Official Luthiers Forum!

I know there is a CNC section here on the forum, but I am wondering what the non-CNC (or maybe the actuall shops that have CNC) shops feel about the use of this machine in building handmade guitars?

To preface: So far I have done all the work on my guitars by hand....um ur...no CNC. Just jigs, templates etc. I was at Ed Lynse's house a few weeks ago and he has a nice CNC machine. He has it set up to do all sort of things like fingerboards, bridges and inlays. His work is incredible...even without the CNC...but the CNC has alotted him the ability to do delicate tasks with easy.

On the way home, I started wondering how I could afford a CNC machine...



My dad who is a retired cabinet maker said "in away that it was no longer made by hand". More factory like..I guess. In many ways, I tend to agree and in other ways, I say "why not"?

What is your personal thought on using CNC machines to replace tasks that were originally done by hand? Does this change your instrument from a "handmade" piece to just a "custom made piece" or "hand assembled"? Your builds would become very consistant, but would be more like assemblely work....right?

Thoughts please,

Joe

_________________
Joe

Oh no this can of worms is open again

In a short summation.

I first feel you should know how to make all parts of the guitar by hand and be proficient at it if you are going to retail your work.

That said If you can and wish to cut time or cost by using CNC parts here and there then that is a business decision. Personally I do not think it is anyone business but your own if you do or not as long as you do not claim to someone that you hand made the part.

Many fine handcrafted guitar makers are having their necks and bridges CNC’d. I see no crime in this. In fact I have my bridges CNC’d. and I do have HM build necks for me now and then

Some will tell me that my guitars are less than hand mand if I use a CNC’d neck or bridge but all I can say is "pooie"

Joe, this has been discussed many times before.

Handmade is a bad word really as there are always a few components of most "handmade" items which are not hand made at all. We have tuning machines, fretwire, trussrods (who forged the steel etc...) in our guitars, and not to many people make their own bridge pins and I've yet to hear of anyone making their own glue to assemble all the parts.

There are a couple of camps of course. The purists who think anything done with machinery of any sort can't be called handmade right out to the other end of the spectrum to those who say as long as it's built by one or two people, it's not a factory and can be considered handmade. A factory is different.

CNC has it's place at all levels of luthiery AFAIK. CNC doesn't just allow for tiny intricate work to be done flawlessly, it can also cut down on the time required to many tasks like cutting kerfed linings by hand, cutting a fretboard by hand, carving a neck by hand etc...

Now the argument of course can be that the CNC eliminates the hands on work, but honestly in order to manipulate a CNC machine to do what it can, the operator must spend a great amount of time creating the code (typed in by hand) to tell determine the path, depth and speed of the cutter. A greater understanding of the material is usually required as well as the tools used to create the part.

CNC is very cool and the accuracy and speed and repeatability to which it can work can not be matched by any human. So what it can do is help with consistency, accuracy and speed in which a hand builder like Kevin Ryan or James Olson (to name but a few who use CNC machines) can make there products.

Yes they are still hand made guitars in my view as all the components are conceived, created/constructed and assembled by usually one or two individuals. When it gets down to a group of people (3-10) deciding on all of the components and one guy is pumping out several hundreds of necks, fretboards, bridges so that the next guy can put in the frets, so that the next guy can glue on the fretboard, so that the next guy....(you get the picture) than this to me becomes a factory.

At the end of the day though, I think most of the guitar can be considered hand made (as the assembly is not robotic, rather done by humans). So it might be symantics.

On the other hand.......... ..........well, I'll wait and see where this goes. It could be interesting.....again.

_________________
My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Thanks Michael.

I guess adding "retail" and "for sale" and "business" and "profit" changes the conversation a little bit. I would think in todays market, very few of us (not me of course) are making our sole living as a luthier/guitar builder. That does not mean we are not selling our handmade instruments, but that we don't rely solely on them for income. So maybe understanding your "business needs" would help us to understand why you do or do not use a CNC.

I have seen some truely awesome guitars at the guitar shows that are claimed to be handmade. I look at some of the detailed work on these and wonder "How in the hell did they ever get that so perfect". Especially inlay work. Could some of these handmade guitars actually have been done on CNC? How can a true handmade guitar compete in the same market place as a guitar done via automation? Are they in the same market place? Should the end user care?

