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CNC or not

CNC or not ?

  • I like my basses cut by hand.

    Votes: 8 2.8%

  • I prefer a cnc cut bass.

    Votes: 38 13.1%

  • I don't mind.

    Votes: 243 84.1%
  • Total voters
    289
  • Poll closed .
#42
allexcosta said:
So, I guess the guys at Fodera think it's fun having their customers on a 3 year wait...
Click to expand...
Fodera makes a wonderful instrument. No question there.

My guess is the hand finishing allows for custom profiles. It's just a guess. They cut the 'sandwiched' blanks on a band saw, sand them close to the needed width, cut the profile (in the video I saw they didn't go into the finishing steps) and finish sand them. Once the neck is finished though, the only difference in feel comes from the contour.

The thing I see contributing the most to the cost of a Fodera is the choice of body and neck woods, the amount of time the woods spend in the press so it stabilizes, hand finishing, the fact someone had to choose the individual blanks Fodera cuts their body/neck wood from... The wood they use can be more than 100 years old. The pieces they use are cut from large, individually chosen blanks, hand sorted and graded. The blanks are chosen specifically for their unique properties.

Janek Gwisdala has a podcast devoted to the Fodera factory. It was fun to watch.

Great care is taken by Fodera to make a beautiful instrument. I can agree it is a science and an art.
 
#44
One major plus for CNC: repeatability.

Once a luthier dials in the perfect neck profile after years of experience, they can program it into the CNC and have exact duplicates within thousandths of an inch of one another. It's just data after that. How much consistency can you get between neck profiles when doing it by hand? No where near the accuracy of a CNC. To widen the neck or decrease the depth is a simple tweak to the geometry model and a regeneration of the toolpath if they have decent programming software.
 
#45
allexcosta said:
A CNC carved neck does not feel like a hand carved neck. It just doesn't...



Yeah, I'm sure Fodera can't afford a CNC router... :rollno:
Click to expand...

Industrial engineer here...

Give me your favorite fodera or whatever hand carved neck, and I guarantee that you can have the exact same shape cut with a CNC 10 or 20 thousand times, and you wouldnt be able to tell the difference between your bass and the 20 thousand other bases cut in the exact same shape to .001 tolerance. In other words, CNC allows exactly the same bass to roll out of production exactly the same as the last one, again, and again, and again, every time.

This is factual information that can be measured, whereas statements such as "cnc does not feel like a carved neck" cannot.
 
#46
i'll have to disagree about the .001" tolerance .

in something as unstable as plant material(wood) IME,
bilateral .003(.006 combined) would be more plausible..
and THAT would be in temp/humidity control...and with something
extremely stable (nothern maple) . that's where hand-fitting
and finishing are so important ....and why robots can't make guitars.
 
#48
madmachinist said:
i'll have to disagree about the .001" tolerance .

in something as unstable as plant material(wood) IME,
bilateral .003(.006 combined) would be more plausible..
and THAT would be in temp/humidity control...and with something
extremely stable (nothern maple) . that's where hand-fitting
and finishing are so important ....and why robots can't make guitars.
Click to expand...

Robots play a huge role in making Taylor guitars, considered among the finest.
 
#51
When it come to Fender Jazz basses, I much prefer

THIS
$(KGrHqQOKpkE1r!eJ99IBNoSIrsmew~~_12.jpg


TO THIS
$(KGrHqYOKj4E00bKcdpEBNe(Bf1mG!~~_12.jpg
 
#53
I like the idea of CNC, it makes things consistently. It's good for making a large volume of things quickly. There is something kind of romantic about the flaws and little differences something made by hand gives. It feels a little more personal, though I seriously doubt I'd be able to tell the difference in feel unless it was mentioned to me.
 
#54
Geez,... a cnc machine is just a TOOL. Just like a bandsaw is a tool, a rasp is a tool and Charlie Shee'.... ;)

Tools can be used well & used poorly. Ultimately, a skillful craftsman knows which tool to use for each job - whether it means a power tool, hand tool or whatever.

I think the consensus would favor all final finishing (sanding final shaping, etc...) and fitting to be done by hand - but there's an argument to be made that machine tolerances are getting ridiculously good! (The PLEK comes to mind - although you'd darned well better double-check by hand!) Point is, using a combination of technologies is allowed, encouraged and thankfully commonplace!

If you could play two near-identical basses: one rough-carved by a cnc router, and one rough-carved by a handsaw (or a really-well trained beaver for that matter)- I highly doubt you're going to go: "This bass has clearly been hewn by a semi-aquatic mammal that was fed only foie-gras and listened only to The 'Stones "Stick Fingers" album on vinyl for 8 months!"



...in other news, is it wrong for me to keep half a dozen beavers in my garage, listening only to classic rock, for a future build? :hiding:
 
#55
ljazz said:
Does wood work harden when you used high speed power equipment on it? If it does, then there could be a tonal impact, depending on how much work is done by high speed tools.
Click to expand...

No, but it probably will burn if the cutting speeds are too high. Wood is among the lowest density material that can be worked in machining.
The speeds used for wood are very low compared to those used in metal working (which is what high speed tooling is designed for).
 
#56
RoboChrist said:
No, but it probably will burn if the cutting speeds are too high. Wood is among the lowest density material that can be worked in machining.
The speeds used for wood are very low compared to those used in metal working (which is what high speed tooling is designed for).
Click to expand...

I would think that it's more suseptible (sp) to hardening due to it's lower density. And I've seen some high speed wood working tools doing design prototypes in automotive ...... Just because you're not burning doesn't mean there's no heat...... sorta like cookie dough getting harder when you cook it.... it doesn't need to burn to change.

It probably doesn't matter if you're hand finishing enough off to get back into unchanged wood.
 
#57
ljazz said:
I would think that it's more suseptible (sp) to hardening due to it's lower density. And I've seen some high speed wood working tools doing design prototypes in automotive ...... Just because you're not burning doesn't mean there's no heat...... sorta like cookie dough getting harder when you cook it.... it doesn't need to burn to change.

It probably doesn't matter if you're hand finishing enough off to get back into unchanged wood.
Click to expand...

If the heat generated during lateral moves effecting the hardness of the wood is an issue (and which it may be), a *smarter* programmer would plunge-rough out the majority of the material instead of pocketing out everything and then just clean up the pocket with finish passes. Removing the majority of material in plunging motion with a forstner bit on a CNC and using the same RPM would create the same conditions as if you did it manually.

As far as neck profiles, you could take any neck, plop it on a coordinate measuring machine, translate it into spline/surface curves and generate a surface profile in the computer. From there simply program a toolpath on it and then you have an identical copy.

It's so easy I don't understand why Sadowsky, Lakeland, and other boutique mfg's don't patent their neck profiles as there are pirates out there (Arrrrr matey - I have your neck profile and I'll be selling replacement necks for $200...)
 
#59
allexcosta said:
I wonder why US Lakland fretboards come crowned and leveled by master luthiers while Skyline's is done by a CNC...

Absurd, huh?
Click to expand...

I'm thinking that we throw this "luthier" term around a wee bit much here on TB. Many of the top repairman and even builders I know don't use the term about themselves. I have no way of knowing for sure, but a "master luthier" isn't going to work for an hourly wage dressing frets at Lakland. They probably have half a dozen "skilled craftsman" doing that highly valued job (and I have mucho respect for them), but I'm guessing 'David Gage' & 'Jimmy Coppolo' aren't clocking in at 9:30 for their shift - ya know?
 

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