MOJO
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Posts posted by MOJO
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[sorry posted twice somehow }
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This is an interesting topic and one that gets talked about a lot. A CNC router is just another woodworking tool that is used where consistent reproduction is needed. Most guitars out there are factory or what I call factory custom guitars. You kow what factory is. Factory custom is like the PRS model where you can order a guitar and choose within a certain set parameters the design elements you want. There is the custom shops that will give you a Les Paul with a flat fingerboard if you want it that way (or maybe they wouldn't even do that).
I think it is a matter of what you want to do. If you see Gibson, Fender, and PRS as your main competition then you must get a CNC and start cranking out the guitars if you ever hope to catch up (design first of course). These companies will design to the middle ground and hope for the best. The result is a bell curve and only a few guitars will ever really be great. These are the vintage (or modern) guitars that people do not sell. A CNC can achieve strict dimensional tolerances that is absoutely wonderful. But this is not necessarily the most effective way to build a guitar. Depending on the specific pieces of wood involved each guitar will respond and play differently because the design does not compensate for this. This is the most important delineation that I wish to describe between hand made and factory custom and it can be illustrated by the fact that there are not any tonal parameters offered beyond wood choice. How the wood is machined is never open to customization because it would require individual tweaks to the design for every guitar.
I personally do not see the larger companies (or the smaller companies that emulate them) as my competition. I am in a completely different market altogether. My client base is very small and want something more from their instruments than what they are generally offered. Usually they have played a number of different guitars or many of the same guitars and note what they like and did not like and start looking for 'the one'. You can find it in the racks of manufactured guitars although depnding on what you are looking for you may be looking for a long time. It's the nature of manufacture that everything is based on dimension and not tone.
I agree that 'hand made' is a term that is totally abused. Hand made usually means pieced together by hand from machined parts. These can be very excellent instruments but they can also be mediocre eye candy. To me hand made means that I do some of the work by hand so that I can individualize the voice of the instruments. It is this custom voicing that differentiates what I am striving to achieve from instruments manufactured dimensionally (and cosmetically).
While popular opinion dictates that an electric guitar is all pickups and electronics (who started this idea do you suppose?) then the ideas I use in my designs are seen as useless. My opinion is that the guitar must be as responsive and toneful as it can be as dictated by the tonal requirements of the design. The pickups will not pickup anything that is not already there. They may color the tone but they do not add anything at all. Wood choice is very important but even more important is how it is machined.
To illustrate my meaning let's get back to the question of the hand carved tops. My approach to building electric guitars is much like how I build an acoustic guitar. I tap test the woods and proceed with the knowlendge of what that piece of wood adds (or subracts) to the mix of materials I am using for the particular guitar. Hand carving a top allows you to make subtle changes in the way the piece of wood (or body if it's a solid body) resonates and responds. If you need more treble in an archtop you might thin out the top on each side of the bridge. If you want more of a bass response you may thin it out behind the bridge. Both of these adjustments depend on the way the braces are oriented (if they have braces) and how dense or stiff the wood is. A maple top on a solid body dampens the tone so the same principles apply but in reverse. You may leave the bass area thicker to dampen the bass response or vice versa. When chambering the body may need 1/8" more material removed in the chambers to get to the sweet spot. This can be a combination of top and body chambers.
Let me be very clear that I am not against CNC use at all. I use a duplicarver and would gladly acquire a CNC if I thought I could justify the expense. With my duplicarver I carve my tops oversize so I can fine tune them by hand. There is no other way to achieve what I do. If I had access to a CNC I would use it in the same way and rough carve tops. I would also use it in place of my pickup and control cavity jigs for sure. But I would never hand over the most important aspect of building to a machine that doesn't know the difference between a resonant, sweet tap tone and plate distortion. They both have their place depending on what tone you are building to and it takes an appreciation for music to hear this. And it also takes ears.
Here is an excellent article by Irvin Somogyi: Some Thoughts on the Differences Between Handmade and Factory Made Guitars.