PS: I did not realize I was opening a can of worms. I just wonder how those who consider hand craftsmanship a priority, interact with those who use CNC's. Is there any personal internal conflict when making the choice to use automation....etc.

_________________
Joe

Thanks Rod. We posted at the same time! Your explination also helps.

_________________
Joe

On the inlay question: it s this day and time not very unusual at all for high-end hand crafters to have extremely intricate inlay patterns cut on cnc if they are repeating the inlay over and offer as a std line product. That said outside of designing the pattern and cutting the shell. Learning to very accurately channel for inlay is not tht tuff to learn with time an patients. So My guess is that 50/50 chance what you have seen could go either way. Depending mainly on if the pattern is used repeatedly.

I make no distinction if some one is doing this a sole source of income, part time source of income, or a hobbyist selling his work for a small change. If you sell your work and claim in words that every piece is hand made then you should be hand making every piece. But if you are using cnc necks or bridges and building the guitar with them, then in my eyes it is still an hand crafted guitar, The fact the neck or bridge (two most CNC’d components) are used in the construction is no big woop to me un less miss represented as being hand carved.

I do understand the purist point of view but for me the key point is the quality of the component and the guitar made from it. All the arguments that it is not hand crafted is semantics and personal opinion.

IMO, a CNC is merely the ultimate router or table saw jig ...

Do you use a CNC made template for slotting a FB, like SM or LMI .. then you are only ONE step away from a CNC'd FB. Is your FB still hand made then ????

When I can afford a half decent one, its a done deal.

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

I do professional CNC woodworking from 9 to 5 and I have a small shop setup at home as well...so this is a topic that is very familiar to me. I use professional class machines at work and a K2 at home. I'll just consider my use of it at home as it relates to guitar building. I don't have a jointer, a thickness sander, a shaper, nor do I have to have jigs for fret slotting, brace radiusing, inlay, or many of the other jigs that you usually need to make a guitar by hand. The CNC is basically just a multi-purpose jig. There's very little that I am doing on that machine that you can't do with jigs in roughly the same amount of time. The one exception is carving...and for this you could use a duplicarver if you would prefer a manual piece of equipment to a digital one. One area where cnc does have an advantage is in the case of a design change...I just need to recode...not rejig. One other benefit is that I can use the cnc to make good jigs when I do need them (cnc is not always the best option).

In my mind, I feel that I owe to my instruments to make them as well as I am able. I've got years and years of experience that makes the CNC my tool of choice. I do still insist on doing some things by hand (final carving of the braces, etc). I have built instruments by hand...I hand planed my top, back and sides on my first guitar, etc..

I have met some folks who claim that cnc diminishes the art. However, I have never met anyone with extensive CAD/CAM experience who claims the same....!

_________________
http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

I don't use cnc technology. I'm not opposed to the concept but it seems to me like the cnc machines like to do the same stuff I like to do. Namely, shaping wood parts. If I give that up to the cnc machine, I'm going to be relegated to spraying and sanding lacquer, ordering materials, marketing, and bookkeeping !! And lots of it !!! Now if the cnc machine would do that stuff, I might want to get one !!

Mark

I don't see how cnc is different from any other power tool, accept it may be more consistent, particularly for 3D stuff.

I don't think my fretboard cares if I saw the slots by hand, on my table saw, or mill them with cnc, as long as they are in the right place.

I like to make my bridges by hand so I can get different species of wood to the weight I want for a particular guitar but I assume that could be done with cnc too, but it might defeat the purpose of speed and consistency.

I'm just surprised that it makes business sense for a small shop. There's a lot of money in a decent machine, time invested learning to operate it, and the space to run it. Heck, I'd need a new and larger shop just for starters!

I often hear people complain about how factories are so mechanized that guitars are barely touched by human hands and small shops can't compete with that kind of efficiency. But the fact seems to be that factory guitars are as good as they've ever been and small shop luthiers more prevalent than ever. Unlike with the banking system, it looks like technology and the unregulated free market is working OK for us.

