Official Luthiers Forum!

In a post a day ago, some members graciously shared a auto cad file for basic guitar plans. I wondering if others felt a cad library would be helpful? If so and if it does not break any OLF rules, for those willing, could you please post them in this thread. It will be interesting to see how many have cad drawings and more importantly how many wouldn't mind sharing.
Thanks
Peter

You do know we have a library of plans to support the forum financially. It would seem to me that an open for the taking library would be in conflict with the Library of plans. I have put a lot of hours in to the plan sets i have donated to help support this forum. So I would have to vote against such an idea.

By the way all the plans I have submitted are done on cad but only available in hard copy format to avoid having duplicates spread around with out the forum getting the financial support that they were intended to bring to the forum.

Good point, Michael.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I can see both sides of this. Regardless of whether they are in CAD or hard copy, there is always the risk of being copied. If someone wants to share an unauthorized copy, there going to do it regardless of what form it’s in. It’s just as easy for me to make someone a copy from a hard file as it is from an electronic one. But wrong is wrong. Either way, someone would need access to a plotter to make the plans useful other than just reading them. I scan in all plans I get for my own personal backup. Fire, water, dog… I also make a wall copy and cut-up copies. The original stays safely tucked away. Like a movie, you can copy it for your own person use, but not to share with others. And movies are moving all towards electronic distribution too.

I have always though that an electronic sale of these plans should be an option. This allows for immediate access once purchased, easy back-up, no shipping cost to me, and no printing cost or time for to whoever is selling the plan.

If people want to share plans and drawings that they made, I think there would be no problem with that. There would need to be some oversight to this if on the forum to keep out unauthorized sharing, but people can just as easily post links to unauthorized file. In the end it comes down to people doing the right thing, and I can’t remember anyone on this forum not doing the right thing.

In a Utopian world both libraries can flourish. But having be through this in a RC modeling community before, I can tell you that eventually Someone will produce plans that are the same as a set with minute differences and place them in the free library. This results in the Library of Plans that supports the forum going stagnate. Maybe this is an eventually, but it is one I will lobby long and hard to prevent. Sharing personal files between members is fine and fruitful but for the forum to open a space to store and retrieve free plans and files will end up killing the Library of Plans thereby the funds it brings to the forum

On the other hand I encourage all to donate plans to the Library of Plans to help support this forum. Plans do not have to be of guitars or instruments. They can be of jigs, fixtures and tools as well.

That’s where the oversight of the admins comes into place. Just the same if someone would post a link to such a plan that should not be shared. It’s just as easy either way.

A pdf or tiff file would help prevent someone from making a slight change in CAD and distributing it. They would have to go in and Raster it to make a change.

In the end I don’t think fear of people steeling should be what prevents this. The world is moving towards electronic distribution, if you try to fight it, you'll loose, guaranteed. As I’ve said, this is a pretty responsible crowd who supports this forum and wouldn’t do such things to jeopardize its existence.

Michael I admire your passion and commitment but honestly I don't agree with you. I give everything I can to this forum for free. I've supported the forum by subscription (need to do that again) and I've even bought one of your plans (Woolson jig, which I've given away to another OLF member for free) but that's the "paid" side of supporting the forum. The other side is by freely sharing information and tools/jigs with the community. What does the forum get in return, happy members and more traffic, more traffic to the sponsors sites who pay most of the bill I think (certainly I could be wrong though). (Tangent) since the new site launched I noticed way more "newbie" members coming out of the woodwork which is a testimony to the forum and ALL that is valued here.

As far as cad files goes, there's a big difference between instrument or jig plans and part files. Honestly I really only have interest in part files with the odd body shape I'd like to get. I can draw up my own plans (and I do for most everything I've made to date) and having some parts like tuners would be fun to put in my drawings. I personally don't have any of your instrument plans and that's because I really would only want the body shape, the rest of the drawings I don't value as I want my guitars to be mine. I'm not saying they don't offer good value in general, I'm just saying they don't for me. I've given away my hard time spent making the guitar troji plans. Why, because I've taken so much for free that I need to give back for free too.

