Gorecki Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 (edited) The reasons I mentioned MilkShape: 1. 30 Day Eval 2. Many game developers/renders cut their teeth on this 3. Purchase price is a whooping $25 This is what I started doing 3D with before I got 3D Studio Max. I found myself going back to it for simpler tasks because, it was simpler. The site: http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/ Edited January 30, 2006 by Gorecki Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted February 25, 2006 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2006 Well after a very long delay, it's time to have another go at this project. Just bought another piece of maple for the top. Not the greatest piece ever, but the price was right Hopefully this time I can mill on the carve without the extra gouge in the middle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MzI Posted February 25, 2006 Report Share Posted February 25, 2006 Ive been playing around the Mill I have here at school. What we do is run the path and cut foam like regular 2 inch rigid foam before we jump up to anything more expensive that way if we screw up its only foam versus an expensive piece of figured maple MzI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted February 27, 2006 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2006 Yeah I know, My software will also run a simulation of the tool path. I was just in too much of a hurry. I got a little cocky an I paid for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted March 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2006 Hey guys I need some expert advice. I received the wood pictured above and I was thinking if I opened the "book" the other way for the book match, I would end up with more of the quilt being in the guitar instead of cut off on the edge. If you look at the picture above you can see that the middle of the boards is kind of plain and all the figure is on the left and right. The only problem with my plan is there are two defects on the back side that will be in my joint if I open the book the other way. The bigger of the two defects will fall where the neck pocket gets cut out so I'm not worried about that one. The smaller one looks to be about 1/4 to 5/16" deep and will fall right where my string through holes will be. I am not worried about carving into the defect, it isn't that deep. I just wondered if any one could forsee any other problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crafty Posted March 18, 2006 Report Share Posted March 18, 2006 Personally, I would leave it as-is. The bookmatching will actually match properly and you won't have the issues with a defect in the middle of your glue joints. I think most of the plainer wood is going to fall under the fretboard, pickups, bridge, and tailpiece anyway. I know it's tough to cut away all that nice wood, but I think you're going to have more issues if you do it the other way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Setch Posted March 18, 2006 Report Share Posted March 18, 2006 Crafty, the book will match just as well - it's still bookmatched, you're just moving the spine of the book! A tiny void won't cause you any trouble if it's not going to be hit by the carving, and you'll maximise the nice figure you can show off. Also, you'll have strong figure at the centre of the bookmatch, which always looks good to show off a nice tight centrejoint and perfectly aligned sides. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattia Posted March 18, 2006 Report Share Posted March 18, 2006 Uh, what Setch said. Bookmatched is bookmatched, you get to pick which side is 'open', and which side's on the joint. If you're not going to carve into it, don't worry about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted March 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2006 Awesome, thanks a lot guys. That's what I was hoping to hear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crafty Posted March 19, 2006 Report Share Posted March 19, 2006 You guys know I can't think three-dimensionally, right? That's what I get for posting before breakfast on a Saturday. I'm done Bogarting the thread now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted June 26, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 Hey! I finally am back to work on this project! I was able to do some work on the neck this weekend. First thing I ran into was a problem The angle of my scarf joint was 2 deg more than my cad model. To fix this I set the neck up at the correct angle and milled the face of the headstock flat. angle fix While I had the neck at this angle anyway, I decided to cut the shape of the head stock headstock shape Then I set the neck blank up in the flat postion and cut the truss rod channel and I drilled two 1/8" locator holes that will locate the fretboard. The holes are drilled at the 12th fret marker postion and will be covered by the inlay. Locator holes and truss rod channel Next I made a steel jig to hold the neck when I flip it over to cut the back side. The jig is a piece of 1.5 x 1.5 inch cold roll steel. On the top of the jig I milled a 1/8" tall "key" that fits into the trussrod slot of the neck. This jig give me the location for the rest of my operations. neck jig The next step was to taper the neck blank Neck blank tapered This was as far as I got on Sat night. This morning I came to work early and started the carving process. Here is the neck about 1/2 carved. Hopefully will have finished pics this afternoon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted June 26, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 It's finished! Here are some pics. Back of neck front of neck volute heel I'm not completely happy with the heel (mostly because my 3D cad sucks), but i'll sand it up and smooth it out and it will do for this time around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Posted June 26, 2006 Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 That looks so cool I want a cnc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegarehanman Posted June 26, 2006 Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 That looks so cool I want a cnc They're nice sometimes, but I'd never every do a one off guitar with cnc. In the time it takes to model a carved top and work out the tool path, you can have the top carved. The same goes for the neck. I'm using a cnc mill to cut a load of bridges right now. They're rosewood pigtail style wraparound bridges. I'm almost done writing the code for the tool paths and it's a serious pita, imo. Once it's said and done, though, I should have some nice bridges in hand. Unfortunately my pc's telling me it'll take about 20 minutes to mill each bridge...and the code's not even done. pft Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Posted June 26, 2006 Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 I dont mind stuff like that though... I'd find all the 3D modelling interesting. Its a shame that the undo button doesnt exist in real life They're rosewood pigtail style wraparound bridges. You mean rosewood bridges for an electric guitar? That would be awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted June 27, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 Unfortunately thegarehanman is right. It is taking me way longer to cnc this than to do this by conventional means. But like Ben said I enjoy the processes involved. Thegarehanman, what are you using to program those bridges? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MzI Posted June 28, 2006 Report Share Posted June 28, 2006 What I found was for doing flat top bodies I can set the mill up in 30 mins and the cut time is only 10 mins and that is for pickup routes, neck cavity, electronic cavity, and body profile. So once I have the path set it takes me roughly 30 mins to go from stock to glued up guitar body. And honestly I cant go that fast by hand. Are you guys writing out the code line by line or using a program like mastercam to do it? MzI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted June 28, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2006 I use mastercam to write my code. 2D jobs in the mill are a piece of cake. When you start to get into the 3D stuff...thats when you time ivestment really increases. Creating good looking surfaces takes me forever, and cutting them is slow as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MzI Posted June 30, 2006 Report Share Posted June 30, 2006 The bass I milled was supposed to take 3 hours ended up only taking 2 hours because it decided it wanted to pick up the bit to drop it into the table and make a mess. I think the best way to cut down on mill time would be to increase the step over and do a little light sanding on the carve after its out of the mill. I also ran my path as a finish path instead of a rough cut which helped cut down on time too. MzI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlGeeEater Posted June 30, 2006 Report Share Posted June 30, 2006 CAD's seem like GREAT tools to have, but with the 100K and up price tag it's a little bit out of my reach. Looks great man. I wish I had a CNC really, not that I don't love doing a lot by hand (because I do) but CNC's are MEGA accurate, which is always good. Did you get to carving the new top at all? Also, is this your CNC or is it the CNC at the place you work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted June 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2006 MZI, don't ya love it when the cnc has a mind of its own? Algee, I haven't started carving the new top yet. My maple boards are cupped a little bit, and I haven't decided how to deal with that yet. The cnc machine is at my work, but I work for my dad, so it's practically mine As long as we don't have regular work going on in the mill, he doesn't really care what I do with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MzI Posted June 30, 2006 Report Share Posted June 30, 2006 The mill I was using was either 30k or 35k and it had an XYZ travel of 5'x12'x5" which is more then enough to do alot of guitars at once. I did see a price on the TechnoIsel website for a single guitar size CNC machine, its was around 11k which is not crazy expensive. The bigger problem I find is the Mastercam software. That runs about 30k alone unless you happen to find a copy of it. MzI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlGeeEater Posted June 30, 2006 Report Share Posted June 30, 2006 (edited) Algee, I haven't started carving the new top yet. My maple boards are cupped a little bit, and I haven't decided how to deal with that yet. The cnc machine is at my work, but I work for my dad, so it's practically mine As long as we don't have regular work going on in the mill, he doesn't really care what I do with it. Yeah I know what you mean, the same thing happened to me with the LP. I just planed the gluing side flat and now I gotta run it through a thickness sander to get the top flat and to get it to the correct size. Perhaps your CNC could flatten out the tops you got? MzI - The reason I said 100K is because I was looking at the HAAS machines, along with mastercam, solidworks and some other programs. Not to mention the tutorials i'd most likely have to buy to get taught how to use them. I actually had SolidsWorks 2004 for a quite a bit of time and fooled around with it. I've gotten a pretty good grasp on MOST CAD softwares. Currently i've been using the free trial of MastercamX and RhinoCAD I believe it's called. Fun stuff to tool around with but i'm not getting a CNC for a while haha. I enjoy building all by hand. See ya guys, Chris Edited June 30, 2006 by AlGeeEater Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted July 1, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 1, 2006 Perhaps your CNC could flatten out the tops you got? Yeah that's what I am thinking. I'm just trying to decide if I have enough extra thickness to do this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidwestGitarz Posted August 17, 2006 Report Share Posted August 17, 2006 Hey guys, I am a newb to this forum and to guitar building as well. I am looking at starting out with some simple projects to get my feet wet before I jump into an acrhtop or such. Any help or advice from some of the practiced and experienced builders would be greatly appreciated. Back to subject, I see a lot of CNC listed, and I know that kind of machinery can be $$$'s. I also do not see some of the single man operation affordable alternatives. I have run across something, some of you may have seen it too, called Copy Carver. It looks fairly straight forward, and usable for 1 to 1 duplicates, granted even though you need an original/model to work with. Its something you can go out, buy all of the raw materials and build in about a weekend. I have seen some tut's on the net that referenced that machine, one did the archtop part on an LP project (3/4" solid maple top), another did the neck for a strat! Any ideas, or comments about that I would love to hear. Thanks everybody for listening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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