Guitar Parts..anyone??

[John@mayesguitars.com]

I have been intersted in a Shop bot for carving guitar necks. Is anyone out there doing this? How much of the carving are you anle to do? pictures of the final carved neck would be wonderful!! Thanks!

John Mayes
Mayes guitars
www.mayesguitars.com

[sheldon@dingwallguitars.com]

We do that John. The actual shaft is fairly easy to program in Vector, but the transitions from shaft to headstock and heel are a real bear. I tried several combinations of software and finally just programed them by hand. This turned out to be a good thing as it afforded me the ability to program starting cuts to minimize blow out on the corners. They're a little chunky but 2 minutes on a pneumatic drum cleans them up nicely.

2709

2710

[ricks]

John,
I have been studying guitarmaking for the last 2 years. I,ve had my Shopbot for about 5 & a cabinetmaker for close to 30.
I have been carving necks on the Shopbot and I,m very happy with the results. I use Rhino to draw the neck in 3d and Millwizard to generate the code for the bot. The bot runs about 15min to carve the neck which results in grooves that need to be sanded out. The sanding goes quickly. I will try and get it together to send you a picture.

Rick Samish
Fine Line Cabinets

[John@mayesguitars.com]

that would be great rick...and thanks frot he pics sheldon...looks great!

[gerald_d]

Sheldon will shake his head . . . . . .

Homemade African guitars have mostly been converted 1 gallon oil cans. Look what this guy (http://www.africanguitars.com/) is doing here in my backyard!

He exports about 150 "guitars" a month and can't keep up with demand. And he runs a $80 000 Multicam! These guitars sell at about $250 each to the tourists here in Cape Town.

[rgbrown@itexas.net]

Gerald,

This company is acting totally irresponsibly. The "Ndebele" style guitars will be leaving graffiti artists and children without work. AND, there is fear this exploitation of natural resources will destroy the oil can reserves.

This exploitation had already happened in the United States where oil is no longer available in "Tin Cans" and must be had in plastic jugs. Please note the original 1 gallon can, a can of 4 quart size, had already become scarce and these 'guitars' are built with the larger evolutionary off-spring of the original 1 gallon can, the 5 liter can. The endangered 1 gallon can is seldom seen in the wild and the sole remaining examples are now in the hands of museums and collectors. Some of these collectors are thought to harbor illegal cans as the original cans were used to hold now banned substances.

Legislation may be needed to save the oil can.

Ron Brown - rgbrown@itexas.net (mailto:rgbrown@itexas.net)

"A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which
debt he proposes to pay off with your money." - G. Gordon Liddy

[sheldon@dingwallguitars.com]

I want one.

[gerald_d]

Sheldon, he has orders for 100 more per month, can (pun) you help out?

[tredding@hotmail.com]

I am trying to shape a neck for a neck through one piece bass. I am using rhiino to design the neck cut and mill wizard to rough shape the neck. The problem is that mill wizard wants to completely cut out the neck and sever the neck from the body. I do not need to 3d mill the entire instrument and do not want to build a bolt on. Can anyone get me started in the right direction?

[ricks]

tredding,
I think if you design in Rhino ONLY what you want your Shopbot to cut,and then in Millwizard, on the Strategy page enter zero for the border, you should get what you want. Millwizard will ask about the smaller border when you do this, say NO to this screen, and go ahead.
HTH
Rick Samish

[gerald_d]

Update on post of 2 years ago.....

The "African Guitar" maker grew too big too fast and hit a rough patch. He has gotten rid of his expensive CNC machine and now sub-contracts the neck out to one of our customers, who sub-sub-contract us to do the rough shaping/drilling.

Here (http://www.africanguitarsusa.com/Hall%20of%20Fame.html) are some action shots of the guitars in use.

Edited to add: Dang!...this is one of those change direction threads. The post just below was the first.....start reading below and come back up to the top again.

[paco]

WOW! What a guitar!
I wish I could hear it's sound...
You must be happy about the sub-sub-contract? Are you? I plan to approach guitar makers too to do some of their work... I wonder if they will sub-contract me?...