Please don't think that I don't value you Michael because I really do. You've given this forum an awful lot in your drawings, sharing of your knowledge on all aspects of building and your friendship. You're one great asset to the OLF.

So I would vote yes for a cad file library. Heck, Michael could administrate it to make sure it was just parts and not plans being added. That would be valuable to me.

On that note, do a google search on "guitar cad files" and you'll find several good sites with a lot of parts and body shapes out there in cyberspace.

_________________
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

To those who would say that there shouldnt be a free drawing area...
There are plans for sale here and elsewhere yes ... and I believe that if there were a plan in cad for free of the same model "only" then it would be in conflict - however if there are drawing of plans not yet being offered then how is this in conflict?
I dont see how someone can say "dont offer plans of this or that because I may draw them up someday"...
Anything thats drawn up - do not allow a cad version to be added or remove the cad library equivalent of it if it exists - but to say that sharing drawings that arent offered in a sale format is a not really reasonable -
It doesnt matter if the OLF does this or not - as has been said I think someone else will do the open share library format if we do not anyhow...
I have downloaded some plans online and they print out (print or blueprint shop) to a remarkable degree of accuracy...
Thanks to those who made them available!
This is just MHO
Cheers
Charlie

I'm a CAD guy and wouldn't mind drawing and/or donating some 2D plans. I would probably have to draw the line at 3D surfaces though...I feel that neck and/or body carves (for electrics) are too proprietary.

_________________
http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

Here is a fact PDF and Tiff are not good scalable files. They are close but not good enough for template work because of the way they pixelize the lines.

I offered DWF files and the free software to read and print with that has the same line quality and scale control as any cad plot or file, but is non editable. However it was decided that this was something that Lance and Brock did not want to get into. Plus the fact that how many of us except me and an handful more have the ability to print large format print?

The DWF file is 100% non editable. It can not be electronically coppied into DWG, DXF, PDF or TIFF or any other format , all of which can be edited with the proper software. The membership and administration said they did not want it because of the lack of being able to control outside distribution and i undersatnd that point. You have to remember not only members buy or retrieved plans but so do non registered guests.

I will say this and I don't mean it to be as a threat but rather just a statement of fact brought on from prior experience with a similar issue.

"I have with great pride and pleasure provided most of what is now in the library of plans and intend to provide even more in the future. I continue to encourage others to donate as well but few seem to pony up. That said if we get a free library of cad or plans going I will not bother because at that point in time the effort donating to a library of plans to support the forum will be a pointless cause. I understand each of your points of view and I do respect them. But form prior experience I suspect more than just a little such a free library will render my time and effect as wasted and spell the death to the Library of Plans as it exists now and the idea of plan donation for contribution."

I will not have my work stolen and or used as unintended again.

I think it'd be a huge headache for Lance and Brock to try to sell and manage distribution everytime someone wanted to share a guitar body outline. A cad file library would add value to the forum, to the hosts, sponsors and the everyday users. I own 3 of the OLF plans and wouldn't expect anyone to go through the time and trouble for that level of detail that you did and then offer it up for free, and even if they did, that wouldn't be such a terrible thing.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Michael,
Sorry I didn't intend this to become controversial. I didn't consider what you have brought up and out of respect for you and all the many times you have freely answered my questions, I'll ask that Lance or Brock close this thread. I'll take a look at the drawings on file. Can those be had in DWF, I also like that you can open them and get exact dimensions.
Thanks
Peter LaMorte

No don't close the thread. The topic is relevant. and I have no hurt feelings. I am just voicing my stand so that it is known.

Lance and Brock made the decision a long time ago not to offer the DWF file due to the distribution control issue. I kind of think that it was a good decision to insure that the forum got paid for the plans (the best they could anyway)


you can not measure a DWF file via cad They are more or less a cad plot and are graphical only except that they have the same cad assigned line properties of the DWG file they were created from and are to perfect scale or at least the scale of the file they are generated from. They can only be read with DWF viewer software. They can not be opened with any cad program. I don't want you to think they are open-able in anyway in autocad or an other cad program. This is a software and file format developed by Autodesk to allow view and print capabilities only.

I think it's great that you want your efforts to help support the forum financially, but it sort of cuts off anyone else that wants to freely exchange information via CAD. Stewmac is a paying sponsor and they sell instructional DVD's, so is John Mayes, should we delete the video tutorials forum? Or is there still a market for well produced commercial DVD's? The two can co-exist peacefully. I think you'd still sell lots of plans, if anything for the reason you stated before, printing large format is a pain and major inconvenience for most people.

I posted that 0-18 14-fret body tracing in editable dwg and dxf, I'd love to see what people come up with for bracing patterns, variations, different scale lengths, etc... It'd also be fun to see jig designs get tweaked, refined, improved and shared.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

To offer a different viewpoint, I think it would be against the spirit of a forum built to share information if we held people back from sharing things -they themselves have made- with others to increase profitability. If I shared the drawings I made and used to machine my pyramid bridges with others, would it make me a bad person because I stopped the person selling plans for the same thing from making a buck?

It's one thing if I were to get someone's plan, put it into CAD and share it...but it's a whole other thing if I go through the time to make up a plan from an instrument, willingly share it with others, and people decide it shouldn't be posted because they won't make any money off of it.

On the case of pre-existing plans ending up as CAD for someone else to use, or being used as reference material, that's a tough one. Still, I don't know that there's a really solid argument for ownership of measurements taken from an instrument you didn't design yourself. Someone putting a plan you made into a different format is stealing your idea no more than you've stolen the ideas of the person who built the instrument you made the plan from. They just might not be profiting from it.

As a sponsor, I'm not too terrified of the forum crumbling from lack of plan sales. We could be outselling Stew-Mac on plans every month and it would be a drop in the bucket compared to ad revenues. I like the idea of any new way we can share more information here!

_________________
Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

This may not help my pro-CAD vault position, but this is not exactly true. There are many dwf to dwg converters. Every copy protection has been broken and it usually doesn’t take long for someone to do it.

My general point is that if people want to steal, they'll find a way regardless of what you do. Getting people the information in a different form isnt going to change the risk. It just changes what they have to do to steal that info.

Your plans are great by the way, I purchased the OM plan a while back and have used it as a referance to my OMs.

They are vendors . you pay for their work. Not even the same issue at all. But that is not my point anyway


My main concern is that such a folder/library will make the for contrabution library null. expesially if guitar or fixture plans are allowed in it.

I have no issue with anyone sharing cad files back and forth all they wish. I do it all the time.

Now an idea that could work is such a library that is subscriber based (membership and small fee) but no copies of any part of any plan set that exist in the pay for library should be allowed. That includes body profiles of such plans.

I am not against sharing cad files, I against losing the Library of plans and if plan set are allowed that would be the inevitable outcome

There's always more than one way to "skin the cat" and cad is no exception.

If you're computer savy (and I think anyone with a bit of cad skill has to be) than any format can be tracable in cad. I can open any DWF file and screen shot it and input that image file into my cad software. The resolution at 1:1 scale will be poor but it's really not hard to trace off of an image file in autocad. I did it with this piece here just to etch it out on a sheet of steel (it turned out really really good too)



and the cad file to send to the table



So don't be fooled, anything can be rastered into autocad, scaled and reprinted. I know I could do it with what ever file you create. Heck I could do the same thing with the image in the plans store, but out of respect for OLF I won't.

_________________
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

I think it is given that no copies of any form(at) of the OLF plans should be allowed to be in such a place, but people should be allowed to share their own OM or SJ drawings if they please as long as there not derived from the OLF plans. That doesn’t remove value from the plans that can be purchased. Don’t underestimate the value of your work that someone’s free plan is going to make yours irrelevant. Plus if most people don’t have access to a plotter, then the only way they can get a good body shape copy is to buy a paper copy.

If there is a worry about having a lurker get all these files, then we could always restrict it to those who paid for the OLF subscription.

