rwillett

That was a very deep rabbit hole, a quite expensive rabbit hole in both time and money. Not doing that again. Printing a guitar or bass is positively sensible compared to that. Rob

I think a pool table base would be excellent. It was fun building it, wiring it though was a nightmare as it had something like a 100m of wire for end stops and motors going through the tubes. I learnt a lot, mainly not to build another one Mine would not machine aluminium billet, well it would, but at approx 0.1mm per day. Rubbing the aluminium with wet tissue paper would be quicker. It was fine on ply and softwood. I started writing a 2.5D design package for it as the ones for CNC stuff were either eye wateringly expensive or crap. I'd got as far as working out all the cut paths before I had an outbreak on sanity and realised it was a mad idea.I had quite a lot of code written but still had a long way to go. 2.5D design code is hard, 3d is even harder Rob

Here's a picture of the CNC machine Took six months to build during lock down. The dust extraction system was my design. It took a lot of space up in the garage so it went to the school as-is. Rob

The CNC was donated to the local school who were very pleased to get it. It had a bed area of around 800x600mm. I had a mad idea of doing bespoke cut foam inserts for tool drawers which didn't pan out. I brought an Ender 3 Pro to make the CNC and I quite liked the printing side. I do sell 3d printed bespoke astrophotography parts as a side business. I note I still have to work in IT to pay the bills 😊 The CNC might well have worked. Fastening the pickguard material down might be an issue but the curves would have been OK as the CNC was controlled by a similar mechanism as a 3d printer. No vacuum pumps to pull it down. Probably would have needed to work out how to lead the routing tool in but that's details. It did make so much noise I needed decent ear muffs. Rob

Let me know if I can help. Rob

Ah, now I understand what you mean. That's pretty simple to do. The video is around 75% TinkerCad and 25% Prusaslicer. It's a lot easier doing what he was doing in TinkerCad in Fusion 360. Once it's in F360, a lot of his alignment in PrusaSlicer goes away as well. He had a very laborious way of alignment and setting things up. However all said and done, he did make a nice phone case, I hadn't thought of changing the infill at different heights to get the flexibility. I'm normally trying to make things as rigid as possible so that was a good idea. The downside to this is that constantly changing the filament is painfully slow with a MMU (Multi Material Unit) as it's manual. Until recently Prusa's MMU was seen as a joke, an expensive joke, the new MMU might be a lot better. However doing a large number of filament changes makes the printing very slow. I have an issue that where I have my two printers, doesn;t allow enough space for the MMU as it takes a lot of space up as well. None of this is that difficult, I might do a Union Jack this weekend to check what I thought was right is actually right. I also happen to have red, white and blue filaments close to hand and open If it spurs some ideas for you thats great. Thanks for sharing the video Rob

Some printers can change the extruder head for a cutting laser. Its not a good idea IMHO. A cutting laser is not something I want to be anywhere near unless it's in a proper enclosure. I did look at doing this when I built a CNC machine around four years ago. It made a bit more sense then as I built an enclosure so it was a little safer. Emphasis on little. I decided that even a low powered one was too dangerous around me. There are companies that supply laser kits for the Prusa Mk3 but not for the MK4. The quality of the cutting wasn't fantastic either. Burn marks were left in plywood. Not sure how it would work on pickguard material either. You would still need to bevel the edges so it wouldn't save a lot if time. Rob

Ah. Another rabbit hole to go down 😛 I had a quick glance at Gus guitars and can see what you mean. All things are possible of course. However something stromg has to hold the neck and the bridge. Also there is teensy weensy issue of the string tension. A guitar has about 70lbs and a bass guitar about 240lbs of tension depending on string type. Not quite an annoyed gorilla ripping your arms out but quite a lot of pressure. That has to be managed and so you need a strong core. I've tried 18mm plywood and it's not strong enough which is why I use aluminium. That's got to be taken into account in your design. Rob

It sounds interesting but I'm unsure what you mean. What's a Gus please? I'm easily confused. Thanks Rob

I'll be searching their website daily hoping to buy this mystical bass that has attracted so much attention Let us know when it's gone. With a bit of luck it will be £100 or so Rob

