jer7440

The next thing I did was mount a piece of 3/4" MDF to the mill table. The MDF is a sacrificial piece so that I don't hit the mill table when I mill through the body blank. After the MDF is secured to the table the mahogony blank was attached to the MDF using a double stick tape called Procell. This stuff is amazing. It is pressure sensitive so the more you push down on it the more it sticks. Now for the fun stuff. The first cut I made was with a 1/16" endmill. I cut the perimeter of the cavity cover to a depth of 1/8". When I flip the blank over and cut the cavity from the other side, hopefully I will be left with a perfectly matching cavity cover. Here is the mill making this cut. And here is the finished cut. cavity cover

Well, i'm finally cutting the real thing. Here is my one piece mahogony blank in the mill. The mahogony was run through a planer and it left a bunch of ridges in the board. I clamped the blank in the mill and skimed about .02" off of each side and now it is nice and flat. The device in the center is a tool setting gauge. Normaly you set it on a piece of steel and when you touch it with your cutter it completes a circuit and it lights up. Then you know your cutter is exactly 2" above your work. Since wood doesn't conduct electricity very well, I created a plastic ring to go around the gauge. The plastic ring holds a wire that contacts the base of the gauge. The other end of the wire has an alligator clip that attatches to the mills table. Now when the cutter touches it I get a complete circuit and I know exactly where my cutter is in relation to my work.

Donald how fast are you spinning that big mother end mill?

LGM is right. I've been checking this stuff out for a while now. The cheapest thing I've seen that is effective is the shopbot. Donald Wilson is making an archtop in the in progress section, he is using a shopbot. A base shopbot will run you $10k, and I've read alot that questions the accuracy of that machine. Most of the pro builders are using machining centers like Haas and Fadal. They aren't using these because they had a ton of money to throw at a cnc, but its what they needed to do an adequate job. I don't say all of this to throw water on your fire, but I don't think $500 is going to get you what you want.

Matt is right on the money. Neat machine but only powerful and rigid enough for the lightest work. Inlay and such.

I cant see the video. I just get an error.

I've been using a digitech gnx3 for about a year now. It's actually a little overwhelming to me. I was going to ditch it for a 3 channel tube amp of some kind, try to simplify things a little. But, my church ( the only place I ever play live) is going to a in ear monitor system and all the guitars and bass are going direct into the PA. So I guess I'll have to spend some more time figuring out what I need and don't need in the gnx3.

How about some pics and a cash price?

Dude look at the list of things you screwed up, things you won't likely screw up again, because now you know. You either learned what you should have done, or you know what to practice before you committ to good wood again. You've learned to much to give up now.

Doesn't seem like it would work so well on curvey surfaces. Maybe i'm wrong. Looks great for everything else though.

Man i love the grain in that neck. Lookin sweet.

Gotta pay for that machine some how! If I didn't have access to a cnc at work there is no way I would think about building a guitar that way. But I finally found a fun outlet for the skills I have learned in my job.

Gorgeous as usual Craig. Thanks for sharing your work and your knowledge with us.

i'll bet you if you had the demand for your guitars that they do.you'd be a CNC covert also besides i'm sure most of them have a long history of "hand carving" before they said to themselves " what am i knocking myself out for" ..there an easier and better way to do this.. other then self -gratification for the luthier there's no difference between the hand carving and CNCing...absolutly none at all.. don't get me wrong I fully appreciate the skill it takes to do it the old way i quess what i'm trying to get across is that the term "handmade" or "Hand carved" is the most abused term in the guitar making business these days .if your using any kind of power tool ...bandsaw, planer, jointer or whatever..your using a power machine to do the work exactly like what a CNC does..unless your using nothing but a hand saw, hand planes , hand sanding (no electric ones allowed ) a chisel and hammer for all routing and spokeshaves for all carving on ..then you can claim it's truly hand made ← Amen, preach it brother

Thanks for that link. Ive been working on cncing a guitar for a while and it's cool to see how the pros are doing it!

Are you using templates for your router or are you trying to do these pockets freehand?

WOW!

Again I haven't done it, but I agree with tonemonkey, route it off. Just curious though, why would you want to?

I find my quest for tone to be mired in ignorance. I just don't seem to have a clue of what components make up a tone I like. I have a digitech gnx3 with tons of amp models and effects,but it's almost overwhelming to try to figure it out.

I had a couple of questions about your binding. How far did you sand the top before you put the binding on, i.e. 320 grit , 400 grit? What height is your ivroid binding? Did you use the 3/8 tall binding, or did you have to use the 3/4 so the binding would be tall enough in the cutaway?

This guy is doing a clinic at my local music store on may 24, but I probably can't go My wife has to work, and I've got the rugrats.

Nice cad work. Did you do it? What system is that on?

Try www.imageshack.com

Nice maple. Durawoods has great stuff! That's where I got my piece from as well.

Is your breaker box in the garage or somewhere elese? If it is in the garage are there any empty spaces in it? If it is and there are, you could put in a 220V breaker and drop an out let out of the bottom of the box.