DougK Posted November 21, 2007 Report Share Posted November 21, 2007 So I've got my P90 guitar pretty far along to the point where Im playing it now and making any tweaks before I do the finishing. As I mentioned in this thread I got the itch to strip down and refinish one of the beater strats I had laying around. Well when it turned out to be plywood, just decided to start programming my CNC to make my own body. Now in all fairness, my CNC is so old that the newest version of Autocad it can import from is R14 so I have to actually program it, not just surf the net for a cad drawing and import it. Well I started up over the weekend a bit and got the body close. Tonight I started making some tweaks and finally decided that Im ready to start building my own necks. I revised the program to draw the entire neck and head stock as well, fret locations, 6mm inlays ect. I did the outlines and such then programmed it to cut it out of a piece of 3/4 scrap I had laying around. The intention was to use my v-grooving bit (smallest one chucked up in the tool changer atm) to just leave a pencil line but whatever schmuk replaced the bit last set it to deep so some of the lines are goofed. Over all, Im pretty close. I think another hour of tweaking and I should be set. I had it mill the "body" down a 1/4" so I could see the neck shape and make sure it was cool (to bad the v-groove bit goofed that up). Anyways, so pretty close full body shot headstock The picture is kind of washed out but it gives the idea. Over all, I have a couple tweaks to make on the horns and probably another half hour of messing with the head stock and it should be mostly set. I have the contour programs written, just not the back side of the neck (I think I can do the back rough shaping on the machine). I think I'll be ready to start cutting bodies friday. I have enough alder glued up to make 5 bodies (glued to 97" x 7" 8/4 blanks together then ran em through the time saver till they netted at 1 3/4" thick). Have some birdseye maple and rosewood coming in soon too. I think I might have to give strats as xmas gifts this year. Hopefully have some good updates by end of the weekend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DougK Posted November 24, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 24, 2007 (edited) Well after about 60 hours and 7-8 trial versions finally have the body program dialed in. Made 2 of them today, both hard tails for Steve and I. There is absolutely more programming time on the CNC but once the program is dialed in, I made both guitar bodies as they sit now in about an hour. IF you were trying to copy a shape exact it wouldn't take nearly as long. Bright picture (flash on) back shot profile shot Now Steves we machined a bit differently. He wasn't looking to build a super authentic strat this time around so we made a few changes. We routed the pickup cavity as a large rectangle for any pup combo and shaved 1/4" off the back side through the time saver. We'll use flush screws on his neck attachment. His came out cleaner than mine did as I made a few revisions on the order in which the cnc did its thing. No biggie on mine, its getting painted Olympia white (and will get relic'ed eventually). Same thing with the knot on the back, I'll either make a plug or just fill it with epoxy/bondo till its gone. I've got 2 more super clean pieces of alder ready for sunburst guitars and 1 that has some iffy grain through what will probably be the top horn. Tomorrow Im going to cut one of the nice ones as I want to build a clone of my dads original 74 strat as a Christmas gift to him this year. Only I think he's been talking about having a strat with a left head stock, I think I'll do it that way. His guitar \/ \/ \/ So with a little luck, I might have the necks roughly figured out tomorrow as well Edited November 24, 2007 by DougK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattia Posted November 24, 2007 Report Share Posted November 24, 2007 Looks good, although the armrest looks too 'short' (doesn't extend into the body far enough), which makes it look slightly oddly angled. Might be the way the pic was taken though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DougK Posted November 24, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 24, 2007 Looks good, although the armrest looks too 'short' (doesn't extend into the body far enough), which makes it look slightly oddly angled. Might be the way the pic was taken though... Probably a fair amount of it. Honestly, I used 3-4 strats as my guides (an original 74, a 50's reissue which has a way different contour, a late 90's am'standard and a couple squire bodies) and each one was different. I just kind of split the middle and figured if I wanted to add more later I'd just do it by hand. -or I go back and add 5-6 more lines to the program, no big deal there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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