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New headless build… might be a long thread :-)
- Thread starter Barticus
- Start date
Today was a good day for the creation of more 'human CNC' tooling with my new single cut template (for that Black Limba blank or maybe the Purpleheart) and the new neck routing and pocket templates. I also made significant progress on cutting the pieces needed to build out tooling for a router jig and sled for fingerboard radiusing (20") and neck carving with a new base for my router to support this.
The neck wood finally showed up this week and the headpiece is here, so nothing preventing me from making some good progress, other than my domestic duties with massive yard work and maybe opening the pool (that I get asked about daily
).
The neck wood finally showed up this week and the headpiece is here, so nothing preventing me from making some good progress, other than my domestic duties with massive yard work and maybe opening the pool (that I get asked about daily
).
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Well I had some time today to actually build out the routing sled and the base plate to get everything fully functional and do some testing with scrap wood.
Everything worked very smoothly and I feel pretty good about the build out of the sled, bearings and the tray that it fits into.
I was able to successfully carve a really nice smooth radius with a ball shaped bit in a pretty quick time. I definitely need to figure out a way to get a dust collection nozzle in there to suck the sawdust out as I’m doing the carving. Otherwise I had to stop several times to either blow or vacuum the sawdust out.
And I really learned a super valuable lesson…
remember the “measure twice and cut once”?? In my haste to build out my designs so I could get to cutting on the laser, I miscalculated the radiuses by using diameter NOT radius
so my templates were 1/2 size LOL. But that’s okay, I was able to work out all the tooling and get some nice rough cuts to prove out that this all works as I expected it to.
So all in all I’m happy with the progress for this weekend, I have confidence that I’ll be able to radius my fretboards and carve a nice smooth neck using this process.
Everything worked very smoothly and I feel pretty good about the build out of the sled, bearings and the tray that it fits into.
I was able to successfully carve a really nice smooth radius with a ball shaped bit in a pretty quick time. I definitely need to figure out a way to get a dust collection nozzle in there to suck the sawdust out as I’m doing the carving. Otherwise I had to stop several times to either blow or vacuum the sawdust out.
And I really learned a super valuable lesson…
remember the “measure twice and cut once”?? In my haste to build out my designs so I could get to cutting on the laser, I miscalculated the radiuses by using diameter NOT radius
so my templates were 1/2 size LOL. But that’s okay, I was able to work out all the tooling and get some nice rough cuts to prove out that this all works as I expected it to.So all in all I’m happy with the progress for this weekend, I have confidence that I’ll be able to radius my fretboards and carve a nice smooth neck using this process.
I already have some improvements planned for this week, I know how I’m going to incorporate a vacuum nozzle to be able to connect my shop vac and remove the sawdust as I’m cutting. I’m also planning to add some ball bearings to the sled so it rolls a bit easier on the platform. Overall my cost is less than $25 since I reused materials I already had, and really only had to purchase the skateboard bearings.
A couple of weeks ago, I was wondering how the curved bodies of Spectors and some of the older limited run Ibanez SRs were made. I knew the methodology would be the same, I just hadn't cottoned onto how to actually do it. Wifey will be "oh my God you've done it now. He's got an idea in his head".
That's a great fixture! I've been thinking about body radiusing (concave back) for my current build. I though of putting together a simple mdf rig, but yours looks so much cleaner and smoother with the bearings!
Nice looking jig, I see the movement on the bearings, can you get a clean movement down the length of the neck/body? while sweeping the radius? I see the thru holes in the acrylic. And I guess you can just adjust your radius by the two largest acrylic "bridges"? Looks sweet!!
The sled will have to be wider for the body so I’m just gonna create a wider carriage with ball bearings on the bottom. So essentially I’ll end up with two variations of that jig.
Hopefully I’ll be back on the build this weekend to make some additional progress. My new custom brass head pieces are being shipped to me on Monday, I have two of these coming. I provided the dimensional drawings and specs for these less than two weeks ago and they’re already done and being shipped to me from Ireland. 
Just keeping track of progress against my original plan, I think I’m pretty much on track to close out my check list.This one is mostly for prototyping and testing out some things that I’ve been wanting to try for a while with twin builds.
The first one is essentially going to be a body replacement for an existing custom build that I did quite a while ago.
The second one will be a neck through where I’m going to be testing some new materials for the neck itself.
So what am I testing?
Pretty basic design with the 2 general ideas. Zebrawood for body one and Purpleheart for a body two.
- New body design and new template process (for me)
- Integrated finger ramp system
- Some new routing bits (for me)
- New finishing process (for me)
- New neck woods
- Curved back body carving process
- Planning to use neodymium magnets as closures for compartment covers
- Possibly a new LED neck inlay process (for me)
- Possibly a new custom milled brass head piece
- Using this as a prototype prior to new CNC ops I’m working on
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New templates built out of 1/4” acrylic by combining a second template that has the accessory bay, neck pocket, bridge route and battery compartment. I cut them with an Epilogue 60 W laser and included quarter inch holes for dowel rods as registration pins for front and back.
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Today was the first day of decent weather we’ve had in a while, so I decided that I would first prototype with some poplar first to test out the templates and some of the new bits.
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This MicroBit is pretty cool, I was able to get some really nice tight clean corners for the DC40 pickups.
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I did some rough shaping but there’s a ton of shaping and carving
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I’m using this piece of poplar to test out some techniques for carving the curved back and shaping the front angles. I’ve had this piece of wood for over 35 years, and it is the second body that I’ve cut from it. The first one had such nice resonance and it turned out really well so this one should be a great body as well once finished. It’s also fairly light now that I’ve thinned it up quite a bit.
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More to come soon, as I get into cutting the zebrawood which will be the first of two final bodies.
I have a pretty cool design for last one on the list, but I’m going to delay that one a bit as it will be a little more time consuming…although I’ve already prototyped it with complete confidence in my design.
I have my router jig for Thumb- like body nearly finished. I copied your idea about the bearings. I’m hoping to start routing on Sunday. Could you please measure the thickness of your Thumb body for me?
9,5mm drop between points at around 30cm distance. I didn’t measure the radius when I made my routing jig.
Yes check out this post where I have pictures and the measurements from my Thumb body.
The Official Warwick Club (Part 6)
This is how I’ll model the back of my current build, with a scalloped back. My body is narrower, only 10.5” so will fit nicely.