~David
great post Dave.enjoyed the article too
i visit quite a few guitar forum and you'd be amazed how many people when they hear the word CNC instantly picture ..you put a piece of wood into it punch a button and out theother end pops a completed guitar the hahahaha..
i don't think they even realize how much handwork still needs to be done to get a guitar completed from that point....
PRS is a good example. i've been on the their factory tour and was amazed how much handwork was still involved even after the rough cut bodies and neck come off the CNC.. lots of handwork still done the old fashion way.. not a ton of Robot's doing every little thing like a certain "Vegas" dealers would love people to believe
( i have it on decent authority that He uses CNC materials too ..hypocrite)the one place i feel PRS has slipped is where you mentioned.. wood and tone selection ( maybe not on the Private stock models but definatley on the production models ) they really don't take the time they use to, to go thru their woods for toneful pieces...
but i do believe that there are quite a few smaller builders that balance both the old school hand work and wood selection with modern CNC machinery Joe Driskill and Ron Thorn come to mind..these guys are not producing hundreds of instrument a years, hell i think 20 is probably a closer number per year, maybe even less but i know they both put a ton of handwork time into each of their instrument sanding and fine tuning everything to incredible tolerances..when i got my first Thorn i went over it like a hawk and i'll be damned if i could find a single hint or trace that any kind of adhesive or glue or epoxy was used on any part of it.the woods just seemed like they were naturally bonded together and seem lines when visible at all, looked more like decreative touches then the place where 2 woods were glued together..thats how tight they are and how much attention to detail is there and thats only with Ron, his dad and one assistant, not to mention the whole other inlay business he has to run at the same time..i don't know when he finds time to sleep
Joe i don't think sleeps at all, dial his number a three o'clock in the morning and 90% of the time he'll pick it up..still there working..by himself as far as i know ( i don't believe he has anyone that works for him ) if he not working on the guitars he's designing and milling his own bridges or researching some other wacked out space age material
( don't know how many people know this but Joe did 2 years of research on the NASA poylmer materials used in the stealth bomber, so that he could used the material on one of his guitars for a Player who was suddenly paralyzed in an accident. he needed to find a material covering for tthe wood that could tolerate the strain and stress that an air pressured controlled robotic fingering system (which he also built) would put on it , he then built the guitar pretty much from scratch and delivered it... now that freakin customer service and dedication to guitar building if i ever heard it..
like you suggested Dave... CNC is just another tool builders can use like any other power tool and using one is not neccesarily a sign of lazy, bad or shoddy workmanship ... besides you've got be freaking rocket scientist to learn how to program and maintain one of them anyways... ahahahaha
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wow!! that walnut is sweet looking, going to really come to life when you finish it..
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all points are valid, i don't want anyone think i'm knocking the old school way of building guitars..it really is a highly skilled Art form that i hope never fades out completely... if a luthier really good he produce a guitar thats every bit as good and accurate as CNC machine..i have no doubt of that..there are plenty of you guys here that clearly demonstrate that... Rhoads comes to mind..great stuff no doubt
i just can't fault a builder for going the CNC route if he wants to compete in today's
competetive guitar market..thats all....really you have to..not much choice
As far as prices. i agree with you guys.prices have gone berserk when you consider how much wood actually cost compared to what some charge you for it in the end. i'm all for a luthier making a bit of a profit off the wood prices but i think some have gotten totally ridicules
korina's a good example..go to any wood supplier and compare the price of korina to say Hond Mahogany..it's a little more expensive then H mahogany yes.. usually around $20 buck per body or neck blank
but when you talk to certain Builders they want to charge you $600 more for the korina body upgrade..it's a ripoff and greed at work..plain and simple, but people are suckers and they pay it not knowing any better..so what are you going do...
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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!
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
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oh to sit in your office monkeying around in Rhino3d while your shop elves and robots spit out bodies and necks, and your Plek system scans, sands and levels your frets for you (j. suhr) lol
It's the price you pay for selling through retailers I guess.. His comment on one of the machines was "yeah it's ok but kinda slow.. you can only do a few guitars a day on it"
haahahaha sounds way too easy doesn't it ..but theirs quite of bit of hand work still to be done once it's off the CNC.the bodies are far from complete
besides when someone can logically explain exactly how hand carved is better then CNC carved..then i'm all for it (CNC that is)
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Hi all,
Well I have recently purchased a really nice classical guitar, but as we all know classical guitars are commonly found with flat fretboards...
