Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi,
I'm new here, but not to luthiery. I am fascinated by CNC and built my own machine. Currently I am tweaking a program to carve necks. Is there anyone else doing anything like this? I don't have 3D CAD knowledge, so I'm using 2D and adjusting the G code. I'd be happy to share what I know so far. I hope the pic comes through.
Marty

Welcome to the OLF Marty!
I know nothing about CAD, thanks for sharing your image.

Algeria eh! Long way away

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

There are several shops offering CNC carved necks but I don't think anyone on the forum is. I've actually been thinking about it and doing a lot of research on it lately.

Actually I may be wrong.. Paddy seems to be doing just about everything with his CNC.

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CVT Inc.
A tour of our shop (Somewhat outdated)
My Personal eBay profile. BCWoodBug

John Watkins is too.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

There are several people here doing all levels of CNC. To my knowledge, I'm the only one cutting necks for other people right now, but I could be wrong.

Tell us a little about your machine, Marty. Size, speed, frame, style?

One good CNC neck pic deserves another, right?

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John Watkins
CNC Guitar Parts

Speaking of John Watkins, guitars and necks,
Today my A'hem "Watkins Shredder" named the Blue Monster! made its debut at church.
Aside from the kids drooling on it, I say kids lightly, there 16 to 20 year old guys, It all went great!

I think one of the things I like best about this design is the way the neck fits the palm of my hand above the 12th fret, up were the neck meets the body, its effortless to play up there. Unlike my bold on neck Charvel, which is, well, blocky.

It sounds as great as it looks!

Thanks again John!

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Here is Version #1 of my own design. I had first made one of John kleinbauer's Pipe Dreams to get my feet wet. I wanted something that wouldn't really expand and contract in my basement. Most parts are of HDPE and Aluminum and drill rod. It utilizes skate bearings except for the Z axis where I also used Stew Mac pattern router bearings. It has a 14x24 X and Y area. The Z is capable of routing a carved LP body blank which was the basis for the thing in the first place. I recently crashed and decided to use some limit switches for the first time. I haven't even soldered them yet or make them tidy. I kind of blended the Cheap CNC machine concept with my own ideas of how this thing should work based on my Pipe Dream experience. By the way, I think John's plans are a great bargain and would recommend them as a great place to start.
     Since I have limited electronics experience I went with a pre-made controller. It is a Maxnc closed loop system. I have a small Maxnc mill at work, and got familiar with it so I decided to use their system here. I am pleased with their products.
     I plan on extending my Y axis to about 48 inches soon if I can get the drill rod and threaded rod easily. I get about 50-60 in. per min max, which has been fine. The trim router is a Porter Cable which has been decent as well.
I use an old version of ACad and Version 20 of Bobcad to the best of my abilities:-).Marty M.38809.6747685185

Here is the picture.

Nice machine Marty! I' like you I built my own machine to make parts, jigs, ect. I'm now trying to learn cad.

howdy fellows,

i havent quite cracked the neck thing yet, its not the design which is bugging me its the fixturing to hold the neck, i'm just kind of lost on what to do, i just finished designing a classical guitar bridge, and as soon as i can make them i have orders for them, but again its the fixturing,

i bought some big offcuts off corian and phenolic, but thats about as far as i got yesterday!!

paddy

Paddy, I responded to your PM, but I'll post here as well in case anyone else wants to throw ideas around about this.

I've done it pretty much every way imaginable, and I think the best way I've come up with is to use vacuum (lots of it), but also have indexing pins to prevent lateral movement. Vacuum never releases straight up. It's always sideways.

I've also created fixtures that hold it with one tuner hole bolt and one tenon bolt. The tenon bolt really cuts down on chatter at the top of a 4" heel.

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John Watkins
CNC Guitar Parts

I'll add a couple of fixturing ideas I adapted from Dana's article in American Lutherie 76:





3 sided is a lot more work and hassle than 2 sided but the only way to get all the angles on the tenon.

Hi all,
I just boughta CNC but don'thave it yet.
hopefully next week
I was planing on the three side set up like randy is showing above.
I'm trying to figure out the best modeling for the neck, I'm working in solidworks and/or Vx.
Any good tips for a traditional heel would be appreciated.
Thanks
Jim

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Rand, can you talk a bit about your setup? For example, why is the one fixture in a Kurt vise and the other mounted to phenolic?

Jim, congrats! What kind of machine are you getting?

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John Watkins
CNC Guitar Parts

John - I use two separate setups because my machine's work envelope is only 21x39". The fixture with the Kurt vise is for all the up-facing operations including the FB gluing surface and headstock face. Index holes are drilled for dowel pins to attach the blank to the "carrier" for the side fixture and later for FB positioning. The carrier attaches to the blank with screws and is bolted to the center block. I've seen similar factory setups that use vacuum which would be better.

Here's a pic of each fixture let me know if you want more info.

John,
This a used machine I bought.
It's from a company in indiana I belive called pcautomation.
It's not a high end machine but I won't be pushing it really hard either, so it should get going with my own cnc.
I've wanted to this for years, and have actually done several archtops on cnc machine when I had access.
So I'm pretty excited.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com