Official Luthiers Forum!

I think Bob Taylor just outed himself.

Come on, you can admit it. You're Bob.

- Flori

Hmm...I think I came in late



There'd be more road-wear than tool-wear on it if they only had a week to figure it out



Depends on the customer. I have customers that are willing to pay the extra time to have it come off the machine shiny. There are compression marks, but they run them once over with 400 or 600 grit to take those off. They carve them with the fretboards on them at Taylor, so there's no need to blend those off the machine, just finish sanding.



Robotic arm. They use 'em for sanding all kinds of stuff. There are also 'more automated' ways to do it, if you're doing the same neck over and over; I'm sort of surprised that places like Taylor haven't gotten around to implementing them yet.



Springback is a material property, not a process property. On the other hand, if you can bend to an arbitrary contour then you can just overbend it in the right places to account for it. I'm looking at making something similar to the Taylor machines, but I'd be interested in seeing an alternative. There is one way I can think of to do truly arbitrary bends, but the tooling and programming would be a bit of a nightmare.



The only reason it hasn't yet is that there isn't enough money to be made relative to the cost of setting it up. We can already stick raw ore in one end and come out with a Toyota...



Besides responses, in the end I'm with Tony as well. Without ego involved, there are only a couple facts about CNC machines that matter.
1- They're more accurate and repeatable than we are. Really. In all cases, with a good machine. The existence of poor machines doesn't negate this.
2- They need to be programmed, and that can be long/hard <----This is where the limit usually is, and it's a human one
3- They're expensive

Everything else is a corollary to those. You can program an automated system to adjust to circumstances (stiffness of wood, weight, etc) with enough cash behind you.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

What a fun thread. The following thoughts about this are as a player and collector. Yes, I have built a few guitars, but mostly as a diversion, and a need to know how it's done and why it works the way it does. It has helped me immensely as a buyer, in assessing the criteria that is important to me, and in opening up a level of comfortable dialogue with builders who make this their life's work.

I’ve been wrestling with my feelings about the issue, the good thing about which, is that you never *really* have to justify them. However, I’ve been able to quantify the difference in my own mind, if oddly and rather abstractly: I prefer to play and possess guitars built in an analogue world.

This does not preclude the use of electric tools since there is random variation in both the equipment and the operator – a known “failing” of an analogue system. It is that human touch, and quest for perfection despite the odds, that makes it desirable, worthwhile, and ultimately satisfying to me.

The advent of CNC has introduced a digital operator into the equation, who lacks noise or distraction, hence making elements infinitely replicable and devoid of any uniqueness with the exception of errors in the machining end of the process (e.g. the dulling of a bit).

I find a surprising level of synergy with the philosophy of Simon Yorke, a renowned engineer and artist:



He makes record players, BTW...

I have tried several products (pyramid bridges, faux bound fret board, necks) form both Bob and John and I must say that they are unbelievably clean and accurate.

If you have ever had the opportunity to watch a Fadal work ,thanks Bob, I think there would be a greater appreciation for what goes into the process. It's certainly not a one step push a button job.

And I hope everyone realizes that there is no "right or wrong" answer here as it is a merely matter of differing opinions and tastes.

That's what makes luthiery, and the diverse music it leads to, so great.

Ray

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Guitar Building = Continuous Improvement Process

Don--I probably should apologize for misleading you guys. I was careful to say "If I told you........" so I wouldn't be fibbing.
But, honestly, I have thought of how a CNC could improve the bending process. Bob Taylors bending machines are so cool.
For CNC bending, my first thought was a heated roller in the spindle that would travel the contours in the XY axes.
Still looks like a form of some type would be needed though. Perhaps an adjustable form with contact at strategic points?
Anyone have any thoughts on such a wild idea?
Just thinking out of the box a little, hope I didn't upset anyone here.

CNC BLOWS!!!
If you can't build a guitar like a man...What's the point??

Actually, I've run CNC jig grinders for a while and have to tell you the first time that platten runs around on it's own is pretty...SCARY!!! It didn't take too long for the possibilities to start jumping up and screaming in my face... CNC is awesome!!!!

I've told this before but I tried to get an old boss of mine to get a CNC from the corporate overlords and the look of terror in his face was obvious. After I left the company he finally got one. When I talked to him he was very, very impressed!!

CNC is the Schiznitz!!

Having the tools to measure to the .001/inch one starts seeing variations in hand work that is pretty disturbing. Hand work is necessary in "real world" environment but if one has access to a CNC take it! I even have buddies that have regular mills and lathes that they let me use, now and then, and that's an incredible leg up!

