gitCAD

hi since this post already goes some time back I have learned a little more. e.g. if I redraw the text, which is actually done quiet easily - I enlarge 1600 times and redraw the edges, no problem - then I can export to a regular CAD format *dxf - done no more font business neaded - at least for the cnc mill I would imagine that a bit of sticky tape on the pearl would put an end over reflexions, but that is only theory, I wouldn't like to say anything about it, I have no experience at all with it Somebody once told me that you have to use nitrogene instead of oxygene when cutting with the laser, because "Fire" needs oxygene to start burning - but as I say- another theory that I have no clue of I will search the web a bit for custom inlay - stupid that I did not have this idea, but I have found someone with a cnc who wants to give it a try ...

I do not know what the regular scale is and I was wondering how it tunes and how to calculate upon how it tunes - that were my initial questions -->> How can I calculate the scale to a certain tune - how does it relate - how will regular string-gauges relate to that and what is the regular scale of a mando

hello almost I want to use a body project that I have here and that was once a twelve string and build a new neck for it with a "mando guitar type " scale (adjusting it) so that the basic tune is an octave higher to a regular. ( less transposing) However, the more I think about it, the more I would think that it probably only wants a tune up as if the capo was in the 5th ot 7th. But then I am unaware of what it will have to tune to , how the strings will behave to that particular tuning tension. I calculated a 19 3/4 scale that would look kind of ok, but I have no idea how to calculate what tune that would be or anything of what to do with the strings other then may be tuning it by ear and feel ( tension of strings) and have the tuner tell me later what tune that is trial and error I would like to know how to calculate a scale it to either the octave , or the 5th / 7th fret relation in hope, that it is not only possible from half the regular scale, because that would make frets too tiny The guitar that I knew, was the VOX - see pic

hi I had this plan for a while and it came up again yesterday. I remember, the last time I "gave it up" was when I heard or read something about stringbusting or something alike. Back to the idea , I 've been bending my brain over a number of non-understandings - may be someone can help me clear that up ideally, I would like to have the octave to the regular guitar tuning so that I can play my guitar chords as usual with a high twelvestring sound - like a capo in the 12th How do I do that, how do I get an exact octave while using regular gauge strings, meaning, getting the higher octave just from the actual scale ? Do I get that from just deviding my regular scale by 2 and then calculating the frets ? Has anyone built a mando guitar ? Normally for a twelve string (electric) I'd like an acoustic like wide neck or round like a 50s Gibson - but how about when the actual frets are so much more tiny - what do you recommend on thickness of the neck and what trussrod can be used ? If there will be any reaction, may be I will have more questions, but until then .... thanks

that is what I fear I wonder if it is a bug in the software - I noticed it from your other thread, but since I don't know anything from it, I could not answer. I owe a nice little surpricingly powerful CAD that you wouldn't know, it is from a germen company that specialized in cheap consumer software and thing s like garden or 3D house designer things. Anyhow- this CAD has a roundover function which made me struggle. I have designed the first contour of a guitar body with a spline-line. Now when I want to roundover the edge on the extruded body, the roundover only wants to work between two of the hundreds of points and there is no function to convert the spline to a one all the way through line or curve - I stopped it right there - But I understood the concept of rounding over, which makes me think now, that a fixed radius roundover will always have the one and only contour. It might be just right for a LP neck but if you want to compound C, D an V shapings ?? I mentioned it before someplace else. With 3 D Studio you can make a parametric bend in 3 combinations of 2 at a time over the x,y and z axis. On your pic it looks as if the middle bit, that what you want to round could be replaced by an half devided ( opened to 180° ?!) cylinder or a cone with a cutoff tip. Thus you can define the radius and diameter of the width at the nut and another where the heel joints. Would that work with SW ot MC ? Afterwards you try to bend the rounding a little if you need. If you don't underand what I mean I could make some sceenshots, its not that I can control these steps, but probably I can document it

hi the mentioned alternative and in the league of turboCAD is "Intellicad" (google it) Intellicad is basically the very same as AutoCAD including the 3D functions plus a little more (say some people - I must say I don't know it) It only gets a little slow when the files are over 5MB, which should be no problem in guitar designing ?! The absolute right tool imho appears to be the Solid Works. What I would like to do and what I can do or afford are two completely differnt storries. I left school a very long time ago, and even if I had the funds for a Solid Works, I am not sure how I'd learn it - its very complex, isn't it Basically I'd like not only to design guitars with carved bodys, but also some of the knobs and switches, possibly alternative concepts and pass it over to electronic specialists - all as a hobby but as I say - I am only dreaming here - the Intellicad info however is worth a checkout

