Does Anyone Here Cnc Guitar Bridges? Need Advice

[skydemon]

Im getting a cnc soon. and i was wondering if it was worth cutting my own guitar bridges. and what material to use. this is for electric guitar not acoustic. thanks. Why/How im getting a cnc im my own buisness. im just looking for peoples input that have made bridges already. my cnc will be able to cut aluminum, woods and plastics. its not a plasma table. and im just talking about a standard bridge. if i want a floyd ill buy one.

Edited June 4, 2007 by skydemon

[Mattia]

Dude, seriously, it depends on what you want, what your CNC is designed for (metal? wood? plastics?), how your CAD/CAM skills are, the time you've got to kill, etc. Also, excuse me for saying it, but when someone asks a simplistic question like this - no details, no background, no nothing at all - it implies a profound lack of research, and makes me wonder why/how you're getting a CNC machine in the first place.

Guitar bridges can be milled from brass, aluminum, heck, steel if you want to, but you'll need to find a place that will plate them. Whether you can do better than commercial units for a reasonable price is something you'll need to figure out on your own. You could've found out about materials choice by simply reading hardware manufacturer's websites, f'r instance...it's also unclear what kind of bridges you want to build. Tunomatics have smaller fiddlier parts than a fender-style bridge, for example.

[BNichols]

Mattia is exactly right. the bridge style will affect how doable making your own bridge would be. also, you would need other equipment possibly depending on the bridge. Metals coming out of the CNC usually need to be cleaned up a bit (edges filed or laser radiused and surfaces cleaned/polished/finished). Some of these options could be sacrificed for the sake of saving money, but then you might not be as happy with the end result.