I would not have issue with a library ran like you say here in as far as my work is concerned. One issue that would still exist is the administration and pre-proofing of the files being submitted. I would think this would become overwhelming for Lance and Brock.

I really don't care that we share cad files with each other and do see a value of such a library. from past experience I do think if full plans are allowed sooner or later it huts the Library of Plans. I also do feel that body profiles of OLF guitar plans will take funds away from the forum. True most of the shapes are out there somewhere. However the plans or shape of the OLF SJ and MJ (my body designs) is not available anywhere but through the OLF Library of plans baring someone tracing an existing instrument. And that's ok I just think it would be counter productive to provide the body shape in a free library because it will cut into possible sales of the full plan sets. Yes even plans like OM, D and AJ that are in the public domain. If it is in the library of plans any free cad file that is easily available to download will take away sales of full plans,

If you guy want this and Lance and Brock agree then go for it! But IMO sooner or later it will make the Library of plans ilrelavent! I have seen it happen.

They have to monitor the forum anyway to prevent someone from linking to a copy of your work or anything inappropriate. I fully agree that any file with your body shape designs should not be allowed, but Martin and other public domain shapes should be allowed.

At ant rate, they still have tweeking to do before they tackle somethng like this. (cough...Search...cough)

I will try just one more time to explain why even Martin OM or Gibson AJ body shapes will hurt the Library of Plans sales. We have those two plans in the Library of Plans. If someone wanted that profile and saw the plans in the Library of Plans they may buy a full set. If we also have a free cad file of the profile available then they are not likely to buy the plans. Yes this is a capitalistic point of view. But a couple years ago when Lance and I came up with the idea of the library of plans we had a vision of growing it and adding to help provide for this forum..

I just see the free cad library eventually taking away from the library of plans Sorry if I come across too protective of the Library of Plans. yes I think we all are and should be free to share their cad files with each other. To do so unrestrictedly as a service of the forum will make the existing library of plans worthless to the forum sooner or later.

Michael, I think you're the only one fighting for the OLF library of plans, sort of feels like this

Honestly if the service of free exchange of cad files goes somewhere else, so will those who are seeking those files, nature of man.

I think it was a great idea but like the old software, this idea too may need revision.

By the way, does anyone have a cad file of a Martin size 1 body they'd like to share? I'd love to build one of these in the near future.

_________________
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

D, OM and AJ... That's all public domain, and as long as we're not sourcing them from OLF plans that shouldn't be an issue regardless of sales of OLF plans, because OLF doesn't own any kind of copyright or trademark on those in the first place. That goes with the territory if you're going to sell an as-built drawing of a common item. OLF's not a charity, I don't have an obligation to line Lance or Brock's pocket, even though I already do in other direct and indirect ways. They get to benefit from our free and public exchange of information, that's what drives traffic to the OLF. Otherwise it'd just be a page of links.

The OLF plans will still offer value and will still sell, I'll still buy any plan you make if it's something I have an interest in building. Someone's willingness to charge for something doesn't negate my ability to freely share my own efforts, and if it's not shared here some other site would probably welcome the traffic and activity. We don't need to put a toll on every information exchange here, and we don't with any other medium (text, pictures, video).

Rod, if anyone had a body tracing or straight on photo from a Martin Size 1 guitar, I could convert it to CAD if all you needed was the outline.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Thanks for the offer Jonathan,

I was mostly trying to make a point though. Forums are all about free exchange of information. We choose to be subscribers because we want to support the forum, we choose to buy the plans because we find value in them and want to support the forum. As has been always stated, these are just programs to help support the financial side of the forum, BUT generally everything here is free exchange. We all give and take, some take more than they give and others give way more than they take, it's just the way it is.

The OLF is most likely the most popular location on the net for guitar builder information, adding anything like free exchange of body shapes and guitar parts in cad form (honestly even full plans) will only increase the volume of attendant's here which will probably increase revenues greater than the current library of plans will ever do. I don't see it as something that will kill the library of plans (which is rather small) but it very well may increase the membership here which will generate more revenue overall. Build it and they will come!

_________________
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