hi well thanks for the tip, but I want to go for the real MOP. btw there is a site somewhere where you can buy abalone image on foil It looks good though, I have created pearl and abalone images in PS before, I have never heard of acetate paper before I was already thinking of doing a waterslide for the peaghead, but I still want the MOP in the pickguard and since it is so , I will do the peagveneer with the MOP as well I am sure the engraving can be done quiet easy, but imagine that this tiny little letters would come out best if cut with a laser - I have no experience with it what so ever The nut on your guitar, is it a brass ot a germen silver - I always wanted to try a german silver on a strat

hi I have two issues where I would want to engrave text and fill it with MOP and Abalone. Both is created from ordinary true type fonts for the PC , just not "Arial" , some kind of "designer" font but only true type not A-CAD compatible First one is a creation from different pt sizes, all together pretty small and wants to be in a peaghead . The other wants to be in a pickguard ( I know not very common but I like it) and is a little bigger , font size 18pt or so I imagine, may be with Coral Draw it can be CNC engraved or laser cut and hopefully the MOP can be cut as well to fit and fill the depth of the material. Does anybody know a place that services this kind of thing - the only one I know is kind of expensive and they normally don't bother with single jobs, I think they start at 4 - I like it well done but not expensive you know. It's actually not totally due, you wouldn't start the project with the dot over the "i" but I 'd like to plan and calculate the project, and I finished designing the peaghead today, want to get the idea of how where and for what money as I said thanks for any hint

ok thanks for the info - I know that I need a router - only lately, and now that I want to learn a CAD programm I was wondering, as a kind of computer person that I have become, to go the CNC way. That means, I design to detailes and have it milled on a CNC which still means that I have to assambe the thing ... right?! Later I hopefully will realize a small table CNC and hope I will be able to saw fretslots, drill and mill all the same with it Its a matter of priority - I am more impressed by the CNC technology then learning the skills to build it from scratch with the swiss army knife - may be after my 100th guitar I will go the complete handcrafted way - who knows - oops drifted away in explaination- sorry I find tools to be not unexpensive if you only look at what you have to spend for proper fret dressing and nut slotting ......and that is probably why I still not have the dam router *lol* btw: I use my drum sanders under table the way you show it on your pic and I do already have a dremel - I will have to look out for the right type bits now is it correct to use a 60° countersink for the pickguard holes ?

hello - nobody ? what about the countersink - what size what angle is right for strat type pickguards? I intend to reed the strat making tutorial in short - don't know if it is mentioned there

hi this is only an idea and unfortunately I don't know how your software works: In a program that I have used for a few hours (3D Studio Max) you could do the following , but I must say that there is little control over how that will feel later as a real neck - especially if you consider how much difference a mm makes in real live over the good feel of a neck create a cylinder and raise to length and reshape it to a half (U know half the basball bat). In 3DSM you can do that with one parameter in percents from piece of cake to half (or less) .. Once you have half the thing you can select a number of seqments over the distance and "bend" a dynamic taper over the xy, yz and xz koordinates It probably is a good idea to start the cylinder in a diameter between your nut width and the 16th fret and reshape and size in two halfs from the middle ?! I apologize if I dumped down your skills .... I just thought of it as a direction hint @ Kevan: thanks, apparently IntelliCAD is pretty much the same as Autocad and only slowes down drastically with files over 5 MB. I think 5 MB should be ok for guitar projects and the latest Version 5 and 6 Pro is only a few Dollar over the TurboCAD. So I think I will go for the IntelliCAD - it does not appear to make sense to spend more money and I found a couple of starter Tuts for it as well in the meantime. For the total Newbie its hard to overview all those features between the programs. If it wasn't for the money, I personally would rather go for a program like Inventor or Catia and Solid Edge - you lucky "bastards" who have those programs and the training at work

Cutting and extruding might be easy but when you start creating carved tops, and you want to cut (away), you will have to model the negative form first, which imho is one more brain-twister, but may be the only way - I have not done it yet and unfortunately I do not know all modelling possibilities, I have heard though, that mashes and nurbs would be the better way - like you would model the shapes of a car ??! Another thing - if you used Turbo- and also AutoCAD, can you say which one of the two is the better programm, which one can do more things and which one is easier to handle, including those boolean operations?