So, I plan on re-radiusing the fret board to a 12 degree radius then fat fretting it...
I have noticed (Im not sure whether this is common in accoustics or not) that the fretboard does arch up slightly about on the 12th fret (where it leaves the body)...
I was just hoping that anyone who has had previous experience in re-radiusing a fret board could give me any advice or 'lessons' they learned along the way...
Thanks alot,
Shimmy
well i know Sadowsky uses a 12" fretboard Radius on his electric nylon string instrument ( as do a couple of others i believe ) so i don't see why it wouldn't work
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thought some of you guys might appreciate this roundtable discussion of duplicarvers and CNC machines
builders represented:
John Suhr , Ron Thorn , Bill Chapin (shades)
Joe Driskill( diablo ) , Saul Koll , Scott Heatley
rep for lentz an denyle guitars , Juha Ruokangas , Bill Gadow
enjoy...
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthrea...&threadid=71800
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I don't know what to think about the PRS thing. You dont' have to convince me of the Ed Roman BS factor.. but.. your picture of the CNC doesn't necessarily prove anything.. Both sides get carved.. When you turn it over you have to have smoething for the vacuum jig to grab ahold of..
You bring up a great point, what i'm trying to say is that the actual final size of the heel is not even formed yet when most of the front work such as truss rod channel routing is done ( so when ED says the large heel is the result of doing it this way. he's full of hot air ), if you look at the neck furthest on the CNC( the heel part has not started being finally formed yet) their is a larger squarer piece of wood that the vaccum grabs a hold of when the the front work is being done ( you would need to have that regardless of whatever the final heel size was) know what i mean?
the picture i posted is actually the last stage of a neck being formed by the CNC
the front of the neck has already been routed for the TR channel, the headstock wings added and carved to shape, the tuner holes drill. the final 2 thing that are routed are the actual neck shape and then the heel ( if they wanted to they could easily have the CNC make the heel a shorter one if they wanted to at this stage..remember they already do 2 different types of heel carves.... a shorter one for 24 fretters and Longer one for the 22 fretters..wouldn't take much to change a couple of number in the CNC parameters for the newer 24 fretters models to make an original even shorter heel or even carve the last 1/4 inch by hand ( i suspect they do it one of those 2 ways for the PS program if that what the customer wants
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i'm always amazed at how much of ER B***S*** some people believe
First of all the the Heel on PRS 24 fret models has only increased by 1/4 of inch from the earlier 24 fret models
ed's famous comparison picture is a sham...what he did was put an original short heel 24 fret model next to the larger newer model 22 fret model ( the 22 fret model always had that sized heel..it never increased in size at all) to make it look like there was a large increase in size then there actually was) now if he had put a newer 24 Fret model next to the older 24 fret one you would see the size increased very little from the original 24 fret models
its pretty simple if you want the smaller heel buy the 24 fret models..its that simple
the larger heel has absolutely nothing to do with how the CNC machine holds the neck in place
{picture proof}
http://www.eastcoastmusic.com/prstr005.gif
as you can see the neck heel is not even carved facing heel down ..its carved face up with the heel on top like the picture shows with the exact same sized tenon on the end like the original models
the real reason paul decide to go with the large heel for the newer 22 fret models was due to the fact that many of the shorter heeled 24 fret models were turning up with Dead spots in the upper region (notes that were either not ringing properly or decaying prematurely
i have owned both the older short heeled 24 fret ( had 2 dead spot on both the 13 an 15th frets) and a newer 22 fret model ( which has no dead spots at all )
so i know this to be absolute fact.....
the upper fret access on the newer models is still better then the fret accesss of either the LP or your average Fender strat
and the biggest myth of all ( as someone mentioned earlier ) ..that PRS guitar before 1995 were hand made..no they were not... the bodies and necks were carved on a duplicarver which does exactly the same thing as a CNC except alot less accurate..
to get a PRS that was truly handmade you would have to have a 1986 model or earlier ...
if you actuallly go on the PRS factory tour ( which i have been) you would see that other then the initial CNC carving of the bodies and neck and 1 stage of finish buffing everything else is pretty much done exactly the same way as the old days
by hand ..but just in a larger scale
regarding the PRS set design VS the longer neck tenon (wonder who they got the idea from for a longer neck tenon...PRS most likely) that Mcnaught and other use ..the longer neck tenon can be great as long it 100% done accurate and you make sure your wood is completly dry ( no potential of neck warpage or twisting or extreme movement or have the neck broken in an accident )because if that happens you might as well throw the entire guitar in the fire place and buy or build a new one... it's unfixable ...you'd have to saw off the off the entire Top wood of the guitar to get to the rest of the tenon
with a PRS if theirs a neck problem its a much easier procedure and the neck can be replaced if it need to be, you just have to remove only the neck pickup to get to the the tenon, while leaving the rest of the face of the guitar as is...
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i know Blackmore usually glues in his fender Bolt on necks, so i guess it's possible ( if thats what you mean)
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ok, so i've had this idea for a while and now i have a chance to act it out...
what if i was to take a thin top,say flame maple, and cut out flames(fire) on the ol' band saw(already did this part)
then could i just glue it on the the bodyand sand,shape,fill, it in.........
i've already cut the top a while ago out of boredom and spare wood.........
kinda inlay the wood flames into the top i assume?? that sounds kinda cool, it could be done but a lot work routing out the channels in the top wood for the flames i would think..but with time and patients i think it could be done
Ron Thorn has experimenet with something like that. he inlays the whole 1/2 inch figured top into the backing wood ( although he has the benefit of a CNC to do a more accurate and precise cutting )
here's the first one he did ( pretty cool i think )
http://p092.ezboard.com/fthornnewsanddiscu...opicID=77.topic
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thats a great visual reference
Thanks for sharing your wealth..Perry..
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you should give Ron a calll, i'm sure he'd be more then happy to talk shop. i can't say 100% sure if he is or isn't building the CNC machines any more ( maybe since he got his guitar line off the ground he doesn't have the time any more between them and all the inlay work he does for other guitar companies ) but like Drezdin said the last one i know he completed was for Scott Heatley and that was within the last year or so..if he's not then he'll definatly get you headed in the right direction in what would be best for your needs
actually another guy whose brain you could pick is Joe Driskill at Driskill guitars..he's like a mad little scientist when it comes to CNC Techy stuff. he actually built one of his guitars to be played by breath pressure ( for a guitar player that was Paralyzed in an accident ) really far out space age robotic stuff
.he's good folk too.. funny as hell
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check with Ron Thorn at Thorn inlays.. ( besides inlay, and guitar building , he also builds CNC machines...
he may be able to build you a custom CNC to meet your needs..he's a great guy to deal with too
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pffft. I haven't posted in months, but the warmer months are coming up and it's time to turn my mind back to six stringed outdoor fun.
I have a dream, and that dream is of a *fairly* PRS style axe with a bubinga neck, ebony fretboard and a lacewood top. The only bit i'm not sure about is the main body wood.
i'm after something that isn't going to weigh a ton as both my previous guitars have been REALLY heavy, For some reason in the uk, nice normal woods like alder that would usually be a no brainer are pretty pricey, so i've narrowed it down to some other woods that might be suitable. just fishing around for people who've worked with them, i'd like to know a bit about the weight, workability and ease of finishing please.
Anyhow..... Here's the woods, Sycamore (english), Lime (bit like Basswood aparantly) Cherry (US) i'm open to suggestions though, all of these can be had for around £30 GBP for a one piece so i'm keeping the costs down.
Thanks guys!
there is a wood called "paulowina" that is suppose to be quite light..
