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I doubt this is an issue for the Byrnes mini table saw, but I owned a Proxxon mini table saw for a while, and it felt like it didn’t have enough power or precision for what I wanted to do. I prefer using fret slotting blades on my full sized table saw, with a sled. Blade changes only take a few minutes. To each her/his own.

I think if I were contemplating the purchase of the Byrnes table saw I might look instead at some of the small CNC machines on offer. The prices and features have become quite competitive in the two years since this discussion was originally posted, so a CNC large enough to slot fretboards (and do many other things) could probably be had for about the same cost as the saw with a few blades and accessories.

The only problem with that is that using a CNC requires a skill set the tablesaw does not...

.....says the guy with all his fingers

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

Hope I stay that way too:)

In this age of 3D printing I think you will see a dumbing down of the skill set needed to successfully use a CNC machine before much longer. I remember when DOS was the simplest computer system for people who used PCs. Then came the Apple computers and icons and a mouse. With the printers you can download files others have created and rescale or modify them to suit your purpose. I think this trend (file sharing) will become more common as time goes on.

Trevor a sub 0.5 blade sounds a bit like a jewellery making tool...

The plain steel blade Makita makes for it's old battery saws would get you close if not all the way there. It's 3 3/8th inches (85mm) with a 9/16 inch (15mm) arbor hole and .5mm plate. I use it for cutting fret slots on my homemade saw.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Makita-3-3- ... /204382617

I hope so! I could really put a CNC to good use...

CNC is really there now. About a year ago I bought a CNC mill that uses a DeWalt trim router from MillRight (millrightcnc.com) along with a software package (VCarve Desktop) from Vectric. Unlike woodworking hand tools and many woodworking power tools, programming and running the CNC does not take skill. It does take some learning, both in terms of tool programming and work setup. While that learning requires focus, patience, and persistence, traditional luthiery requires real skill -- sharpening tools, bending sides, freehand inlays, sprayed finishes, etc. And those skills require both hand-eye co-ordination and substantial time to develop. Learning to use CNC, even from scratch, is a much faster process and never requires the real-time competence needed with hand tools.

I started with CNC to compensate for my lack of skill -- which became undeniably apparent when I needed to inlay an oval rosette. A week of tedious work and a marginal result. The CNC did a great job on the rosette and then was applied to bridges, bas-relief headstocks, neck profiles, and slotting fretboards (including fan frets). I now use the CNC to start the nut slots in the right place. I had tried several of these tasks before CNC by using "skills" and was usually disappointed. Using CNC, I've been happy with the results. (I am still learning.)

I'm happy for you, but I would still consider that all traditional luthiery just takes 'focus, patience, and persistence' and such, and I consider being able to write programs no less of a skill. I expect that anybody can figure out how to sharpen a thing whereas not everybody can wrap their head around computers. I would suggest that perhaps your computer literacy is at a level of competence that you don't even recognize as a skill, lol. I still find email challenging from time to time.

Nice looking machines though, and about 50% of the cost since the last time I checked into a CNC, thanks!

The local library has invested in 3D printers. The extent of "programming" the librarians do is downloading files from the "cloud" and maybe rescaling the "print". It wouldn't surprise me if in the not to distant future you could download files to cut out the parts of a dreadnought and the building and bending forms to make it.
There are people who will write programs for you, which you can then run to make the parts you need. Google CNC programmers for hire. If I was doing lutherie for a living I would certainly do more with CNC.

I am still hooked up with the programmers of old and have even purchased a few programs. The problem is that CNC's do not always do as they are meant to, and you need the skills to understand why they failed, which requires a working knowledge of what's actually happening on a code level...

Or so I've been told.

Anyway, quite the digression from a mini tablesaw, my apologies...

This talk of "writing programs" is a bit misleading. There need be no code writing in the traditional sense or anything like that in a modern workshop CNC operation (though if you REALLY want to, you can hand-write some of the code). The CNC process that I follow has four steps:

1) I start by designing the part I want with the CAD features of a CAD/CAM program. (I use Vectric VCarve Desktop -- costs $350. Free alternatives are available but are either less capable or more challenging to learn.) Using the CAD tools, I draw a 2-D picture. For a simple rosette, it would be two concentric circles (or ovals).

2) Then I move the CAD design to a CAM program. (VCarve is both CAD and CAM so movement is just a click of the mouse.) In the CAM program, I specify the cutting tool I want to use in the router (say a ¼" end mill) by clicking on a library entry. I then tell the CAM program how I want to machine the lines I've drawn in CAD. For a rosette, I'll profile outside the outer circle and profile inside the inner circle. Then I tell the CAM program how deep I want to cut. For a rosette, I'll cut all the way through. If I use the same CAD design for cutting the recess in the soundboard, I'll tell the CAM program to make a pocket between the circles where the depth of the pocket is the thickness of the rosette. VCarve Desktop will figure out all the toolpaths needed for whatever I've told it to do and will create a program in G-Code that can drive the CNC machine. VCarve can then draw a 3-D picture on my screen that I can zoom and rotate, so that I can verify what the final product will look like. Once I'm satisfied with the look, I save the G-Code that was "written" by the program.

3) I mount the wood that I want to cut on the CNC machine. I usually use double-sided tape to attach my workpiece to a larger piece of ¼" masonite, smooth both sides, that I clamp FIRMLY to my CNC worktable.

4) Then I open another program (I use UGS (Universal G-Code Sender) which is free to download from the web) that will send the G-Code instructions to my CNC machine. I plug my laptop into my CNC machine, via a USB cable, and use UGS to jog the router bit to the corner of the workpiece (or wherever I've set the origin when I did the CAD design), lower the cutting tool to the surface of the workpiece, and tell UGS that it is now at X=0, Y=0, Z=0. Then I turn on the router (and, definitely, my dust control vacuum), and tell UGS the name of the file where I've saved the G-Code that the CAM program wrote. Then I click on the "go" button on UGS, stand back, and watch.

I don't mean to say that CNC is trivially easy, but no powerful, capable tool is trivially easy. I does what it's told to do - not, necessarily, what you want it to do. There is definitely a learning curve, but that's true with any new tool. "Programming" the CNC is an unnecessarily frightening way of describing the process.

Hans

You said - "Learning to use CNC, even from scratch, is a much faster process and never requires the real-time competence needed with hand tools"

I suspect many of us do this as a hobby, and I find the process of building with mostly hand tools is the satisfying part. Shaping a neck by hand, making a body mold, inlaying, all these steps are challenging and rewarding to "master" as much as I have over the last few years.

Neither hand work nor CNC actually solve the problem of making a great guitar - that comes with experience with either method. However, by chance I actually did make a great guitar once.

I was a CNC machinist for 30 years, and a machinist for 10 years before that. I make violins and guitars by hand; because I like to do them that way. It is very satisfying.

To be good at CNC programming, I think that you have to be at least competent at the machine you are programming for, lathe, mill, grinder. Some don't think so, but I'm talking real world. Things don't always go as planned. Besides that, the machine WILL DO every stupid thing you tell it to do. We programmed, setup, and ran every job we did. Sometimes a 6 or 8 a day. I don't think that very many shops do that.

Today, they want to dumb down everything, and divide it up so one guy programs, and makes more, but does all the programming. Others do set ups, and make less. Most only run them, and make even less. The skills and knowledge in the same pyramid arrangement.

If you are using CNC in your shop to do things, it could speed up the job, and in the case of inlays or fretwork, they might come out accurate. But the setups, and programming is on you. We were old school, and programmed point to point off the cad drawings. No software for us. Some software would make things easier, but you still have to get it right. People rough in violin plates, and probably even arch tops in their basement or garage, but, to me, that doesn't seem to be the hard, or time consuming part. You can rough it out in a couple days by hand anyway. It is the other work that takes the time. Buying a CNC neck might be a quick and easy way to make a neck. If you are working on volume, and just want to concentrate on the electronic side of guitars, or on your personal body shape or finishing, it might be a good idea.

I just like doing things myself.

I don't know anything about 3D printing, but don't you lose the entire point of the instrument? It is no longer made from wood; a living thing. Now it is more like programming a robot to make a robot instrument. All the credit goes to the printer and the software. Everything is artificial. This world is already too artificial.

That's the take from an ex CNC guy.

Ken

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Why be normal?

In regards to tools for making bindings, I bought a MacRostie Binding Trimmer a year ago to resize some plastic binding for a special project. This thing is basically a small, table mounted router with a fence setting that is measured by a digital gauge. I love it. Making small wood or plastic strips to precise measurements is simple easy. Rough trim the strip on the bandsaw and then trim it down quickly and precisely.

Ken Nagy wrote:
"Today, they want to dumb down everything, and divide it up so one guy programs, and makes more, but does all the programming. Others do set ups, and make less. Most only run them, and make even less. The skills and knowledge in the same pyramid arrangement."

Dumbing down has helped many people cope in the computer age. It does have some advantages. If the person who - runs- the machine also - owns - the machine and can acquire the programming either as freeware or for a nominal cost then the pyramid collapses to a great degree. I will admit that the more a person knows the better they can utilize the technology, but that is true of any tool.
At one time CNC machinery was prohibitively expensive for the average shop. That is quickly changing.

Is the process of building frameworks and interfaces which abstract away the unnecessary complexities of a system in order to increase accessibility the same as dumbing down? Inquiring minds want to know.


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Could be...

I guess my wording wasn't really precise. What I meant was that they only want to pay the programmer for the knowledge of the machine, its operation, and the programming; and have HIM as a salaried employee. They want a few set up people to get the machines up and running perfect parts, so they consider them to be less skilled, and pay them less. Then they have operators, working for as low a wage as they can give; who only load the parts, push the start button, and then unload them. They might not even have to check them. That would be the set up guys job.

During the last recession I was laid off, and got a job as a set up guy. I set up about a dozen mills and a couple of lathes. They had 3-4 operators to run them. I made $14 an hour, and the operators made $8-10 an hour. I made almost as much after taxes, as I did in unemployment, but they were talking about getting rid of extensions. It was the only thing I could find at the time.

The union allowed the 3 machinists left to work overlapping 12 hour shifts and weekends. I never did understand that. No other department was cut.

My viewpoint isn't about CNC per say. More of a personal view of the way that employers use it. They want to think of operators as mindless robots.

Using CNC for yourself is a whole different thing. If it is to get higher precision on certain things, and you make enough of them, it is a tool. You will be the one in charge of your quality, and absolute speed is probably not a concern. No matter what, it will be fast. I just like hand work.

We did have a mill with conversational programming that was nice. The mill itself wasn't the best, but the programming wasn't bad. One apprentice liked doing it point to point for some reason. I used the mill that had the easy programming. I don't think of that as being 'dumbed down' it is just using smarter machines. Being dumb is thinking that you are smarter. I think that they just didn't have that programming at school, and didn't want to learn it. It does have to be learned, it isn't THAT user friendly.

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Why be normal?

I've seen those small-ish "toy" table saws that seems to fit the bill... something like this pictured...


I don't know if they have similar things in the US sold by Home Depot. They're a little underpowered for heavy work like dado but looks to be about the perfect size for fretboard slotting and tapering. They are not expensive either.

On the subject of CNC... I can't justify the cost of some of the machines. They're incredibly useful especially for inlays but I think I would rather have a simpler CNC sled where I can attach a rotary tool to it (or plasma cutter, oxyacetylene torch, etc. depending on what I want to do). However right now I simply don't have the funds to explore that, and the amount of work to justify the investment.

My neighbor has full sized VMC (a Taiwanese made mill and a Bridgeport GX-710) and they are rather maintenance intensive. They also cost about 60,000 dollars new which isn't bad, but it's more money than I have. I also don't have a distribution network to crank out large number of parts and have someone buy it. Oh and if your CAM software isn't up to snuff, or you tell the machine to do something stupid, you can do irreparable damage to those machines.

I use Fusion 360, it's free for small businesses and hobbyists. Right now, a manual mill with DRO and a laser cutter has served me well. Laser cutter can do some inlays (wood inlays for example) and I've placed an entire fretboard inside the machine and have the laser engrave in the proper fret positions onto the board itself, where I would use a hand saw to cut the actual slot. It's not very big however so I can't really do electric guitar 24 fret scales.

This is what can happen when you don't know what you're doing on CNC machines (or place too much blind trust in CAM programs and don't set the zero point and Z axis properly)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0ME__3RwWQ

That probe that the machine broke? Costs about 800 dollars.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I own and use a Proxxon FET Table saw, (newer version of the Proxxon table saw Haans Bentrup used) mainly for cutting fret slots.
I like it fine, enough power (200 watt vs 220 watt for the Byrne) only problem was the blade was not aligned with the guide slots in the table.
Exchanged 3 before realising it seems to be a set up problem during manufacture, and is not easily adjustable without fairly major modifications of the motor mounting.
Not a problem for ripping with a fence, which is simply adjusted.
But I had to make an (angled) sliding table as an add on for cutting fret slots, a couple of hours work.
It's certainly been worthwhile, and makes simple and quick work of fret slotting instead of a manual jig.
But to import the Byrne table saw with the additions I needed would have been double.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.