Luthier CNC

[bluesking]

Minor update today as I have not made as much progress as I hoped.

Cut angles into the side plates using a table saw with a cheap aluminium blade I got from screwfix. Worked perfectly:


Started assembling machine only to realise I still have my paper templates on my aluminium plates. Started peeling these off and immediately realised using spray on contact adhesive was a huge mistake. Paper wouldn't come off. Used a Stanley knife blade to try to coax it off with limited success. Spent most of the day trying to clean the leftover gunk with acetone - managed to clean off half of one single plate (and not very well).

After dinner I realised I have lots of lighter fluid which I use for cleaning gunk off guitar finishes and tools. Thought this may be worth a try and it worked fantastically. Finished all of the plates in about 1.5 hours!

1 Douse the paper with lighter fluid


2 Leave for 1-2 mins to let it soak in and peel the paper off; dead easy


3 Kitchen roll doused in lighter fluid to gently wipe off any gunk - keep adding lighter fluid rather than elbow grease (avoids smearing the gunk around). Here are all the clean plates and extrusions ready to assemble: