boeba

this looks promising.

is there a seperate page for the "Hanar" build. I love the design you made.

Greetings,

B

Hey Guys,

It's been a while since my last update but i finally managed to (almost) finish it now.

Yesterday i did the patina of the bronze. Not sure if i want it so dark, but we will see if i do some more touching up on it or not.

The screws who hold the plate to the body should become darker by doing some patinawork on it.

And that's it for now. In the next update it should be all strung up and finished.

Greetings,

B

Hi guys,

So after a week of waiting until the mold was ready for the bronze casting...

I present the raw bronze casting.

This is the mold where you can see the bronze piece still entrapped in the plaster.

Here you can see the raw cast still with the gating attached.

gating chopped off.

So the next step is to fit this onto the guitar body. It will be a tedious proces because i have to make the bronze pickguard completely flush.

I hope you guys enjoyed my journey so far.

B

On 2/25/2019 at 7:28 PM, komodo said:

Or Belgium! Speaking of Belgium, boeba, why don't you post pictures of your day ending beer like we have a tradition of doing? I bet you would put all of us to SHAME. If you don't drink, there is no judgement from me but I will warn you that my head will explode. I'm a home brewer, and most of what I brew is Belgian style beers. 

Thaha, i love drinking beers, but they don't always have to be belgian for me.

I am actually a man of simple taste, and most of the time i go for a jupiler, stella or maes.

Or the vedett IPA,....love it.

On 2/26/2019 at 4:32 PM, psikoT said:

Maybe I'm missing something, but aren't the strings going to touch that skull? From the pictures is hard to see, but it looks like is taller that the fretboard...

Looks great btw!

good noticing of you,

when i made the sculpt itself, i kept checking if the strings wouldn't touch the little monster. And actually it's possible i will have to take some thickness off the bronze casting when it's to high. So i will have to be patient to test with strings and make adjustements.

And here's another update guys

This is the waxmodel+wax gating.

When i have to do client models i use less channels/ gatings, because we use a very light bronze.

But when i cast personal stuff i always put way to much unnecessary channels/gatings on. i'm scared that it won't fill up the mold.

And here is the wax model trapped into the investmentmold. Ready to go into the kiln for 1 week.(along with client stuff)

Next week we will cast this batch.(fingers crossed)

hey Guys,

So here's the next update.

Nothing special, just the mold ready to be taken off the guitar.

Here you can see the mold taken off the guitar.

The black stuff is warm wax.

Tadaaa, this is the wax copy wich will be casted in bronze. The next step is to put wax gating onto it so we can pour bronze into it.

I can't wait to see this in bronze.

Hi Guys,

Soooooo,

besides my bronze guitar that i am building i also have another smaller project that i'm working on.

I had this old stagg for some time and the pickguard used to be plastic, but then i decided to make a wooden pickguard. this was some 2 years ago i think.

But now i decided to play with some plastiline and try to make some kind of little monster like a relief

The final result wil (like always) be a bronz pickguard(very thin)

This was the first layout, but i soon realised i had to go much lower in depth because the strings have to go over this piece.

Here you can see i decided to start all over again. I took the big chunck of clay and started sculpting much lower then before.

I added some skulls and the claw of the demon.

Between this picture and the previous you can see i changed the horns because i wasn't happy with how they looked.

At this point i decided i couldn't finish it more in plastiline. I will make a mold onto this and then make a wax copy where i can smooth and finish all the little details. (i want to add some veins on the claw and finish the nails and teeth properly)

I don't know what happend but i wouldn't want to touch that white stuff....;)

Just to be clear; this is the first silicone layer applied  onto the surface

9 hours ago, komodo said:

"i'm not 100% sure about the proportions. Everything feels "squeezed" to me. Not enough negative space between the shapes."

When you say this, do you mean that you feel that VISUALLY or ERGONOMICALLY when you play it? Visually I think what you've done is incredible, your new changes are subtle but that's what many of our curves and lines are. Subtle can be huge. Ergonomically, only you can tell. But I imagine that since the guitar is SO far outside of the typical box that it is just going to feel different, and the lack of material compared to a typical guitar would be startling. 

My profession is graphic design, and I did a LOT of 3D design in college and just love love what you are doing. It makes me wonder what you would do with a completely different design. Have you seen Rick Toones builds? He has some crazy stuff that is very sculptural. Search for his Orchid bass

Hi Komodo,

both visual and ergonomical.

the first thing i always have in mind is how it looks. so visually, i want every shape to feel at it's place. I like to question things, it's offcourse just a gut feeling, but i look at my work and ask myself if i can improve it just by tweaking every shape. 

