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Hi, I was wondering whether or not I could make guitar parts such as bridges and necks with alibre xpress and meshcam? The xpress version I have exports to .stl what do you think?

Bridges probably and necks probably not, well at least not the heel. Don't know this for a fact, just a best guess from working with may CAD /CAM packages.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Hi from Germany,

I use for 3D design for acoustic guitar bridges ("normal" Martin & Pyramid bridge) Rhino3D. For me it works very well. You can buy a CAM-addon, too.

English website: http://rhino3d.com/

For controlling the routing I use a German based tool that won?t help you, I guess. But it works fine. ;-)

Just my 2-cents, hope it helps.

Best regards,
Martin


http://www.best-EuroSpruce.com

Those programs will do necks. Alibre has lofts which is all you really need to model a neck (although, from my ten minutes messing with it, I wouldn't want to work in Alibre :) ).

MeshCAM uses parallel toolpaths which is enough to cut a neck out, except that you will have to do the tenon by hand if you're going that way as you can't cut a vertical corner with a round mill.

If you've got money to spend, Rhino is what I (and John Watkins, and many others) use for CAD. For CAM, it's all about what features you need and if it's just roughing parts out then a lower end package like MeshCAM fits the bill. If you are a student, though, you can score Rhino and MaDCAM for $400 all in which is a pretty good combo and and capable of a lot more than MeshCAM is.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services