Chuck ideas around, that's fine. Some work, some don't. If your contribution is ideas, that's fine by me. Rather than describe what colours are available, I would look on Amazon at either PLA, PLA+ (basically the same but with more marketing) and PETG filaments Here's PLA on Amazon, lots of colours. You can get gloss and matte filaments. Similar sort of colours available in PLA+ and PETG. For what we want to do, these are the filaments to use. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=PLA+sun&crid=2PXJQ00WRQOLI&sprefix=pla+sun%2Caps%2C109&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 This is eSUn PLA+ Fire engine Red so you have an idea how things compare to Amazons colours. This is going to be the base of my pedalboard, I've got some 2040 aluminium and have designed some elegant clamps rather than use Velcro to keep pedals on. Not a fan of Velcro. Most manufacturers are pretty much the same quality. I have issues with eSun grey PLA, it breaks on my printer for some reason, but thats the only one I have problems with. I don't do ABS as it's toxic and my printers are indoors. You can't do a transparent layer, that's what rattle cans are for You'd struggle to embed an image anyway as the filament comes out at 205C+ up to 250C depending on the filament. The filament also needs something to bond to as it comes out, so that's probably not an option. However you could put a thin perspex layer on the top to sandwich an image and use the screws to clamp it down. There may be transparent glues to help here, but I'm not familiar with them. I have a good business doing stuff I like in IT. That's work and I have no issues asking for the right amount of money there. If they blink twice, I'm in the right ball park, three times and it might be too much. The moment I start asking for money here for stuff like this, it changes things for me and I don't want that to be honest. Very happy to do things for free (T&C's may well apply though). All the best Rob

I can print 250x220x220. Practically I'd do 240x215x2.4mm (ish). I can easily change layers so, black/white/black is not a problem, each layer being 0.7mm to 0.8mm. Cost would be negligible and I wouldn't want any money TBH. The issue is, whether the quality of the printing is what you are after. There are tricks to make it better, printing it top side down on the plate OR 'ironing' the top. Ironing does not mean we put a Phillips iron on, but its a special technique using the hot end of the extruder (circa 205-250C) to melt the surface using extra very gentle passes to make the quality better. Can work OK, I don;t use it because it takes a long time if you are doing a lot of prints. One of the issues I had with the original six string was to make the quality of the printing, whilst good for 3d printing, is not as good as I would like. The Prusa Mk4 printer is better than the Mk3 but it's not as nice as a new piece of pickguard in a shiny wrapper. Thats why I'm looking at buying a Dremel router table and some pickguard material. If you have a design for a pickguard, send it to me and I'll print it out. A design in Fusion 360 would be brilliant but a technical drawing with angles, lengths and radii would be OK,. Thanks Rob

That's very kind of you to say so. Thank you, appreciate that. However when I look at it, I keep thinking, need to change that, need to do this better. I was the same with IT development, never happy always thinking there's a better way to do it. It does play "Smoke on the water" really well (for a single E string). I am just about to dismantle it again and will shave off the excess aluminium, once that's done. I'll probably assemble it and then go into setup mode. I think the neck is a little too straight and need to get that sorted, but I've ignored all that for the moment. The pickups sounded great before, they should sound as good now. I've also just watched this video on making a pickguard. I can see a Dremel router table and Dremel Moto Saw in my future now. The video below gives me confidence I can make a pickguard without losing a finger or an eye. The woman talking is very good, no "umm's" or "ahh's", edited in a sensible manner, do dead spaces, no fluff or flannel. Wish a lot of people who make YouTube videos watch this to see how they should be made. Now I think about it, I saw another woman making some guitar stuff and she was good as well. Perhaps its a gender thing?