hi I made a strat type pickguard for the first time (made some LP-styles before) and this is what I did and knew: First I made a plywood template and afterwards I sticked the cut out plastic with double sided tape to it and thought when I run the ball bearing of my 45° router bit along the edge of the template it will cut a sharp angle. It was a desaster. I used the router bit in a drill press because I don't have a router at hand. Well I thought, since the plactic cuts like butter, I would "rasp" the edges off slowly, even with a slow drill press - actually quiet dangerous - I don't recommend that The slot for a typical blade switch then is not what you would call precicion either. I drilled and then filed, but the result is nothing like a routed precision slot . What are the right tools and bits to use - is there any blade switch routung templates somewhere or a special bit for the dremel, and the 45° angle, would the normal high speed router have done the proper job or do you need another special tool for it? Any tutorial somewhere in the net ? - I must admit I didn't google yet- will right after this post thanks and regards

hi inspired by a number of topics that I came across and the fact that my board remains unsurpassed - ooops no the word was unfrequented sorry- I give it a try .... (thanks jer7440 for posting over there) I'd like to ask you what CAD Software you use (or would like to use) for guitar construction and why - may be what you miss and what you would like to see. I came across two turbo CAD enquiries somewhere in between, and I was wonderiung why. Does any body know the difference between Turbo Cad and IntelliCAD. The latter as far as I know is very similar to AutoCAD for a tenth of the price, but to be honest, I don't know how good AutoCAd is in the first place or compared to other big systems like Inventor or Catia or Solid Edge a.s.o. What good is it anyways to buy a huge software for tons of money if we don't know how to handle it afterwards, or if it has tons of functions that you will never need in guitar building, even for the finest modelling of carved tops etc. Some of you might be working professionally with a CAD and guitars is only a hobby, but how about those who exclusively want to construct guitars. C'mon chat a little about it - professionals and amateurs

hi has anybody taken a 3D Studio Max model to a CNC ? I once had a go with 3D Studio Max and my impression was, that the dimensions lack accuracy. The "routings" did not look precise, I mean from just looking at it, a 3mm cavity cover edge would not look right in relation to the actual cavity depth. I also could not find out how to round the edges - you know the traditional rounding along the body edges like on a strat, neither would I know how to model the body shapings - Anyways, what I was asking is how it is with the parametric accuracy and the export towards a CNC Anybody any commends? regards

hi I would like to inform me over the following questions I am used to adjust the bridge saddles to the radius of the fingerboard with hardtails and trems. These things came to my mind and I would like to learn the propper settings 1. a compound radius - how do I radius the bridge, which one of the two radii, the bridge or the nut side? 2. tunomatics normally do have 12" radius . If a compound radius can be compensated, how much off-radius can a tunomatic compensate ? Up and down ? Modern guitars often have a 16" radius but I would also like to know the 10 and 7 1/4 " .....well the 10 for the tunomatic thanks for clarification

I cannot use a locking nut since I will not have a fine tuning trem - I went for the Music Man design now - but it turns the guitar instantly into a "Music Man"

hi I am seaking a smart goodlooking peaghead for a trem guitar These questions I would like to ask 1. How bad is it for the "stay in tune" (friction) if the strings have an angle between nut and maschines ? How much angle is no!! problem 2. Its too difficult to tell from just pics : How much angle do the PRS peaghead have and how good do they actually stay in tune - are they better or worse from strats 3. What other peagheads besides the strat and the music man's do you know, that have a straight through string to maschine ? I have seen a couple of "weird" peagheads that fulfil this , but as I am more of a conservative and a non-metal (Klingone knife?!) person, I am not all to happy with those. I spent three days now on the computer but I cannot come up with a decent design. I would have liked a 3L3R design, but with strings straight through "its impossible" Thanks for any comment or direction happy new year

