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Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
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Just interested to compare with my CNC experience.
The templates took about 2 hours to cut, going slow with extra passes to ensure they cut as cleanly as possible. Obviously a few hours designing and tweaking too.
I did use the laser to engrave the body blank with the various templates and center line, which made alignment much easier. that was a quick engrave job so only took 5 minutes
Routing was fairly quick because all the templates were ready to go and the body was well marked out, about an hour and a half even with the tricky recess. That includes pre-drilling the cavities
The maple bits have been done solely with the laser. it cuts really well so took about 40 minutes to cut and engrave it, but I think it would have benefitted from slowing down the engraving step to make it a little deeper
It's probably not much faster than making all those templates by hand, but it is a hell of a lot more accurate and obviously repeatable
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I have used the laser to engrave fretslots and outline, as well as routing out some inlay slots.
This took about 25 minutes all in. The laser did a good job on the rosewood so the fretslots and outline are engraved 2mm deep, inlay routes are 3.5mm deep.
I suppose I could cut accurate thickness fret slots, but for now I am just using it to give a good deeply scribed line for the fret saw. I think I could have easily cut the whole thing out too.
I went with a 24.5" scale and 24 frets. Mainly to do something I don't have a slotting jig for.
I then spent a few minutes cutting some maple bits from the top offcut to fill those slots.
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The issue with reclaimed wood... it has a big mahogany dowel on it and I have no idea how deep it goes
I wasn't lucky, its still there when rough cut, but only just, and doesn't go all the way through. I need to re do the headplate anyway so will go with a slightly shorter headstock design
Which gets us here
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I'm wondering whether the sweet spot might be to use the CNC to cut the first few mm of the cavity, enough to then get a bearing guided router cutter in there to do the rest. That'd save the time of making and affixing the templates (and space of storing them all!).
Same experience as you re the fine/detailed work though - CNC is great for repeatedly cutting really accurate pieces and all the intricate stuff that you'd struggle (or worry) trying to do freehand with a router type tool.
Is it a glitch or me
There's another discussion (I think in the Help & Feedback) section re photo visibility issues.
Should of gone to specsavers lol
Definitely some stuff Mr V is doing that would be tricky on mine though.
I would love a CNC for the proper wood work once day. My expectations from the laser was never that it would replace a lot of router work or things a CNC or normal router would be useful for.
I wanted it mainly for template making, marking out and inlay, which is does really well with the materials and thicknesses I have chosen - working well within it's limitations. It's amazing how quickly this style of laser is becoming a viable option for home use. Mine is already the old model, with a new version available that is 3-4 times more powerful and includes a bigger work area as standard
If I had a CNC router, I think a laser head would be a good addition to it. Sadly that doesn't work the other way as the laser frame and motors are nowhere near strong enough to carry a router
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I already had the facings, cut from the same wood as the top and therefore perfectly grain matched.
I decided to engrave the back of these to fit nicely on a p90 covers. Whilst I was at it I also cut some bits to make these into solid maple covers. The rings were cut with grain going the opp8osite way for strength
Stuck them together and cleaned up a bit
Checking fit... need to clean out the insides a little, but looking good
And in the body
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Bandcamp
That's fine here where I can match them exactly to the route, but I doubt they would fit easily in most P90 guitars
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cheers !