Guitar Building with my JazzCNC machine

Hi,

I joined the forum last year looking for advice on where to get a machine that would be suitable for my hobby of building guitars. I was pointed in the direction of Dean ( JazzCNC ) and after having a bit of a chat with him, put my name down for one of the small 9060 machines he was planning on doing a run of.

I got my machine April time and have been spending the time since then on clueing myself up on how to run it / create toolpaths etc.

Ive recently been working on building a Les Paul style guitar using my machine and have successfully now got both a fingerboard and body made for my guitar. The fretboard for this guitar is ebony and uses celluloid for the inlays . I designed it in Fusion and successfully machined and then fretted and bound my fingerboard ...

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The body is made from African Mahogany, its actually a four piece body, primarily as I got the wood cheap and figured if I end up mucking it up, then I wouldn't be as devastated as if I trashed a pricey Brazilian Mahogany body blank. The body requires machining on both sides so I had a bit of homework to do in regards to flipping the workpiece over and realigning with steel pins. The mahogany was routed and weight relieved in preparation to having a maple cap added ....

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The maple for the top was prepared again using the CNC to flatten and thickness the two halves and also joint the edges of the boards, which it did brilliantly. I created my toolpaths in Fusion and ran them on the machine...

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https://youtu.be/VIiyef8TqXc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J04wwVrkMgw

Once again, it performed brilliantly, I cant say enough good things about Deans machines. Especially as a beginner in the world of CNC'ing , I think I would have thrown in the towel if I ended up with a machine that didn't really work as it should or just caused ongoing problems that as a beginner I wouldn't have a clue how to solve. The fact that it just works as it should is brilliant for a newbie such as myself as it allows me to just get on with making stuff and not having to faff around with the machine itself.

Next up is to design and make a jig to hold the body at an angle in the machine in order to route the neck and pickup cavities at the correct angle in relation to the body ( they aren't parallel to the back of the guitar) and then crack on and get the toolpaths sorted for the neck as well. Ill hopefully have some more to show in the near future !!

Looking Good Ben, you seem to be getting to grips with the machine nicely. Look forward to seeing the finished guitar.:encouragement:

Oh, those caps should land with you tomorrow or Tuesday.

Looking really good so far.

That's where: Researching avalable machine options not jumping at the first thing that 'looks' good......and......Taking your time with learning how to use it, will get you.

:smile:

Nice work Ben, very inspiring.

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Originally Posted by JAZZCNC

Oh, those caps should land with you tomorrow or Tuesday.

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Dean, you should throw in a packet of HobNobs after such a great advert :joker:

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Originally Posted by Kitwn

Dean, you should throw in a packet of HobNobs after such a great advert :joker:

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Cheapskate!.
More like a bottle of single malt (or 2) :whistle:

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Originally Posted by dazp1976

Cheapskate!.
More like a bottle of single malt (or 2) :whistle:

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I think Ben would appreciate a lump of Brazillian mahogany more, which I do happen to have. Would cost more than the machine to post though..:hysterical:

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Originally Posted by dazp1976

Cheapskate!.
More like a bottle of single malt (or 2) :whistle:

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Yes but Dean is a Yorkshireman :joker:

So since my last post, I have managed to cut the neck and pickup cavities for the guitar. These are perpendicular to the plane of the neck which is 4.2 degrees in relation to the back of the guitar. I built a simple jig which is angled at 4.2 degrees and fixed the guitar to it, this way, the machine is doing simple 2.5 cutting. If I were to cut it with the guiar flat to the CNC bed it would end up a mess as the cavities are essentially undercut.....

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Next up to create a neck. I dont have a lot of photos of this, but essentially I cut the cheeks of the tenon joint which are again 4.2 degrees using the CNC and a 4.2 degree wedge that allowed me to simply cut a straight vertical line for the cheek of each side of the tenon and then just drove the CNC around and machined the waste wood away. I then created my G code for the neck and machined just the shaft of the neck and the transition into the headstock using a combination of adaptive, parallel and "steep and shallow" operations in Fusion....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pldfTEF5RfA

Came out really really well , the more I use this machine the more I love it !!

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Its really starting to look like a guitar now !!

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I need to glue two "wings" onto the headstock to make up the full width and then cut the final headstock shape which I will do on a normal router table for speed and convenience. Once that is done I will glue the fretboard onto the neck, blend in the stock that I left proud on the edges of the neck and then we are onto the home stretch !!

Looking good. Very inspiring. Where are you sourcing the hardware for this guitar?

Kit

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Originally Posted by Kitwn

Looking good. Very inspiring. Where are you sourcing the hardware for this guitar?

Kit

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Hi there and thanks !!

I've got a mix of hardware for the guitar. Pickups are Seymour Duncan, tuners are kluson. For the bridge and tailpiece I will either use Faber or Gotoh parts. Then various plastic parts I have sourced from different places. I have also cut out the back cavity covers for the guitar myself out of black ABS.

