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Thread: Guitar Building in schools:

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Cape Cod MA
    Posts
    75

    Default Guitar Building in schools:

    Greetings.

    I'm probably your newest rookie. I teach guitar building and woodworking at Nauset REgional High School on Cape Cod. The desktop machine should be here next week and I'm very excited.

    over the last 13 years we have built from scratch somewhere around 500 electric guitars and 200+ acoustic guitars so I'm no rookie in teaching even special needs kids how to build an instrument from scratch. Personally I've bult hundreds of instruments from basses, electic uprights, jazz boxes, acoustic guitars, banjos.... etc.....all the old school way.


    I am a complete rookie at CNC however, so I'm hoping that this forum will help me to not re-invent the wheel.

    so now we will be introducing CAD/Cam into the mix. I've been fooling around with the supplied Vcarve software and am very pleased in how easy it is to learn to use and the toolpath program is way easier than I envisioned.

    It doesn't appear that the drawing program in Vcarve will work well for designing guitars/guitar parts. so it looks like I'll probably have to invest in Aspire?

    on the electric guitar side, my plans are to have the kids design their shapes with paper and pencil and transfer that (via JPEG?) to a design program. They'd pick out pickup and bridge configurations, and probably choose from some pre-designed control cavity designs. They'll do the tool-pathing and cut out the body/add all the pockets and cavities. From there we'll use conventional routers and hand tools to do stuff like the belly bowl and arm ramps and radiusing the body. With the necks I'm envisioning having them cut out the blanks/headstocks and use the BOt to hog off most of the neck shaft radius but the final neck carving will be done with hand tools. While we currently do tilt-back scarve joint headstocks, I'll probably do flat Fender -style necks while we get accustomed to the CNC.....

    so that's my VERY long introduction. I'm hoping others have already forged some of these trails and can help me to get on the right path in both learning the software and then teaching it to students.

    thanks

    Karl Hoyt
    Last edited by Hoytbasses; 02-02-2013 at 10:29 AM. Reason: old brain , stiff fingers

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Toms River, New Jersey
    Posts
    2,091

    Wink

    Karl,
    There have been MANY guitars designed and cut using the Vectric software.
    Even companies such as LMI ( http://www.lmii.com/ ) use Shopbots to make the building jigs for their customers to use when building their own axes...
    And when you DO get comfortable moving your machine around a bit you'll be able to start playing with "vacuum jigs" to enable the tilting joinery for necks, etc.
    You will probably want to take a peek at Scott Greens videos in which he offers instructions to design, and build a guitar on the Shopbot!
    Take a look at his web page: http://www.rmgvideos.com/
    All the lesson plans you could ever ask for....
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    "Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else....." Sir James Barrie

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    San Jose del Cabo based since 1997
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    1,244

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Posts
    7,832

    Default

    Karl,
    As a beta tester for Scott Greens guitar building videos i can tell you they were made for the novice and expert alike to be able to understand and follow along at a reasonable pace. The instructions and concise and clear and easy to follow along.
    My granddaughter has just started taking guitar lessons so i had a renewed interest in getting the videos out to design and make something for her. When she gets more advanced i'd like to be able to make her first GOOD guitar for her and these videos have helped.

    Rather then you "starting from scratch" you might want to check them out as it might augment your teaching.

    Also in my research you can find almost any design with cad drawings and even models out there for free and pay. I'll have to look in my folder of stuff i've found if you want to email me I can share my research and links and such if you need it. email link in profile under "about me".
    Remember Google is your friend
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  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    San Jose, CA, USA
    Posts
    685

    Default

    You may want to look at Alex Navarro's experience with Vectric programs and guitar building. He did a great job of documenting how he did various projects.

    Here is one of his first threads: ->Link
    - Randall Newcomb
    10 fingers in, 10 fingers out
    another good day in the shop

  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    Sun City West AZ
    Posts
    121

    Default

    Welcome......with the dust comes great support, friendship and a place to post your work pics. Welcome to CNC world.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Cape Cod MA
    Posts
    75

    Default

    wow... thank you so much for all the support and pointing me in various directions. As I was poking around this site, I did see that great DVD series by Scott Green. I'm definitely in favor of NOT reinventing the wheel if I can help it. I'll check out the many links that you've supplied.

    I'm a little ahead of the curve only in the fact that I've built many many guitars myself and helped students fabricate them for years now. so I know what I want the program to do (and not do) . I'm also lucky in that the guitar player in one of the bands I play with is a CNC jock in a big cabinet shop and my brother in law has been a CNC programmer in a high tech machine shop for almost 40 years (anyone remember tape machines?) so i have some local backup.

    I have gig tonight but I think my morning coffee will be spent looking at the many links you provided me!

    thanks again

    Karl

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Cape Cod MA
    Posts
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    Default

    quick update: The machine will be here on tuesday!!!!!!

    I did contact Scott, who probably should have charged me 200 bucks for the video given all the questions I fired at him , but he was very gracious with his advice and expertise.

    I've already started making some projects and assigning toolpaths. I find the software pretty easy to use (so far) . It will be interesting to watch the sawdust fly to seehow well I did when the rubber meets the road.

    thanks again!

    Karl Hoyt

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