A new CNC router in the house

[guitarbuilder]

Here is today's attempt at something a bit different. I've been playing melody makers for a few years now and like the lightweight and thinness. I'm not a fan of the SG, so I decided it was time to put something together that had all the features I wanted. These included.... a thin-ish body with single cutaway, access to all frets, good balance, set neck, and gibson/epiphone vibe to it. Then I saw some Kay guitars on ebay. I kind of fell in love with Kay guitars recently. So my neo retro guitar is Kay inspired. This happens to be a beginners guitar that was made in the 60's with a DeArmond pickup or two. They are still cheap to buy and have some americana junky coolness to them. A drawback in my opinion is that they don't have a full size neck in the length department. I had a few parts laying around this past year and put together a prototype of a similar guitar, but with features that I wanted. This prototype made me want to try a few more in different configurations. The neck is Gibson scale and joins the body at the 18th fret like an SG but balances better due to the upper horn. This particular body is 1.5" thick, a bit thicker than an SG or MM, and has a neck rout for the set neck and a swimming pool cavity for unlimited pickup installations and simple control cavity to hold a vol, tone, and jack. A pickguard mounts to the body like a strat.

I drew the body and pickguard in Rhino and routed it in two stages. I did the perimeter cut separately and then the rest of it. I am totally psyched at how the K2 did this. When I find my calipers, I want to see how accurate the neck cavity is. It is supposed to be 1.50 wide. and 1.125 deep. This took about 15 minutes to rout out at about 50 inches per minute.

[matt1va]

Ah, I have that exact model! Mine's a Silvertone rebrand of the Kay Vanguard. It is an excellent guitar. If you need any specific measurements, let me know. I like the shorter neck scale. Combined with how light it is, its a very easy guitar to take around and play. I've always got a strat if i need a full 25.5"

[crazydave911]

Originally Posted by guitarbuilder

Here is today's attempt at something a bit different. I've been playing melody makers for a few years now and like the lightweight and thinness. I'm not a fan of the SG, so I decided it was time to put something together that had all the features I wanted. These included.... a thin-ish body with single cutaway, access to all frets, good balance, set neck, and gibson/epiphone vibe to it. Then I saw some Kay guitars on ebay. I kind of fell in love with Kay guitars recently. So my neo retro guitar is Kay inspired. This happens to be a beginners guitar that was made in the 60's with a DeArmond pickup or two. They are still cheap to buy and have some americana junky coolness to them. A drawback in my opinion is that they don't have a full size neck in the length department. I had a few parts laying around this past year and put together a prototype of a similar guitar, but with features that I wanted. This prototype made me want to try a few more in different configurations. The neck is Gibson scale and joins the body at the 18th fret like an SG but balances better due to the upper horn. This particular body is 1.5" thick, a bit thicker than an SG or MM, and has a neck rout for the set neck and a swimming pool cavity for unlimited pickup installations and simple control cavity to hold a vol, tone, and jack. A pickguard mounts to the body like a strat.

I drew the body and pickguard in Rhino and routed it in two stages. I did the perimeter cut separately and then the rest of it. I am totally psyched at how the K2 did this. When I find my calipers, I want to see how accurate the neck cavity is. It is supposed to be 1.50 wide. and 1.125 deep. This took about 15 minutes to rout out at about 50 inches per minute.

Too cool! I love the old Kays,Harmonys and Airline guitars. Are you making this one from black willow as well? It's been many a day since I've heard that breed. My grandfather did work on an old watermill (overshot) that ground corn meal, flour and provided power for a sawmill (big mother it seems) and said they'd used black willow on the wheel and floorboards and black locust for the axles & bearings. It seems these woods (if kept wet) were very moisture and termite resistant and would last for years.Using a CNC and this wood seems a good meeting of past vs present in that sense.
I hope you will be using an old DeArmond or two, nothing sounds quite like them.If so your going to want to wire that baby up right. Try here, http://harmony.demont.net/schematics.php

Dave

[guitarbuilder]

Thanks... I have a vanguard here. This is the prototype I mentioned earlier. I had this neck started for a concept guitar called a " 58 melody maker. It was to be a double cutaway junior version of a melody maker. I used a one piece poplar body blank. It ended up warping like a potato chip when I planed it down from 1.75 to 1.375. Anyways, the neck was kicking around here and I decided to try the black willow and marry the neck to the kay idea. It's a set neck joining at 18th fret. Those are a couple of kay pups I had purchased over the years and I cnc'd a pickguard for them. Originally the peghead was MM like but I plugged the holes I had drilled for 3 on a strip tuners and added ears. I sort of cut out n assymetrical supro inspired peghead shape. I stuck on an import ABR-1 tunamatic bridge and a kay tail I had here. The drawback to the pickups as they sit is that they are not height adjustable. This needs a bit of finish work. The edges I did with a file after it was all put together. It needs some sanding too. I really like using the Willow....a sustainable non imported wood. The body I scaled up to 13" wide.
Thanks for the link Dave. I'll check it out.

[crazydave911]

Originally Posted by guitarbuilder

Thanks for the link Dave. I'll check it out.

No prob, but you might want to try this one instead, http://harmony.demont.net/
And just got to "Schematics" under "Plus" on the RH side.