_________________
http://www.chassonguitars.com

I have yet to see a CNC'd part that doesn't require a fair amount of handwork to get to the finished product. Be it neck, bridge, FB etc.
From the standpoint of a production shop that puts out 100s of guitars/year it's a no-brainer. The computer-time and money invested in an in-house CNC, or contracting out CNC parts, pays off pretty quickly. Consistency is the key, but it's a big timesaver for inlays, FBs, headplates etc.
For an artisan who builds 10-20 guitars/year I am much more skeptical. Contracting out CNC'd parts may save some carving time, but add to that contracting out the finish, and the already thin margins of this endeavour are disappearing fast. As to buying a whole system, I'm afraid it's beyond the means of most one-man shops. And what would be the point? Watching that end-mill go through your 15 necks-bridges-headplates-FBs/year?
As for the handmade thing, most of us use routers, saws, sanders, spray guns etc. So what's the big deal? If one can properly design a neck on a CAD program, chances are that carving the neck by hand is not an issue.
On a personal note carving necks and bridges are some of my favourite tasks, so I wouldn't want to give it up.

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

BINGO! I completely agree with Coach Tony with the possible exception that I have no plans to purchase or build my own CNC rig. CNC is a tool and if your are going to be against CNC then to be fair you had better chuck your drill press, routers, saws, and even the hand tools.

BTW even when it comes to learning Lutherie one could (since I will.....) compare your stinkin computers with a CNC router since they both represent technology. In the old days to learn this craft you had to spend years sweeping the floor for some old grouch before you may be deemed to be competent enough to glue some sticks together......

Saturday at the Ann Arbor gathering (we expect 50 people........) John Watkins will be bringing some of his very fine wares and some parts (bridges) that he produced for me to my specs. If anyone has any doubt that a CNCed part can be ready-to-go right off the CNC rig you will have an opportunity to check out what John brings. My bridges need no touch-up at all and are ready for buffing or micro-meshing. They even have the 25' radius of my tops pre-carved into them.

I am chuckling here because this topic is in a way not unlike many of the topics these days. At the end of the day, no matter what camp you are in, you are likely to do what ever you wish regardless of what anyone one else thinks here.

Was it Ritchie Havens singing "Freedom" on an old Guild at Woodstock?

It really is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, you want to build guitars by hand. On the other hand, more and more of your competition is using CNC either themselves or by contracting some work for parts like necks and bridges and fretboards etc. From a manufacturing/sales/competition standpoint, if Builder A is going after the same customers as Builder B, and Builder B has the advantage of a stack of parts that they can turn to that are all accurately made and ready to tweak slightly, then Builder B has somewhat of a competitive advantage in producing more guitars in the same or a shorter period of time. I was talking with a mandolin builder of note once, and his outlook was that if his competition was using cnc, he'd better not fall behind the curve and get one to keep up with the rest of the industry. There are a lot more big-name high end builders using cnc at some level than you would imagine. There's a reason why. But if you're a hobbyist, the investment in purchasing/building a cnc is probably not a great idea unless you have the cash flow to do so. I built mine not because I *needed* a cnc, but because I wanted one and wanted the challenge of building something other than a guitar. It will also allow me to do a number of things that I don't necessarily like to do by hand. I find necks incredibly tedious, while I really enjoy building a sound box, so this is a great application for me.
As many others have said, it's really just another tool and jig.

_________________
"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've never heard anyone say "I used to use CNC for that, now I do it by hand...."

I think Tony hit the nail on the head. If you're using a router template, a binding machine, or a table saw fence, you're doing exactly what the CNC would do, which is to negate the inherent inacuracy of human coordination by providing resistance to movement on both cutter and work piece in every direction except the desired one. Whether that resistance is from a piece of plywood or linear bearing, it's the same idea.

True, the CNC is not fed by hand. It's pushed around by electronics. Anyone here have a thickness sander with an auto-feed?

Hand work to me means cutter in one hand, work piece in the other. Very rewarding, very impressive, very relaxing, but very rarely the method we opt for. I believe one reason for that is that people are drawn to luthiery because it requires ingenuity. Finding the best way to do something is a big part of that, and let's face it; whittling isn't the best way to do anything.

All I'm saying is, it's just another tool in the shop. Send a CNC machine around the country and let everyone try it for a week. This topic will never come up again.

_________________
John Watkins
CNC Guitar Parts

John, I have used CNC'd necks but will be going back to hand carved because I enjoy the process.

I think a CNC for an individual luthier is taking a big step down the slippery slope to mechanization, which is the antithesis of traditional wood working. Eventually there will be robots where you push a button, feed raw wood into one end and a guitar pops out of the other. Then everyone can call themselves a luthier.