Looking at Kevin Ryan's fixtures and tooling, one gets the impression that it doesn't get any better than that, and his guitars are the rival of anything on the market. Ryan's fixtured to the hilt. CNC is just like any other tool just scarier!!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

...The key to robotic sanding is force feedback. Robotic buffing cells weren't really practical until they integrated some force feedback into the system. They basically work just like you would...by controlling both the motion and the pressure. This is how some folks finish propellers, and other "curvy" things. The same is done on some wood parts as well, but it is not affordable technology unless you are a large manufacturer.

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

OK, so it is fine to buy a ready-to-glue on bridge. It is fine to buy an almost ready-to-go neck and a finished fretboard. It is fine to ship your guitar out for finishing to a pro finish shop. It is fine to contract with one of the great inlay artists.

I am not saying that I have not done any of these things, or that I am opposed to any of them. I am just posing situations:

So why not buy incredible pre-made CNC rosettes? OK...

How about pre-bent sides? Why not, that is less important than most of the things already mentioned.

Pre-shaped scalloped braces that have been weight and deflection tested by a cnc-type device before carving? They are designed to the match the exact mass, stiffness and damping of an actual set from a superb pre-war Martin...

How about ready-to-go tops complete with rosette, and braces, all scientifically analyzed and guaranteed to make your Dread sound just like Tony Rice's?

I believe that contracting out some of the woodworking on your guitar is indeed a slippery slope. Different people will be comfortable at different levels of the slope. If you are selling guitars, you will be competing with some builders who are willing to go further than you are. Perhaps they are doing much more business - will that piss you off? Perhaps some guy builds a 2nd or 3rd guitar that has been finished by a pro and the gloss is so flawless that most people don't see the average woodwork. Maybe this guy is right next to your booth where you are showing off your 20th guitar - your finishes have been gradually improving for years, but they still can't quite match the hired-out one next door.

Any violin makers out there? I know that you have been able to buy pre-carved necks and other components for decades. Would this be acceptable for a high-end builder? I don't know, I am just asking.

I have been around custom furniture makers for a long time, one-man shops. A high-end guy that contracted some of the woodwork out to a cnc shop would not be well regarded. His work would get belittled in an unfortunate manner. It would also be very unusual for such a highly regarded craftsman to contract out the finish work.

If you are a hobby builder, and want to be a craftsman, what is the point in buying pre-made components? You can become a great woodworker and finisher, but you have to pay your dues. It won't happen by taking shortcuts just to get a good-looking finished product.

If you are only planning on making one or two guitars and just want to have something you can play, then sure, use a kit or whatever approach will work for you.

By the way, I have no problem with someone who runs their own cnc router in their own shop still calling their work handmade. If you are a computer programmer, you might even think that is fun.

If you are a pro builder, then do what-you-gotta-do to survive. The business will let you know what is practical for you. For the solo builder, I like Laurent's comments. Any of this is just subject to your own sense of aesthetics and marketing.

Finally, don't forget the romance. You are using your own hands to create objects of great beauty from raw materials. MANY people in our society regard these talents with awe. Don't deceive them or disappoint them. Be true to the craft, and always ask if what you are doing, and the way you are doing it, is who you want to be.

Brook

A lot of great thoughts and discourse here.

As to calling guitars handmade...

Suppose I program a cnc to make my neck, bridge, fretboard, and cut my rosette and headstock inlay work. Well, I used my hands to program the thing, and I even used my hands to build the CNC... Is that really any less handmade than carving the neck and bridge with hand tools and handheld power tools, and routing a rosette channel? If anything, for me the cnc can become an instrument of my creativity in allowing me to do some design element things as well as structural things that I would have had a hard time with in the past. I still cut all my bracewood from raw billets, shape them by hand (well, sort-of) and use my thickness sander for thicknessing the plates, my side bender and heat blanket for bending the sides. I still have to tweak the neck joint, assemble the box as anyone else would, and do my own fretwork etc. I still have to laminate and square up my neck billet, and cut out the rough shape on the bandsaw.
etc. etc.

So for me, it's still handmade. My hands were involved in literally every step of the process. I even made a lot of my tools and jigs. What's the big deal?

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Have you ever played a Schoenberg? He doesn't do anything on them except specify how they are supposed to look, feel, and sound. He has somebody else do everything.

As long as there is no intent do deceive, a person with a financial interest in a topic should be able to post and say whatever they want. If someone owns a CNC and does commercial work with it, I want to hear what they have to say. I know that their input will come from a certain perspective, but so what.

