Machining Custom Guitars with Cut3D

[Tony Mac]

Gary - gd.marsh on CNCZone and his son Joel have been using the combination
of AutoCAD with Cut3D and Cut2D to design and machine custom guitars. And
below are a couple of photo's of their latest project.

Gary commented,

"I must give credit where credit is due. My son Joel is the AutoCad expert who
designed the guitar. I built the CNC machine for him to use in his custom guitar
business and we've worked together learning the Vectric programs."

Gary's machine build thread can be seen on CNCZone >

Very nice work guys and good luck with the business.

Tony

[cabnet636]

looks like father and son are pretty talented to me!!

jim

[Phil]

Looks like a winner. I hope to see pictures of the guitar when it is finished. Is that MDF?

[ckurak]

My assumption is that will be an electric guitar, as opposed to an acoustical. Sure looks like MDF to me. Actually, I hope it is LDF (lightweight).

[gd.marsh]

As a matter of fact, it is MDF .. but it's only a mock-up! The machine has only been up and running for about 1 month and we've been experimenting with the cam programs and material jigging to assure the processes work efficiently. I will post some pictures when a real guitar comes off the machine. Thanks for the compliments.

Gary

[gd.marsh]

OK, finally had a chance to snap some pictures of a real guitar in progress .. The first pics show the jig which allows material to be accurately located & flipped for machining on both sides. Red circles are 1/4" ground steel dowel pins locating the jig to the machine table for repeatable setups. Yellow & Blue circles are 1/2" Alum. pins to locate neck and body blanks on the jig for machining both sides. Green circles are 1/8" pins that locate a fret board blank on the jig for sizing & slotting. Other pics are roughed out neck & partially carved body & pocketed body.

[tmerrill]

Very nice setup Gary. Thanks for the update and please keep the pictures coming.

Tim

[ckurak]

Gary,

I am guessing that the black knobs hold the jig to your table. Is that correct? (I just learned something new here. Thanks.)

Nice work.

Just be cautious with those steel alignment pins. I usually use wood dowels, as most router bits will chew through the wood but not steel. However, your aluminum pins should be safe for most bits and much more accurate than wood dowels. (I've heard that wood changes size with humidity changes!)

Yes, please keep the pictures coming.

[gd.marsh]

That is correct, black knobs hold the jig down via T-Slots in the machine table.

I'm aware of the danger of using steel pins, but all CAM programs were carefully checked for clearance before anything was actually cut.
Any new style of guitar will require a new jig and the same procedures will be followed. But for the record, the steel bolts holding blanks to the jig will be replaced with plastic for safety's sake!

Thanks for your comments

[gd.marsh]

Well I know this isn't the best video quality, but I finally got this put together and on YouTube.
The simple little video program I used had a setting for YouTube posting, but I can see now it takes all the picture quality out of what you start with.



I don't know if it will automatically take you there from here or not?

[capnl]

Hi Gary / Joel,

the video is fine, nothing wrong with that !!

great to see others also 'inventing' their way in cnc guitar building.

Keep us posted !!

cheers
John

[gd.marsh]

Update ..

1st guitar to be completely machined with Cut2D/Cut3D is very close to final detailing & finishing.

[cabnet636]

that is impressive!!

jim

[tmerrill]

Hi Gary,

I agree with Jim, very impressive! Roughly how long does it take to get to this point, if that is something you don't mind sharing.

One observation - in the bottom picture it looks like there are some pretty bad burn marks in the large pocket. If so, you're going to go through a lot of bits. Just wondering if you have tried different feeds/speeds and pass depths?

Tim

[gd.marsh]

Thanks for the responses,

How long does it take? .. depends on how many times you have to do things!
Actually what you see here is probably a solid weeks work. There were a couple more jigs & programs developed and though the ebony fretboard was CNC cut .. the fretting is all done by hand .. each fret is cut & hand dressed before installing on the fretboard. (picture) Once all the processes are just a matter of throwing some wood on the machine and letting it do it's thing while you tend to other things .. there will be a drastic reduction in build time.

As to the burns at the bottom of the pocket .. yea it looks nasty, but the only large cutter available when this was run was a dull roughing end mill .. not so great for pictures but will get coated with a product to reduce RF interference in the electronics.

Gary