I'm actually now in a reasonable state with the six string. Body is done. It's only 34mm thick. As it's so thin, this presents other problems, such as the wiring channels are very narrow as the Voronoi shapes are thin, well that's the way I designed it so I can only blame myself. I designed the parts of the body to split in the thinnest sections to reduce the join lines. There are dowels in these joins to ensure that the parts align. The switch abnd control panels are now printed in situ and it looks a lot cleaner. Aluminium backbone is done. Previously I had screwed two aluminium plates together to form a T shaped. This is the "chassis" of the guitar and the body attached to the wings of the T. That's the holes on the side. I've now bonded the aluminium together using an adhesive for ships. If it can stand salt water and last up to 10 years, it'll keep a guitar together (I hope). This has the advantage of making this piece a lot simpler as no tapping and dieing and no countersunk drilling, contrary to what the diagram below shows. It also keeps the back of the guitar super clean with only four holes for the neck. The aluminium now has a matt brushed look on the back, it still shows some finger prints but I'll do another polishing round when the guitar comes to pieces yet again.... The wiring is all done, I tried very hard to keep the strands of the Voronoi as thin as possible and as the channels are printed in with no access slots, this makes copper tape cladding impossible, so I use a copper braided tube to encompass the wires as the wiring goes from the switch through the body of the guitar to the control panel. Of course, did I allow enough space for the wires AND the copper braid? No. Another lesson learnt and as I had glued the whole guitar up, it had to be thrown away and another body printed. That's around 30 hours and a roll of filament down the drain. Bridge is in and is as low as I can get it. The guitar body is 34mm thick which is 8mm of aluminium backbone, 3mm of aluminium plate on top and 22mm on top of body which is about the height of the pickups. The neck is around 26mm. That's it, I can't make it much lower unless I get or make very thin pickups I managed to find a low level BBOT and that seems to be OK. Pickups are Tesla P90's which are great. They are wired into a pair of volume/tone pots a la Telecaster Deluxe. I only have on string on at the moment to test the height of everything. Plugged it into a Phil Jones Bighead Pro amp and it sounded great (with only one string). I seem to recall playing Smoke on the Water. Seasick Steve eat your heart out Pickguards are a challenge. I have designed them but none of the 10 or so versions I've printed look like anything but sh1t. Currently it's sporting a Prusament Orange pickguard as that's the last one I tried and it doesn't look good. However being orange will force me to think of a better solution. Work to be done: Take it all to pieces to fix a 1mm excess bit of aluminium around the neck joint. Purely for aesthetic reasons but got be done otherwise I won't sleep. Find the three way switch washer and nut which I appear to have lost and could be anywhere in the debacle that is my desk. Buy a chunk of pick-guard material, probably white pearl, and work out how to shape it into a pickguard. If anybody has any good suggestions on how to learn to do this, I'm all ears. I have this guitar to do, another copy of this guitar as I'm making two of them. The second version is a solid body version which I'm making as yet another experiment. I also will be remaking my Fender Jazz copy, I need decent pick-guard for my current headless (which is a really, really nice bass to play). I'm also planning (in my head) a headless Thunderbird bass. I have all the parts but am stressing over cutting the neck down. So that's five pick-guards to make. I'd be happy to buy one, but if its five, I should learn how to make them. If anybody has any pointers to how they have done it, I'd be grateful. Check if I can get rid of the ferrules on the back of the neck. I have some smaller domed screws which I'm hoping are short enough. That would clean the back of the guitar up a lot. Replace the silver screws on the back for the access panels. Black M2 countersunk screws on order.

You could make them an offer they can't refuse. Then you can find out earlier What are they worth do you think? Rob

It has more than a ring of truth about it, the reference to the upright bass and the p-bass is nice. No mention of it being an elderly relatives and he knows nothing about guitars or he found it in a cupboard. If I still lived in Greenwich, I'd pop round, check it out and rip his hand off (and take the bass as well). Sadly I'm a little too far north, Rob

And I'm sure you'll make it eloquently and forcibly... Rob

Sorry misunderstood. I suspect you can complain and you'll get nowhere. Apologies for confusion Rob

You should not have to pay return postage https://hegarty.co.uk/legal-q-as/qa-an-online-purchase-arrived-faulty-will-i-have-to-pay-for-return-postage#:~:text=This is something the seller,the replacement goods to you. Their fault, they pay costs.

It's going to cost them more in returns, paperwork, readvertising etc etc than £25. However that's their business decision. I think you are right to return it.

Mag strips could well work. You need to look at the battery holder as a whole, lid and compartment. I would hope the screws go into a brass or metal bush, not into wood. That could be part of the battery compartment. I would expect the whole unit to be self contained with a hole for the two? battery leads coming out. The current lid appears to be a latch that you pull back with you finger nail and the lid pops open. I originally thought that was a hinge but is more likely to be a small flange that fits into a slot on the opposite side. The latch is designed to bend and will be probably made of ABS plastic. ABS is not a nice plastic to use or print with as it produces toxic fumes and needs to be printed in a heated chamber. A simple lid with four screws is still the easiest but until we get more pictures it's impossible to say more. I'm off to coach an u18s girls rugby team and will check in again this afternoon after coming back from Kendal. Rob

Just got a decent glue gun so that might work. Screws are easiest though as there are screw holes there already and even thin mag stripes add height, might only be a mm but that enough to be not flush. Still can't visualise what's needed though unless it's a simple lid with four screw holes.

I can probably print a lid. Not sure if I could easily put a hinge on it. Not 100% certain what this needs TBH. My knowledge of this guitar and the battery compartment is zilch. If it's just a static lid with four screw holes, then given accurate dimensions, including the radius of the rounded corners, that's pretty simple. It appears that what the OP wants is a lid with a border that screws down and a hinged lid inside of that that is latchable using a finger. That's more difficult. However I could be completely wrong and normally am... A simple lid that screws down is dead simple and could be designed and printed in a few hours. Anything with a hinge needs careful thought. The more info the better

I was looking at pulling the trigger on a Yamaha HS7 but will now read this first. Thanks

Thank for this. I'll get one ordered.