Official Luthiers Forum!

Does anyone use, or know of a relatively inevpensive CNC machine? A
friend of mine is interested in purchasing one and has no where to start.
He is looking for one big enought to do most aspects of building, cutting
out body, backs and tops, inlay work Neck cutting and fingerboard scales.
If you have any info on one that is used more oftern by luthiers please let
me know
thank you
jason

I have a K2 KG3925G with servo controls and 8" Z height (you can see their website at www.k2cnc.com)

Some things they may want to weigh would include where they will be running in it as well as what kind of production numbers they would like to reach. My K2 is great but it is literally about 5 times slower than a Fadal class machine due to the fact that I'm using a Porter Cable router as a spindle (Fadal's typically have a 10 HP or greater spindle). The accuracy on a Fadal is also better than what you'll see out of a K2 class machine, but they cost about 10 times as much. I purchased my K2 and Rhino CAD and Rhino CAM for somewhere around $9k if I remember correctly. I control the machine via a dedicated $500 Dell desktop (I don't run any other software at all on this PC).

Long story short, the K2 can handle most of the typical guitar type CNC tasks...I've done everything from neck carving to inlay to carved backs, etc..

Also, If your friend doesn't have any CAD experience right now I would highly recommend getting up to par with CAD before investing in CNC. Drop me a line if I can help you out with anything.

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

Yeah, mostly what he said. You can get a Fadal for 35K used and in working order, but unless lutherie is your bread and butter and you've already got the skills to fully utilize a machine like that, it's a little overboard. That said, I just went out and bought a Fadal without any CNC experience but I'm crazy like that . If you have no CAD background or CNC stuff isn't going to be your bread and butter, then the K2 machines are a pretty good fit and you won't need to sell the house if you can't make the machine pay for itself.

The best resource for CNC stuff in general is CNC Zone. They have a musical instruments forum there, as well, with some guitar specific stuff. As well, you can search the archive and CNC forum here as well as search for CNC in the library at the MIMF

The CNC forum here is the best place to ask CNC specific questions, and there are a few users here with the knowhow to help you out.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services