Sometimes this means to kill your darlings, i don't want to settle for a good shape/design, i want the best design i can come up with.

Ergonomically; things can only be achieved by playing on the guitar. And obviously you start noticing flaws in the computermade design. And just like you said, it feels so different than a usual guitar that it sometimes can feel weird to play on. But i'm trying to fix this.

Rick Toone; my god, i love his designs, just beautiful shapes combined into a instrument.

On 12/16/2018 at 5:37 PM, Andyjr1515 said:

We like what you're doing very much @boeba !

It looks fantastic.

The change in the design is very subtle.  In your video clip, the proportions look absolutely fine to me - but the player feel and what you had in your mind is probably the most important thing.

It remains one of the most imaginative and exciting builds I've seen on this forum!

 

Andy

Hey Andy,

I probably didn't wrote this but in the video it's still the old version that i'm playing. (sry)

On 12/16/2018 at 6:28 PM, Prostheta said:

Very very cool. Never apologise for anything when you're a productive creator. Think, do, make, repeat.

If you need to play around with form and space, how about physical models in 1:1 from something like floral foam or whatever? That's easy to shape with knives, hot wire, etc. and gives you an immediate sense of scale and ergonomics. Other than the piercing bits, which don't hold up in foam

Hey Prostheta,

I have played with the idea to use foam to make cheap shapes to test. But the problem was that i couldn't attach them properly to the bronze. So that's why i make them in 3d, which is more expensive but i can't think of anything cheaper/faster to try.

If you have some ideas, please enlighten me..:)

And here is the next post.

In the previous one i showed you guys the 2 scale models for comparison.

And now i can show you the progress from old shapes to new shapes scale 1:1.

The picture above is the old version (the one i am playing in the video.)

Here is the old version where i chopped it's wings in order to attach the new improved wings. The only piece that stayed is the bronze core, which to me is the heart of the guitar.

It was very easy to take the pieces off because i only weld it on a couple of points. (because i didn't want to have everything solid before i was 100% happy with the look and feel.)

And voila, some new pieces to attach. At this point, the lightblue pieces have to be cast in bronze so they can be welded onto the core.

tadaaa, lightblue plastic is transformed into bronze. Magic 

And this is a comparison pic. Old vs new

The best change to me is the flow of shapes/lines. I tried to improve some designlines to make the design stand more out.

Especially on the back of the big wing you can see at first i just had a small bar in bronze, which is now changed to a kind of triangular shape.

And here everything is spotwelded.

i am in love with this view,i don't know why but it looks like some kind of critter, a crab crawling through the sand. It feels like some kind of sculpture which i intendid to do when i started this project, combine my 2 loves; sculpture+guitar, and combine this into one playable sculpture.

And the last pic for now, again a comparison.

Above is the new version. As i see them next to each other, the new version looks more balanced, proportions, designlines,...

See you guys on the next update.

B

Hey Guys,

I've been busy but i wanted to share somethings with you....

Don't mind the bad playing or bad musical taste...;) (cradle of filth-shat out of hell)
 

So this is actually the first time my prototype comes to life. As previously mentioned, i'm not 100% sure about the proportions. Everything feels "squeezed" to me. Not enough negative space between the shapes. So i decided to go back to the drawing board and try to improve the design.

My design wall.

And after a long time working/designing i present a improved design

I also did a small 3d print comparison test.

Left is the old version, right is the new one.

I hope you guys enjoy what i'm doing. 

Thnx,

Boeba

hi guys, ready for the next update?

With the last update you could see the 2 braces 3d printed and ready to be cast in bronze.

and here it is.....

And in the next pics you can see the braces welded onto the bronze core

I just love how this piece looks like some kind of modern sculpture. Reminds me somewhat of zaha hadid kind of shapes. On the other hand it looks a bit like a little creature/crab thing.

And now the complete piece with the neck mounted.....

At this point i need some solution for the controls. And seeing the complete guitar hanging on my wall, the first thing what comes in mind is that the bronze+wings looks to small compared to the neck, to small in length, and in width.

In the next pic you can see the guitar in human hands..:)

To me the big wing doesn't feel big enough compared to the person. So i think i will change my design in the computer and reprint some parts i think. This sounds like double work, but i had to see my first design in real life to make the right adjustments. Seeing a computerdesign on screen clearly isn't the same as irl.