I've been getting "redirects" and spyware popups all day trying to pull links to that site.Seems once your there, your fine. Don't know what some idiot had against Harmony guitars, but I'd like to get a hold of him

Dave

[guitarbuilder]

Here is my pickguard routed for two gretsch pickups that I just routed out in the 12 degrees F. shed. Man... that's cold. Poor quality pic but the guard came out great. I have a program to locate the holes for the controls and such but decided to do it the old fashioned way.


and on the body that I still have to complete

[guitarbuilder]

I drew a tenon similar to an 80's gibson and converted it to gcode. The difference is my tenon is cut cleanly....:-). I tried it on a test neck of mahogany. It fits like a glove. I went out and bought a 2 " long Freud straight bit for the occasion.

[Novatuc]

Still Jealous.........................

[guitarbuilder]

Well on Saturday night I decided to carve the neck. Before I could do that, I had to I rotate my old drawing in Rhino as my X and Y were different on the pcnc router, so I made a new STL file and used my version of meshcam to generate a new set of gcode. Well yesterday I cut it out and it was horribly wrong. I had problems making the STL file and it took me a few tries to do it. I think that the software was corrupted and it was running on a windows xp machine. I decided to download a newer version of meshcam on my windows 7 machine. That worked nicely and the software has had some bugs fixed over the course of the year. Here is a new neck carved with the new tenon file.
I kept it a bit thicker as it was just another test. This one came out good thankfully.


I'll flush trim the excess off today after I warm up. It is 19 degrees in the shed again...... more like January around here.

[crazydave911]

Just think how cool it'll be when you get it dialed in . Is it that cold out there even with heat? Dad's old metal shop has had a pot belly stove for yrs, but this past summer, with all the businesses folding, we attended an auction.Bid on the overhead propane heater and got it.MAN, what a difference!We hung it in one corner pointing down the length of the shop, has a thermostat and everything We scored it for 400, not including the tank, which we rent.Man when you get that metal siding warm it'll run you out of there.Cools off quick though

Hope you get to go again soon and didn't have to sell too many nice guitars to get up and running,
Dave

[mgdesigns]

I had a 20' x 20' super insulated shop in Upstate NY, and my then father-in-law gave me his old 75,000 btu Propane heater (wall mounted) and in 10 minutes I could heat up the whole place for a half day's worth. he extra $200 for insulation made it a breeze to heat. I had double pane windows and glazing in a metal insulated door, and no heat leaks. And if I got the 1920's double door safe really warm..... the thermal mass kept it toasty.

[guitarbuilder]

Heat...what heat? The shed is not insulated and is only vinyl sided stud walls. There's no money for putting any more into it for a while. I ordered a round nose freud bit for carving. It should be here today or tomorrow. I ordered it from Amazon. Free shipping means 5 days to go 9 hours...LOL. I was about to carve another neck and then aborted the mission as the home center bit wasn't long enough to be safe. I'm anxious to get back to it. I also ordered some special grease that K2 recommends.
I may start an acoustic guitar too, as this is the time of the year for it here.

[spyderxxx]

Marty
Do you have trouble with the backlash nut in the cold weather causing lost steps

[guitarbuilder]

I don't think I'm missing steps , but I've been giving them a shot of 3 in 1 oil each time I use it. I can hear them groaning though until they are lubed. That is why I ordered this super grease for it. Still no bit in the mail today..darn. Tracking says it is in Rochester... probably Saturday delivery for it( I hope).

[guitarbuilder]

Well I greased it up and the new bit came today. Here is test neck #2

[mgdesigns]

Looks great.

Question: What are the little in cuts where the tenon starts from the neck heel?

[guitarbuilder]

That is where the neck meets the body on a LP std. It is a 4ish degree angle. I made that saw cut on that blank with my compound miter saw and the long tenon on my router table a year or so ago when I was prepping some blanks. If you were doing it by hand you could make it a without the notches, but this way the glue has some place to go when the neck is inserted. In the previous picture, I used the CNC to make the notches which is more in line with how Gibson did it in the 80's. Since I'm not trying to make a clone of anything, I'm just trying to be efficient and accurate. The area that looks like " flash" on the fingerboard edges is about .010 thick wood that I left intact to be trimmed off later. I used a step over of .030 and it took about an hour to carve at about 50 ipm. I want to redo it with about a .050 step over and I need to tweak the peghead transition a bit.

[guitarbuilder]

Yesterday I redrew my LP std neck and today I did a test carve with that one. Here is the result with the tenon code added from the Kay neck up above. This took about 55 minutes with a .050 stepover on the finish cut.
I could have pushed it faster but I didn't want the machine to miss steps with the cold temps in the work area.

[guitarbuilder]

Today I decided to draw some inlay and rout out the cavities. I also did some inlay out of pickguard material scrap to try it out. I made the inlay about .016 undersize. I wish I had a better camera here as this one leaves a bit to be desired.

[guitarbuilder]

Today I decided to redraw the TDowns routs and holes from the new improved dxf and here is the result. I used a .125 router bit to locate the holes .125 deep for further drilling on the drill press. I don't usually rout the perimeter, but decided to give it a try. I think I used the EHawley drawing for that. I routed down 1.5 inches on that. I didn't want the wood to move around in the waste, so I figured I'd use a flush trim on the rest of it.