.
• Extra carbon fiber bracing in body and neck to stiffen the neck joint.
• Still built with a bolt on neck, but they have all now been glued as well to be sure (to be sure).
• Three different widths of pegbox were tried. All work fine but these models do vary in pegbox width.
• Changed the output jack design to use a RCA connector on the pickup side.

Further changes in Feb 2020 model:

• Settled on the medium pegbox width as standard (slightly narrower than the original).
• Neck joint re-designed from scratch to be glued on with a carbon rod from the body extending into the neck - so super stiff and strong.
• Fingerboard support added that ties in the fingerboard to the body, further stiffening the neck joint and upper body frame.
• New top and back design with greater arching and more holes for more predictable response and greater feedback resistance.
• Top and back woods now usually european spruce for the top and maple for the back, though other woods may sometimes be used.
• Moved to using phenolic for nuts instead of ebony (I am trying to eliminate all use of restricted species). Some chinrests are still ebony, but these are easily replaceable. I haven't yet found a suitable affordable, high quality, black chinrest that isn't ebony. I do have boxwood chinrests though they don't match visually so well.
• Reinforced the neck to pegbox joint with an additional carbon fibre rod (this was also done in a slightly different way as a retrofit to most of the 2019 instruments).

Gallery of Feb 2020 Version