Does anybody know how to make, by hand, a faux bound fret board where the fret slot depth follows the contour of the fret board radius? I certainly don't. I think an argument can be made that these types of fret boards are better. They can only be made on a CNC. In this one area, a CNC made part can contribute to a better guitar.

Good point Don. In the days of mechanical ships chronometers, a master builder would not cut the gears by hand even though he was only making one or two. He would first make a gear cutting machine and then cut the gear. You had to have the machine to get the required accuracy. In this case the customer didn't care if the product was made by hand or laid like an egg. They just want to get from point A to point B without ending up on the rocks.

Colin, When you say that you use no power tools do you mean that you saw your plates from billets using a hand saw or do you purchase tops, backs and side already resawn? I'm just curious. I once had a conversation with a violin maker who claimed that "No power tool touched any part of his violins because the vibration of the power tool killed the wood". Violin builders can be pretty mystical sometimes. It turns out that he bought his wood from a supplier that always cut his wood with band saws.

I'd be pretty comfortable if a builder told me that he didn't use any power tools while building an instrument and don't really think that the original milling as any bearing on it. But, others may disagree. Especially if the builder is claiming that power tools have a negative effect on the sound.

Don, in a way you are right. But I think you're stretching it. CNC's advantage is consistency and repeatability, what it can do that supposedly a "human" cannot do sounds too often like hype to me, or a fad (faux-bound fretboards…). Again, it works for high volume operations if that's what you want.
My final thought on this is as follows: maybe programming templates, transferring them and setting up a rig is handwork (I am skeptical…) but once it is done, any change needs to be re-programmed and has to follow the same path. One can argue that it can be done quickly enough, but not in real time.
The beauty of hand tools is that every gesture is informed by decisions made on the spur of the moment, depending on the project, the wood characteristics and so on. This is what workmanship is about.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

The idea with CNC built stuff is to do all your thinking before you begin building. I make a ton of those spur of the moment desicions when I digitally "carve" a neck before programming it. I have to completely define the 3D object before I can cut it...the machine is just doing what I tell it to. Really, the decisions are the same, it's just that the language is different. I might speak in terms of lofts, trimmed surfaces, fairing, and G4 continuity while someone building manually may speak in terms of gouges, rasps, sanding belts, etc..

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

I do, but the Fadal is a lot faster at it.



How long does the fad need to last before it's just a good idea? I think Ron Thorn has been using them for ten years, and Kevin Ryan's got quite a few years in there as well. Given that those guys are 'setting the bar' in electric and steel string guitars, I think it might be more than a passing trend. It's not all cosmetic, BTW, they're also structurally superior to most regular boards.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Hi Guys. gals.. etc..
This is always an interesting topic to read, follow and discuss.
The more it's looked at and debated (IMHO), the more it seems to be a question of "is CNC usage during a guitar build going to exude the same aura of love and affection that a hand made guitar is going to possibly draw out of the potential client's opinions about said guitar"

Ask these few questions regarding the build, of course they are generalized:

Fit and finish compared to hand?- properly performed CNC is the tightest, with the least labor to get it that way.

Attention to detail?-This of course matters whether it's CNC or not, any great CNC'd guitar can have flaws, as can any hand made (excuse the term) guitar. Whether the company, luthier, or someone else goes back after the said process was completed to double check, make sure, pay attention, call it what you will, that everything is beautiful has nothing to do with CNC.

The issue with some clients, and some builders, seems to be "am I cheating by using computers during what has come to be known by our society as a hand labor of love for a tool of heartfelt human expression, to make music with"

Ask Joe average on the street that walks into a Guitar Center if it matters that the guitar on the wall was CNC'd. Odd's are they won't care, or will, knowing it lowered the price.

Tell that same customer looking for his soulmate guitar to be made by "the best luthier in the world" and it takes on a very elite, old world mentality of bond between builder, client, tree, those builder's hands, and music. " client showing it off- it was made by Blah blah blah la... " Clients friend " wow... Wish I could afford blah blah lala"... "yup- and all (or mostly) by hand" Blah blah is THAT GOOD. And he may be that good.

At least the client may feel that way, the luthier may as well, they may not. Computers just aren't romantic. They are cold, fast, and assumed to be perfect when given tasks to accomplish. Guitars are romantic, and played and purchased by romantic people with a love for said object. Add computers to it and the "humanity" of the guitar and music is removed.
Even if it sounds great, and looks perfect.

