Official Luthiers Forum!

Its actually interesting in retrospect, my eldest son, is in his last year of uni for mechanical engineering, he discusses all the theoretical sides of stuff and is so certain about things. Ahh little grass hopper has so much to learn.

I once told him, okay so how does a hammer drive a nail into a piece of wood, he explained it out, then came my "well show me", So he grabs the hammer chokes it just under the head and bends that nail over, does not put it into the wood but bends it in half. I grab the hammer, find the balance point and just let it fall under its own weight and slowly but shoorly the nail is driven home neatly with almost no force applied on my behalf.

Knowledge is merely a tool, in the wrong hands its useless, so I do know where you are coming from.

The topic has been interesting, and I have experimented with more feeds and speeds today on some inlay work I had to do, I was notably surprised by how much more I could push out of my tools without them breaking. So to this end, I thank those that have slightly steered the topic of course.

I have not heard back from techniks yet, am awaiting on them as this is the path I wish to take. I believe in my circumstances a blade would be better.

It has been informative

Steve

Andy! Don't make me come up there! Do not encourage engineers and their confounded new out of the box thinking!

Mirwa, if you do get the head and saw your frets be sure to update us with pics or videos. And info regarding what sort of speed you are able to achieve. I believe it's an interesting way of going about things. Not the way I would approach but interesting none the less.

Mr Koll seems to have the situation under control with an excellent setup! This is what I had in mind when I made my initial recommendation but after seeing the size if the router in question, I remain somewhat hesitant in terms of rigidity issues -it's doable but it could be better. Anyone who has ever used one will know that angled heads are far heavier then they look. The tool carousels in many CAT40 class machines have a 20 pound tool weight limit in the pot. I wouldn't know of the limitations of a BT30 gantry router.

Techniks isn't the only brand out there selling angled heads. You could even browse ebay for something "pre-owned" and roll the dice.

As far as the comments about engineers, after nearly 30 yrs as a mfg. engineer/cnc programmer/toolmaker/tool designer, etc... i've heard them all and i'm still here. I came into engineering through the back door so to speak working up through one miserable shop after the other. During those years i've been to so many tech schools, seminars, factory training, and extension courses that i've really lost count. Currently i work with many "greens" who have a basic technical understanding of a sort and are brilliant software navigators, but just lack a vision of the "big picture". They are able to micro engineer the heck out of a reamed hole and argue their ideas about this hole in great detail, but are usually quite clueless as to what that hole actually does, how it interacts with it's mating parts or assemblies, or what goes in it -none the less how it would get made. The arrogance factor is unbelievable, but then again maybe I was like that when I was their age... (but probably not).

Yeah that's what I run into constantly with engineers. The older engineers and I get along just fine. The newer ones "lack a vision of te big picture" just as you said. They can seem to get a grasp on how things work as a whole. And also have no clue how things are made which ends up costing the company much more money than it should when it comes to manufacturing. One instance in particular u was making two mating parts which were connected by a dovetail joint. Instead of just a standard dovetail the engineer drew it up with something completely off the wall like a 17 degree dovetail or something like that. So the customer had to pay more for the parts because I had to make a custom ground 17 degree dovetail cutter. It just blows my mind sometimes. And as a manufacturer you can't tell the engineer that a 30 degree dovetail will work just as good and not cost as much (they have a degree and I think it goes to their head). Worst part is we do sand casting, which is not very common these days, and the concept of making a blueprint that is cohesive with an acheivable sand casting really throws engineers for a loop. Oh well such is life.

My new machine is a fixed bridge router that I'm retrofitting with linear motors, but the VMC did the trick for many years. It's identical to the ones at Taylor guitars, and back then I figured the best way to get started was going with what worked. I've cut a lot of aluminum and steel on it, as well, and it's always nice to be able to handle metal for making tooling. If I do say so myself, the tooling I've made is quite sexy

If I were going to use a blade for fret slotting, and I had access to a VMC or even a beefy CNC router like your own, I wouldn't be going the aggregate head route. Get a spindle motor, a die grinder, or even a router spinning a shaft running through a couple bearings and make a frame to hold it in a tool holder at 90 degrees. At Taylor guitars they have routers in aluminum frames at 90 degrees for cutting the 'vertical' part of the neck mortise in their guitar bodies. Much cheaper than aggregate heads, much higher RPMs, and they last a lot longer. Before I figured out that I could slot a board in a minute anyways, I was going to make such a frame and use a die grinder to run a slitting saw.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Bob, is the fixed bridge a MotionMaster frame by any chance, or are you build from scratch?

Mike

It was made by a company called Standard Router so far as I can tell. It appears they're defunct. They were kind enough to use off the shelf components in their control cabinet and include the manuals for all of them, so getting the KFLOP hooked up should be a cinch. I'm going to lift and reinforce the bridge later on, and of course install the linear motors, but right now I'm looking forward to having enough time to wire it up and turn it on!

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services