Thnx,

B

Hi guys,

Ready for the next update??:)

I ended up with this choice because it felt the most appealing to me. And after i made the design in 3d i had to make it ready for 3d print.......

I don't know if you guys can see it but there are actually 4 parts. 2 small braces who connect with the bronze.....These are just 2 small pieces to be cast in bronze before i can mount the big wings onto the bronze core.

The 2 pics above are just the 2 pieces with gating attached, ready to go in a investement mold and be casted in bronze.

(don't mind the yellow pieces, it's from another customer)

Greetings, 

Benoit

Hi guys,

Now the time has come to start designing the shapes around the bronze core. 

At this point these are just sketches, i want to find out what works, and what not.

If i see something i like, i take a closer look at it and start playing with the possibilities .

And this was my first batch of skecthes. In the next update you will see the shapes taking another turn.

Greetings,

Benoit

Next update: Pickups

Hi guys, so what is a electric guitar without pickups.....

Just a picture with the pickups thrown onto the bronze...:)

At this moment the pickups are just stock taken from my ibanez grg170dx.

I needed to make some kind of brackets to mount the pups onto.

And somekind of cavity for the controls.( at this point i didn't know what to do with them, but in the future updates you will see what i've come up with.

And voila, a bad picture of the pickups mounted on the bronze shape.

And here it is. A somewhat working electric guitar.

Don't mind the shabby playing and face...;)

At this point it wasn't easy for me to play this thing because i had no handsupport so my hand keeps " falling".

The bronze piece itself has no support to place it onto my leg or anything so it keeps rolling over as you can see.

But!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next update will be a journey, a journey into shapes and forms. The quest for the ultimate design for this bronze beast.

Stay tuned.

Benoit

On 8/15/2018 at 9:09 PM, Prostheta said:

Damn cool, Benoit. Did bronze shrinkage factor in at all?

I would have to check it when i take the neck off again. But yess, it shrinks a couple % of a millimeter.

But not enough for me to have measurement issues or other technical problems. i made exact holes in the 3d model where the neck should go, and when i casted the pieces all the holes alligned for 99,1%. Something like that...:).

On 8/16/2018 at 10:22 AM, Andyjr1515 said:

Gosh - that is something else.  Literally!  Very impressive.

You may have already said, but what weight is this piece, trimmed up like this?

I remember i wrote it somewhere, but i can't find it back. When i take it apart again i will remember to weigh it.

Greetings,

Benoit

hi guys,

Next update:

So after the bronze was casted into the mold. I finally could take the casted piece out of the plaster, to see what the result was.

Feast your eyeeeezzzz...

As you can see this is a rough cast, and i just took the gating of the piece. I am always amazed to see your own plastic computer designed and 3d printed stuff take shape into solid metal. 

After this i cleaned it up, sanded the piece to get the dirt and little stuff off. And then we have this.....

The orange version was the first one printed, but had a wrong scale length, and to much excess shape/weight. 

And here she is. My bronze guitar. In this stadium, it's just the backbone of my future model i want to make. But first i wanted to try to make the basics, and put some strings on it, to see if it could be tuned.

The next step was to design some ergonomic nice shapes to define my guitar.

Stay tuned....

Owyeah, keep in mind that the neck you see is just a cheap neck i bought online. For the final guitar i will make something different.

Benoit

On 8/3/2018 at 6:52 PM, FINEFUZZ said:

How do you address porosity in the castings?  When you finish a piece for a customer is any porosity acceptable?

This issue is a struggle for me because I would like to eliminate every small defect, but maybe  a small degree is acceptable like small knots in wood.

I haven't encountered any voids that need filling on my guitar, but I have been peen hammering the small defects which becomes its own challenge for creating smooth surfaces.

 

Paul 

When we have porosity it gets cleaned up with welding or working with metaltools to get the artefefacts out of the bronze.

But like you say, it's a struggle to get every little piece out of the bronze.

Hi Guys,

This is a typical casting day. The big molds probably weigh 500-1000 kg at average.

Blocks of bronze sunbathing.

This is a video of some bronze casting. I just noticed this happens to be the part where one of the molds breaks, so actually what you are seeing is a little bronzefail...

Greetings,

B

Part 3: The 3d printed backbone of the guitar casting in bronze

I hope the picture explains itself.

I just added some gating in wax directly onto my model. These are just the fundamentals of bronzecasting,

The next step is to fully cover this model with a kind of plaster.

Everything is covered except the pouring cup and the air vents(green)

I don't have pictures of the next steps, because my hands are always dirty when i'm at work.But we do have a mold lying around in the foundry to explain the next step to customers. 

As you can see, it's another model we used, but the principle is the same. Keep in mind this is just one half of a mold.....:)   (just for demonstration purpose)

The next step is to put these molds in the kiln, oven, furnace..@ 600°C

 depending on the size, 1 day to 2 weeks for big molds 

To show you guys the difference in size.

the biggest mold here was about 2 ton. (converter says it should be 4400 lbs..)

Feel free to ask any questions about this proces or anything else.

In the next update i wil upload some casting video's.....;)

B

Loved going through this topic. I really liked your approach starting from computer to 3d print to the bronze casting.It's funny i just found this topic now since i just started something similar on this forum. Keep up the cool work.

14 hours ago, ScottR said:

I'm looking forward to seeing that.

You've got some very artistic designs working here.

SR

4 hours ago, curtisa said:

That's a pretty out-there design you have going. Reminds me a bit of Michael Spalt's work.

I know his works and can only take it as a compliment..;). Such amazing designs, and use of different materials.

 I won't reinvent the wheel, since he already went this road, but still i can try to come up with something of my own.

B

Part 2

so after this first prototype i decided to take it a step further. Since my job involves casting bronze sculptures, i wanted to make the center/core of the guitar out of bronze.

Again, after a lot of 3d sketches, i came up with this design.

Don't mind the blue wings. Before i designed the silhouet, i first wanted to make the spine of the guitar, to see if bronze was a good material to make a electric guitar. So the next step was to 3d print this piece.

As you can see, i drew on the 3d print to show there was to much material which would affect the weight. So in my computermodel i immediately changed this for version 2.0.

That's it for part 2. In the next update i want to show you guys some images of the proces to cast this in bronze.

Greetings,

Boeba

Hi guys,

it's been 2 years since i posted anything on this forum. For those who want to know where it started, check this old post.

http://www.projectguitar.com/forums/topic/47824-ibanez-grg-170-dx-conversion-to-order-of-the-dracul/?page=2&tab=comments#comment-556763

for a long time i let this guitar unfinished and started to think what else i could come up with.
i have a background in modern art(sculpture), 3d printing, bronze/classic sculptures. 
From this point i started to search the internet for other people who experimented with 3d printed guitars.
To be honest, one of the first designs who caught my eye, was the "zoybar". It's an open source community where you can download 3d parts to build your own guitar. 

https://zoybar.net/

This concept got me fired to start designing my own 3d printed guitar => converted to bronze.

The first concept guitar i made was based on the zoybar, but with some extra shapes which would define the silhouet.

These first 2 images are computer renderings. Design sketches to see how things would work in 360°.

This image below is the next design where i worked with seperate pieces. The yellow would eventually become bronze mounted to an aluminium rail.

On this model ( the 3 images above) the center/core of the guitar was just a basic rail with some shapes attached.
This first concept was my starting point to build a bronze core where you could attach side wings.

Sooooo, i think this is enough for one post, but i still have a lot of pictures and progress made by now.For those of you who want to see where i am at right now, you can check my instagram page.

https://www.instagram.com/boebac/?hl=nl

But in a couple of days i intend to post more updates on this forum.

Greetings,

Boeba

Hi guys,

it's been more than a year since i posted any updates. 

But i can tell you that the project is not dead!!

i finally started with the final design( this time it's really final?)

so sry for the long downtime but here's my progress so far!!

the plan was to put a emg in the bridge, but i already used it on another project.

so now i'm thinking to place a seymour duncan nazgul( i recently bought a mayones equiped with sentient/nazgul and i'm in love with it.

Hi guys,

So it's been like ages since i posted an update.

It was a struggle to get to the point where i'm at right now.

So after the last drawing/design i made on the guitar, i started to paint this.But after 10 minutes i wasn't satisfied with what i got , so call me crazy but i sanded the whole thing down, and started again with a new drawing.

10 min failed paint job.

----------------------------

design nr 3.

---------------

This is going to be the final design and i will just make a pencil drawing on the guitar. no paint or colors.(you have to know your own limits)

Hi guys, looks like the last time i posted was july......

Since then i've been thinkin about what to do with my drawing. when i placed the drawing on the blue background this wasn't smart.

It's like drawing/painting in negative.(black background and white lines.)

So i decided to redo the drawing but on a white canvas.

Below is a pic of the new design, and now i can start to paint.