To me that is the real issue, not whether CNC should, could, or might be used.

When a great oil painter makes an original that one hand done one can sell for thousands to millions. When the prints are made, $20.00 for the poster. Even a 3D paint computer print can look almost real, it's still far less cost than the original.

So- how much does your client feel his guitar is being made by hand?
Or- " this was made all by hand- can you believe that?? " no- it's unbelievable that a human could do something like that, "I know I can't"

Or- "Computer CNC's did this" - "Oh really- cool..."

When humans succeed at looking non-human, or performing tasks others can't, or it takes years of time to achieve, like years of luthiery, inlay skills, painting, even CNC programming- that drives the aura. Computers are assumed to be doing it right- from day one to day 1000. There's no spectacle in that, and no years of growth and perseverance, which the high end client feels is part of the cost and desire to own.

Look at it one other way- in the watch industry the top watchmakers (possibly all watch makers) are all using CNC. They have to, it's too complicated these days to not use it.

Still, the top watch houses of the Swiss, etc... charge over $50,000.00 and up for some pieces, or maybe even way more. But- it's not looked down on, because they started out in the 1800's doing it the old fashioned romantic way, and that aura is still present in the brand.

Is this too much already?



Fire when ready....
Thanks!

Craig L

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www.handcraftinlay.com

Billy T wrote:
"Having the tools to measure to the .001/inch one starts seeing variations in hand work that is pretty disturbing. "

What's wrong with a certain level of variation? Some things, of course, must be done to a reasonable degree of precision: you have to get the fret slots in the right places. But does _everything_ have to be that accurate? What if it doesn't look or sound as good?

Bob Garrish wrote:
"I think it [faux bound fingerboard] might be more than a passing trend. It's not all cosmetic, BTW, they're also structurally superior to most regular boards."

In what way are they structurally superior? It might seem as though they ought to be, but can you back that up with data?

If the CNC doesn't bother customers of Ryan, Olsen, PRS, Gibson, Martin, Fender, and the multitude of other companies out there..then I figure us CNC folks are OK. Likewise, there will also be a (much smaller) market for completely hand made (and most likely more expensive) instruments. To each his own. Separate but equal. If you don't like it, don't do it.

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

You should know............ Hey have you even started that first guitar yet??????

Love,

Heshie

Alan,

Because of two simple things they are better...

Because the slot is "stopped" before the edge of the FB, and also because the slot is not as deep in the middle as a straight-cut slot, the fretboard cannot flex after cutting the way a typical fretboard can before it is glued on. What that adds to a neck is (in theory) a bit more stiffness. It might also help to held frets a bit better as well, but I'm not certain of that.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I hate this conversation -- smacks of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin"... why I am feeding the flames I cannot say... but.



Ryan's A4 kerfed linings. You can't build those by hand.

What I find really interesting about CNC is first we copy hand processes with the machine, then we innovate. With Kevin's flex ab and the A4 linings this shows what is possible with CNC (yes, I know it is a laser. ).

Something else that strikes me as interesting is I remember many years ago that the same arguments were had about large systems of jigs and dedicated routers in small shops. People were claiming that it was no longer "hand made".

Personally I am more into CNC for what it can do for my tooling than fabricating parts, but I have no issues with it (provided it is not a crutch that keeps you from learning how to build).

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Good, we're on the same page.... (inside joke!)

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

cnc to me is like test tube babies.They can all be the same.luthiery to me is like no two alike.I have noticed that alot of great builders that have gone to cnc,don't build the same guitars today.For some reason,they have gotten worse in playability and tone.I would take an 59 paul over a new one anyday.I would also take a pre factory prs over a new one also.I think alot of it has to do with building them too fast. I know i will never fall in the the same production trap as they did. Because that's not why i build them.I don't build for money,as i build for playability and tone.

So you're saying that Jim Olson's Guitars suck, as do Kevin Ryan's, and a host of others that use a cnc to some degree? So how many of those guitars have you played, post-cnc and pre-cnc?
Are you saying these guys don't build for playability and tone anymore?
I got news for you....
You're kidding yourself.
I mean no offense, but that's ignorant thinking.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

We've had this conversation every few months for years. Before the OLF, we did the same thing on the MIMF.

Has anyone here changed their mind about CNC? Ever? Does anyone here know anyone who no longer holds the opinion that they used to about CNC?

No? Then why not just drop it. We've all seen what page 4 of this thread looks like and it's not pretty.

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John Watkins
CNC Guitar Parts