hi jer7440 let me first excuse myself for not answering earlier after your perfect response - I simply did not get any reply notice on this thread until suddenly today ?! thank you for all the detailed execution I understood what you said about curves vs splines but I am not happy about it That is simly so, because I love to work with the point-spline method. Actually since I do not have the right CAD yet, I use Freehand, which is just perfect for drawing shapes over an import pic. Freehand exports to *.ai vektors .... I have designed the body and routing cavitys of my next guitar project like that and I am very happy with the result so far - the guitar is something that is nowhere else available. Up until now I was happy to finally have all my shapes in "vektor" - the guy who I want to CNC mill it for me told me some time ago, that he simply needs my drawings vektor and that he uses Coral Draw - ( btw: I am aware of the difference between a Freehand, Coral Draw and a Mastercam) Since the 3D drawings aren't done, it might be ok - my body is a Strat type and the body shapings will be done by hand .... I came once across three drawings in the Les Paul Forum, which are nothing more than the shape lines (*.bmp) of a Les Paul top. However, I imagine that they would have been helpful to you in the beginning. I still have those somewhere on the computer, but since I don't have the copyright I can not puplish them. If you would like to see them, you are welcome to send me a mail. Would I like to see more pics of your LP top. Certainly, thanks for offering. Actually, without bad intention or hijacking - I was wondering if you would likle to take a sneak at my homepage (click on signature below) and check out if you would like to be my first new registrant to the board and post your thoughts, pics and experiance over there. I have already opened a thread linking to this one You know - every beginning is difficult - I created this site to make a platform to everybody interessted available- just a place to talk about it. The intelligence has to come from the participants and not from a silly administration button or whatever. I am not the crack in the subjects that people might expect in order to follow - well I didn't want followers - I want to learn and participate just in my legue, thats all Don't worry if you don't want to post over there - if it stays without traffic I will close it as quick as I opened it - but it could be a nice platform for the CAD and designer people

put it in eBay now - the auction is German - but the pic is "international " will ship internationally if so .. eBay

hello first, sorry for showing up late - I did nor get a reply notice anymore ... Its a bit embarrassing - I did not know I was so hard to understand. I did not have the knowledge of how a "roundnose bit" or "round tip" bit was called. It seems very obvious now, but I have never seen them in the woodcrafter and stewmac catalogue, so I didn't know I was not thinking so much of the hand router (even though I mentioned it) as of a table cnc and the workprocess of carving e.g. a Les Paul top. Lets say you have everything set up, the "model" in the computer and the code to start the router ..... You still would want to know what kind of bit you put in it, so that when the maschine starts its steps, it would compensate those vertical steps and cuts to the horizontal without creating steps in the wood It was all just about the bit as seen on the pic and its name - thats all - a newbie question on the right router bit for curved guitar tops Thank you for you help and sorry for the confusion

what I quoted is what I already learned - the pic obviously showes a CNC , I was wondering in the first place what bit to carve a top kind of steady with, since carving from lets say left to right would not make the bit touch more of the wood then the actual "rounded tip" - so the rounding has to be the sharp part of it, even if it flush cuts as well - no? Where do you find this kind of rounded tip bits - I never came across those - the one in the pic is most probably custom made

hi its more because it just came back to my mind then that I would need it right now. Ever since I saw the router bit in the followed pic, I was wondering how they're called and where you get them and what kind of shank size they can have. I was wondering that any fretboard radiusing or top carving that you would do (CNC or plunge router) would need such a bit, once you are clear with the jig - doesn't it ? I am asking seriously And I would not mind if this thread would turn into a "what router bit for what action" one - the router bit tutorial thread as such - I personally know the roundover and flush trim bits for guitar building - this one seems a very important other - whats its name please sorry for the quality - I hit the screenshot button during a transition

hi I dissambled my old 12 string electric guitar took the finish off the neck and are willing to sell it now. It is a maple Sheergold 12 string neck in standard strat scale with a zero fret a slotted nut and a imho very beautiful "brazilian" rosewood fingerboard. Frets are in good shape, might need a bit of dressing ( don't think so actually). Sheergold built the very famous white modular double neck guitar/bass of Mike Rutherford (Genesis) and my neck is a very same that I picked up in Jacks workshop in 1981 - The headstock is kind of long which was so designed to have it equals long to the bass neck. It is a very suitabel for a bass/12 string double-neck but would fit straight in any strat hardtail body. The screw pattern is a little different from the regular strat neckplate - it therefore might have to be plugged or to be used again with the homemade (looks homemade) brassplate that I used with it. The maple is sanded down and can, so I think, be oiled or re-finished straight away - whatever. Since it is a classic I thought of a prize similar to a Warmoth 12 string. btw: The original Sheergold plastic logo I don't have anymore but the trusrod cover. Its not a copy though - nobody would copy a Sheergold - If you are interessted send me a mail for pics and more - thanks

thanks - it helped I've been looking at another eBay guy called "inlayartist" - he has some very colourful all Pacific stuff but not the right - still worth looking ... @Clavin - thank you too but I knew about the real stuff even Stewmac sells it - I was looking at the old plastic stuff and wondering where to get a real big sheet of it ... As to Gibson - I don't remember when I looked at the Gibson stuff outside the Custom Shop RI's the last time I just like th old RI