Joe, getting a CNC at this point in your guitar building career would be short circuiting the hand skills that you can develop during the first few years. Don't do it!

Here's a controversial question. Should a discussion on ethics of using a certain technology be heavily weighted with the opinions of people providing this service commercially? Not trying to suggest censorship, but those opinions will obviously be biased a certain way which may cause the discussion to not be balanced with beneficial dissent.

Thanks for the input. At this point, I am not ready to buy a CNC machine. Wasn't really thinking about it to be honest. I was much more interested in how the community may be devided in this concept.

I really enjoy working with my hands and always have. On the way out the door today, I walked passed #1 hanging there waiting for the day it can be final buffed. I took it off the hook and out into the daylight. It looked fantastic...even prior to it getting rubbed out. The joints are tight, the fret works looks clean and the exectution looks very good. I take a lot of pride in the build quality of this guitar. The fact that I did it all by hand without CNC automation is very gratifying.

In the meantime, Ed Lynse has been gracious enough to offer working with me on items I feel might benefit from his CNC. At this point, that may only be the headstock overlay and inlay...but I appreciate the opportunity to even give this a try.

Joe

_________________
Joe

Come on, CNCers; to say that guiding a piece of wood through a table saw with your hands is no different than pushing a button and having a robot do it is ridiculous. I'm not saying CNC is bad, so don't jump all over me. But it's way different than guiding a router by hand, or using a jointer. These things require hand skills (yes, using a jointer requires skill. You can easily do it wrong). CNC certainly requires skills, but you are not using your hands.

John, I'm sure you make amazing things with your CNC machine, and I hope your business thrives, but I have no desire for one myself. You can send a CNC machine to my house, and I will think it's amazing, but I like making all the parts of a guitar that I can make much more than watching parts be made. (I know, I know, I don't make the tuners and strings and fretwire ) Using a router, a jointer, a tablesaw, etc., is a hands-on experience that I love.

Now, once I've made hundreds of guitars, will I change my mind? I don't know. I think if I tire of making guitars with my hands, I'll make something else.

Cheers

_________________
Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

I beg to differ.... It's really no different, except that your hands are in a safer position than passing them by a table saw blade.

I've had enough near misses with a table saw to appreciate a tool that works without my hands on it...

BTW, very nice post John W..... well thought-out.

_________________
"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."

A lot of opinion regarding CNC seems to be based around a person's motivation for building. For those who want to participate AND make some money, CNC is generally a good business decision whether you buy CNC'd parts or do them yourself. I don't think you can argue this...it's just a better tool, assuming of course that it is used well.

Also - I think it would be hard to make the case that any acoustic guitar is not build in large part by hand! There is so much hand work on any acoustic, that it dwarfs the amount of time involved in the CNC portions of the process.

As for Mr. Watkins being unethical by offering his professional opinion: What if all of the professional & semi-professional builders on here withheld their opinions on their particular area of expertise? Wouldn't be much of a forum...

If you are just doing it for the fun of it...then do whatever makes you the most fun!

_________________
http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

I DID NOT CALL MR. WATKINS UNETHICAL! Jeesh!

By the way, another reason I am going back to handmade necks is mine are better than CNC'd necks, IMOH.

I respect Barry's position; I carve the necks for my guitars too. It's faster when you only need one and I also enjoy it.

I disagree, however, about any slippery slope argument. There will always be cheaters in the world, and their proliferation has little to do with the availability of methods by which to cheat. This is analogous to music software allowing anyone to be John Lennon.

_________________
John Watkins
CNC Guitar Parts

Never going to happen....

_________________
"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 want a guitar where you push a button, feed raw metal in one end, and a robot comes out the other!

Don, I beg to differ with your begging to differ. Using your body/motor skills to guide something is very different than programming something to do it for you. Again, I'm not saying one is better than the other. Just different. And for me, doing it "by hand" is better because that's what I like to do. Although cutting my signature out of MOP gets pretty old.

_________________
Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

I should have used the tongue-in-cheek emoticon for that statement. I did not mean it literally.

I saw that Barry When that happens, then we'll have to worry about the guitar terminators

There will always be a couple of different camps on the luthiery and CNC debate. Both arguments have great points of merrit and neither should be looked at as wrong.

I don't think anyone is saying this but thought I'd offer it up.

_________________
My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson