Official Luthiers Forum!

Glad you asked, Nelson. Read em' and weep...

It's a Techno LC series w/ a big Colombo spindle, a pair of Kress fractional spindles, and an Air Turbine 65k RPM air spindle. Coolant for metal and shell cutting is provided by dual recirculating mist coolant nozzles. I got the high speed NEMA 34 servo upgrade, so it'll do a tidy 1,200 ipm rapid, 900 ipm cutting with .0002" resolution and .001" repeatability. The computer I'm going to use is my Dell Precision Dual Xeon Worstation. Hold down will be handled by a BOC Edwards E2M30 dual stage vacuum pump with 28 cfm.

Bottom line: I paid my dues for 3 years on the crotchity homemade special, now I get my bad-@ss robot with all the trimmings!   

PS - It needs two 20amp 220 circuits and a 110 of it's own to run. Hehehehehe....

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John Watkins
CNC Guitar Parts

There's no icon here to show a big jaw-drop Lance....

Wow John....that's some rig! There's almost Nothing you can't do on that thing! I'm assuming you have 4-axis capability?

We want PICTURES so we can drool.....thanks.
Don Williams38820.5483333333

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Man, you could carve the Eiffel tower or the Empire state building with that machine of yours!

Ok guys, you sold me on the generic neck idea. I'll make one big batch, everyone will get a chance to see the results without spending a lot, and you'll all be customers for life!

Here are the rules;

1. Even numbered quantities only (2,4,6,8...)

2. You still get custom laminations of your choice per the parameters on the web page.

3. The nut widths will all be 1.75". You get your choice of 2 1/8" or 2 1/4" at the 12th.

4. All the necks (at least this time) will be of the 14 fret variety.

5. You get your choice of 25.5" or 25.4" scale.

6. The neck will be configured for the nut on the face of the headstock.

7. The headstock will be a paddle.

8. The heel will be a rounded stiletto

9. The tenon will be 3/4" wide, 5/8" deep, 3" tall with 1/4"-20 brass inserts at 1" and 2 1/4" from the top.

10. The necks will be $100 each. Matching neck blocks will be $10 each, Mahogany, and will be cut for .115" tops that are domed at 25' and backs that are domed at 15'. Bolts will be included with the neck blocks.

11. I'll take orders for a week or so. All the necks will ship in about 60 days.

12. To sign up, email me your lamination, scale and taper preferences and either paypal (john(at)watkinsguitars(dot)com) or snail-mail some green.

13. Oh yeah, truss rod cavities will be cut for the double-welded LMI/Allied rod (1/4" x 3/8") and will go all the way through for access at either end.

14. CF rod cavities - add $10 and include size preference. They'll be .125" from the TR wall.

15. All necks will have a smile volute.

16. Single back veneer - $20 - whatever wood you want within reason.


Thanks,

John
John Watkins38820.7822685185

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John Watkins
CNC Guitar Parts

A couple of details I forgot;

The neck angle will be 1.5 degrees

The neck shaft thickness will be 5/8" at the nut and 11/16" at the 10th fret

The heel will be 1" wide at it's thinnest and 3/4" deep.

Thanks,

John

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John Watkins
CNC Guitar Parts

Ditto. I'm a newbie builder, but I ain't entirely stupid. After I consult with my, er, consultants, I'll be in touch. Lovin' this!

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Now that's a pretty good deal!

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Hesh,

It's at the bottom of this page in fine print;

http://www.watkinsguitars.com/cnc_necks1.htm

The most common preference is a 1/16" rosewood or other dark wood down the center flanked by 1/8" or 1/4" lighter wood such as maple or avidore and then the rest mahogany.

Thanks, Don.

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John Watkins
CNC Guitar Parts

Congrats John.

I also have a Techno but it has less bells, whistles, and spindles than your new toy    They'll take good care of you but let me know if I can be of assistance. In case they didn't tell you, the PC that functions as the controller doesn't need to be very powerful and it cannot be used for anything else while the controller app is running. CAD/CAM on a separate PC with a shared network drive works well.


Rand

Thanks, Rand. I'm planning to use Mach2/3 as the control software and it is RAM and cycles dependent, so that's why the muscle. I run my CAD/CAM on a different machine too.

John

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John Watkins
CNC Guitar Parts

I like this deal, Thanks John

Mike

[QUOTE=John Watkins] Glad you asked, Nelson. Read em' and weep...

Bottom line: I paid my dues for 3 years on the crotchity homemade special, now I get my bad-@ss robot with all the trimmings!   
[/QUOTE]

Sincere congratulations on the new machine, John. Has it been three years since we put that "crotchity" homemade CNC project together????? Seems like 30 years. It's unfortunate the expectations were high. Had an interesting chat with Bill recently...some folks are just destined to work independantly I guess and some aren't. Again....most sincere congrats and hope the newest venture works out for ya.

Larry, from the work that I've seen, John and that "crotchity" machine (which was bordering on engineering genious in my opinion), churned out some amazing work. Based on the work he's been doing for the last three years on that "crotchity" machine, this new machine will be out of this world.

Absolutly great work...no question there...