Kevin Brubaker at Brubaker guitars and basses uses it quite a bit here in the US
i'm not really familar with it myself but have seen positive things said about it for body woods... Maybe you can contact Kevin for more info on it..i'm sure he'd be happy to help..he's a goodfella
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Hello,
Mojo - great to see you here and thanks for the support as always.
rhoads56 - You're taking this like quite a gentleman I have to say. Mojo sent me the image of your fretboard a couple weeks ago. My e-mail reply to him was "he ripped us off". Now I read you posted the images months ago...
I am no stranger to having my inlay designs "ripped" by other builders. Some blatantly. It stings. I can only hope that you can take my word that I had not seen your fingerboard prior to this. Based on your above post, it seems that you have already considered this. Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt.
As Mojo explained, this concept guitar was in the works for quite sometime, close to a year. I have quite an extensive library of Dover copyright-free artwork/clipart books. Most of the sharks came from a variety of art books, coloring books, tattoos, and even children's stickers. (Mojo doesn't know that
, however ). A little tweak here and there to fit within the frets was all.In any event, thanks again. I hope to spend more time over here - this is a great forum from what I've read so far.
Sincerely,
Ron Thorn
Hey ron ..good to see you here buddy
i do want to stick up up for Perry also..i didn't think it was a case of anyone ripping anyone off...just 2 great artist visionaries coming up with a similar idea..thats all
as i stated earlier neither Ron nor myself had ever seen Perry's sharks before acouple of weeks ago and i had my guitar for acouple of months already by then and theirs no way Perry could have seen our sharks because it was never shown anywhere on the internet till after the guitar was completed and delivered in OCT
(ron and i were very "top secret" about them no one except anyone who happened to wander by Ron's shop knew anything about them..well thats not true Jeff who designed the tribal shark F hole.knew what the inlays looked like ..but thats it )
Perry's a good guy and Ron's a good guy..no foul on anyone...
Ron hope you stick around here some..
ron really is great down to earth guy and a wealth of information in not only inlay and guitar building but also designs and builds his own CNC machines and other goodies..he's like a mad little Dr Frankenstein..no challenge too crazy to attempt
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hre's the completed Thorn gallery to date ( for anyone interested )
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I'm pretty sure it's done by just routing out a channel wide enough for the strip and then setting it in.
ron uses a dremel to create a channel just off the edge of the fingerboard and sets the purfling in..pretty much like stated above
its not on the edge of the fingerboard so no outside binding is neccessaryto keep it in place.he also does the same thing along the headstock, the top of the body and the side of the body where the top wood meets the backing wood..
here's a good shot of it
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no.. i'd probably glue myself to wood by mistake..
i've anly gotten as far as slapping a warmoth parts together...
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Nah, im not overly concerned, the designs are different, and although i did post my pics on the web before thron posted theirs, no doubt they were working on the inlay well before i drew mine. I just thought it was a cool idea, and i was a little spewin someone else had come up with the same thing, but then again, "Birds" although nice, are EVIL like Sharks, so someone else would have come up with it sooner or later if i/thorn didnt.
honestly Perry, i never saw your shark inlays before till like 3 weeks ago when i went onto your website after seeing your Super strat thread and started looking around..it really was just a coincedence
that we both had the similar idea.. i got the idea from combining the shark inlays from Rainsong acoustic guitars ( they've been doing shark inlays for years on their guitars ) with a guitar Thorn (#12) did with Orcas completed Jan 03
http://www.musicianmatcher.com/LeonsGear/
i just told ron i wanted the same kinda thing with sharks instead of orcas.. actually he did 2 mockup drawnings he sent me
1) with just alll hammerhead sharks
2) the one with various sharks ( which is the one we went with )
i ordered my shark guitar around AUG 1 of 2003
about a week after i got my first thorn
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my two Thorn guitars.. basic shape but wild woods and inlays
#21
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/MOJO...RS/dd0e33df.jpg
#48
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/MOJO1/d55c1b0c.jpg
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A little to radical shapewise for me, but very nicely done..love to see what you could do with a more tradition shape...
reminds me a bit of Mcnaughts work ( thats a good thing )
( i have it on decent authority that He uses CNC materials too ..hypocrite)
Weapon Of Mass Destruction
in In Progress and Finished Work
Posted
that is awesome Perry!!