I need to get a bit of a wiggle on with it really as it is going to be a gift for my brothers 40th birthday at the end of September. It will take a few weeks for the lacquer to cure after I spray it. But for that I will need a compressor and spray gun and a crash course on how to use them :topsy_turvy::topsy_turvy:

Looking good Ben, you seem to be getting to grips with it quick enough, those feeds n speeds look nicely dialed in with a good balance between speed and sanding regards the step over(scallop) with the ball-nose cutter.:encouragement:

Can't wait to hear it played..:toot:

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Originally Posted by BeeceUK

Hi there and thanks !!

I've got a mix of hardware for the guitar. Pickups are Seymour Duncan, tuners are kluson. For the bridge and tailpiece I will either use Faber or Gotoh parts. Then various plastic parts I have sourced from different places. I have also cut out the back cavity covers for the guitar myself out of black ABS.

I need to get a bit of a wiggle on with it really as it is going to be a gift for my brothers 40th birthday at the end of September. It will take a few weeks for the lacquer to cure after I spray it. But for that I will need a compressor and spray gun and a crash course on how to use them :topsy_turvy::topsy_turvy:

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What a fabulous present! I wish I had a brother like you.

Kit

PS But I do have a very lovely sister. Just in case she's reading this.

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Originally Posted by JAZZCNC

Looking good Ben, you seem to be getting to grips with it quick enough, those feeds n speeds look nicely dialed in with a good balance between speed and sanding regards the step over(scallop) with the ball-nose cutter.:encouragement:

Can't wait to hear it played..:toot:

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Cheers Dean, I think its running at 4200mm/min in that video, seems to be fine running the finishing passes at that speed, Im sure I could turn it up a few % more as well. Only takes a couple of minutes to knock the scallops off and sand it down.

Sadly being left hand I wont even be able to play it myself but Ill make sure to get some videos of my brother playing it.

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Originally Posted by Kitwn

What a fabulous present! I wish I had a brother like you.

Kit

PS But I do have a very lovely sister. Just in case she's reading this.

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Hes a very patient brother too, I initially promised I would make him one 4 years ago !!

Good things ( hopefully ) come to those who wait ;)

Hi Ben

Nice to see your work. I'm in talks with Dean at the moment regarding a CNC machine for me to make jazz guitars. A similar process in some ways to a Les Paul.

I noticed you have a lot of tooling marks left on the neck and further bits to sand, could I ask why that is?

I'm hoping that I can do necks with less work left after machining but I might be unrealistic about what I can achieve.

Issues for me would be that jazz guitars don't have have wings glued to the headstock and the heel is taller.

So without sounding like an arse, are the issues (you may not see it that way) you have purely down to lack of experience, or is it simply as you state, easier for you to do more post sanding. I'm hoping to do asa little sanding as possible as this adds in a margin of error and lack of repeatability.

Also how well did carving the top of the body go? Did you have to do a lot of post sanding to get rid of tooling marks or was it pretty much good to go?

Cheers

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Originally Posted by Archy

Hi Ben

Nice to see your work. I'm in talks with Dean at the moment regarding a CNC machine for me to make jazz guitars. A similar process in some ways to a Les Paul.

I noticed you have a lot of tooling marks left on the neck and further bits to sand, could I ask why that is?

I'm hoping that I can do necks with less work left after machining but I might be unrealistic about what I can achieve.

Issues for me would be that jazz guitars don't have have wings glued to the headstock and the heel is taller.

So without sounding like an arse, are the issues (you may not see it that way) you have purely down to lack of experience, or is it simply as you state, easier for you to do more post sanding. I'm hoping to do asa little sanding as possible as this adds in a margin of error and lack of repeatability.

Also how well did carving the top of the body go? Did you have to do a lot of post sanding to get rid of tooling marks or was it pretty much good to go?

Cheers

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Hi Archy,

That neck was finished with a 1mm steover parallel pass. I could have quite easily set it to something lower but it would increase machining time. Hell, I could have set it to 0.1mm stepover but personally I dont see the point. You are going to be sanding the neck anyways, It may appear to you like there are alot of machining marks, but 120 grit sandpaper will have that neck smooth in a matter of minutes. Plus, with something like a neck it is going to be refined further before completion, the shoulders of the neck will need blending with the fretboard as I have left the neck a little wide to give me a bit of wiggle room when glueing the fretboard on.
The top carve went really well. I believe on that I ran a "Morphed Spiral" operation from fusion 360 and in that instance set my stepover to 0.5mm as the top is maple so a bit more effort to sand. At 0.5mm stepover you would have needed a magnifying glass to see the scallops.

regards

Ben

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Originally Posted by Archy

I noticed you have a lot of tooling marks left on the neck and further bits to sand, could I ask why that is?

I'm hoping that I can do necks with less work left after machining but I might be unrealistic about what I can achieve.

Issues for me would be that jazz guitars don't have have wings glued to the headstock and the heel is taller.

So without sounding like an arse, are the issues (you may not see it that way) you have purely down to lack of experience, or is it simply as you state, easier for you to do more post sanding. I'm hoping to do asa little sanding as possible as this adds in a margin of error and lack of repeatability.

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First, let me say this post isn't intended to sway your buying decision because by now after speaking with you at length I'd like to think you realise I that's not my style or way.!

The surface finish you can achieve is all down to the size and step over amount, mostly this is a trade-off between time and effort in sanding. With a small stepover, you will get a finish that is perfectly smooth. However, the cycle time could quite easily quadruple or more. But it's certainly possible to get a perfectly smooth finish.

This trade-off between step-over and sanding is why in my post congratulating Ben I said "you seem to be getting to grips with it quick enough, those feeds n speeds look nicely dialed in with a good balance between speed and sanding regards the step over(scallop)" The time saved in machine time compared to the small amount of extra sanding required is in my opinion worth it provided it's used in the right areas.

This is the beauty of CNC and having your own in-house machine, you can decide where the accuracy warrants a smaller step-over and where you can tolerate a little more sanding to lower overall build time. Plus you can tweak fit etc.

Like most things in manufacturing, Quality is a trade-off between time and effort. CNC just allows you to choose how much of each you save.

Well Ive been continuing to work on the guitar. Pretty much all the CNC side of things was completed at the last update and its on to more "traditional" methods of guitar construction . Hence the slowdown in productivity !! ;)

Ive bound the body and drilled all the holes on the guitar body as well as installing the bushings and ground wire and added a round over on the back.

Glued the "wings" to the headstock as well as a maple veneer. Shaped the headstock, drilled for tuners and added a logo inlay as well which was cut on the CNC out of the same cellulose nitrate material used for the fretboard inlays.

Fingerboard is now glued to the neck and its pretty much ready to glue the neck into the body, just keeping them apart for now as its easier to work on each piece individually.

Once glued itll be finish sanding and then onto finishing ( as long as the weather plays ball and I can find a window of opportunity with low humidity ) .

Hopefully will have something to update you all with in a couple of weeks when I start on the finishing as long as the weather and humidity play ball ) ....

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by BeeceUK

Well Ive been continuing to work on the guitar. Pretty much all the CNC side of things was completed at the last update and its on to more "traditional" methods of guitar construction . Hence the slowdown in productivity !! ;)

Ive bound the body and drilled all the holes on the guitar body as well as installing the bushings and ground wire and added a round over on the back.

Glued the "wings" to the headstock as well as a maple veneer. Shaped the headstock, drilled for tuners and added a logo inlay as well which was cut on the CNC out of the same cellulose nitrate material used for the fretboard inlays.

Fingerboard is now glued to the neck and its pretty much ready to glue the neck into the body, just keeping them apart for now as its easier to work on each piece individually.

Once glued itll be finish sanding and then onto finishing ( as long as the weather plays ball and I can find a window of opportunity with low humidity ) .

Hopefully will have something to update you all with in a couple of weeks when I start on the finishing as long as the weather and humidity play ball ) ....

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Great Job Ben

Did you use the Tom Bartlett plans as a base for the guitar design ? If you ever want to sell the machining files please let me know. I'll have died from old age before I figure out 3d design software !!!
Cheers
Andrew
Ps Northwest guitars do a good nitrocellulose laquer as wel as Morrells

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Originally Posted by the great waldo

Great Job Ben

Did you use the Tom Bartlett plans as a base for the guitar design ? If you ever want to sell the machining files please let me know. I'll have died from old age before I figure out 3d design software !!!
Cheers
Andrew
Ps Northwest guitars do a good nitrocellulose laquer as wel as Morrells

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Hi,

I didn't create this model myself, I purchased it off a guy on GrabCAD. It comes as STEP files which I loaded into Fusion 360 and from there generated toolpaths. Even with the STEP files however, Ive had to play around with the models a bit in order to correctly generate toolpaths.

A bit like you perhaps, I find the the 3D modelling can be a tricky bugger, Im currently enrolled on a level 2 Parametric Modelling course at a local college and have successfully modelled a couple of guitars myself in fusion ( telecaster , les paul junior ) but the top carve of a Les Paul is a seemingly simple thing to do but a bugger I've found when I have tried so far.

I have chatted with the chap who created the files and yes it is based off Tom Bartletts 59 plans. Ive actually got a few sets of Toms paper plans kicking around from when I built without the CNC.

You're the second person to recommend Morells lacquer to me. I was planning on using Dartfords from Rothko and Frost but will have to check out Morells. To do the sunburst I plan on mixing up Aniline dyes to do the burst and hopefully fade it back in the sun.

Hi Ben

That'll be from Matt then. I bought a set of files from him as well. I'll have a crack at running them through fusion. If you get analine powder dyes from lockwood they fade really fast in the sun. Although the sun here in Austria can be more intense than in the UK. I really prefer to use the stewmac colortone liquid dyes as the colour you get tends to not bleach out. Sun exposure can be a bit hit or miss and unpredictable. The reds do tend to fade fast. You could try a mix of both analine and colortone liquid. Plenty of info on the https://www.mylespaul.com/forum/luthiers-corner.26/
Anyway great job so far with Deans (Jazzs') machine it all looks really good.
Cheers
Andrew