A 3d printed six string....

[rwillett]

I know I'm playing with fire here, but I thought I'd document my feeble attempts to build a 3d printed guitar. Initially I looked at building a bass guitar but I wasn't sure what I was doing and whether it is even possible to build a 3d printed bass guitar, so I thought I'd try and learn about it and what might and might not work on a six string.

 

Other people have built 3d printed guitars before, probably the most well known is the Pruscaster https://www.printables.com/model/398795-the-prusacaster-a-3d-printable-guitar. You can head onto Thingiverse and see quite a few different models, that are very similar.

 

So why do another one? I downloaded all the files for the Pruscaster and worked out how long it would take to print and how much it would cost. I run a very small business as a sideline doing 3d printing, mainly for astrophotography, and if you think GAS is bad for bass players, I can assure you that we are playing in the fourth division here regarding costs, astrophotography eats up a lot of of money, I know people in the USA who have spent £60K+ on their setups.

 

Anyway, back on track, the costs of printing the Prusacaster is a lot and it uses a lot of filamanent. To do a decent job, it's around 11 days solid printing and uses around £50-£60 of filament. You also have the cost of the Telecaster kit from Thomann.  If you priced up each of printing time as well, there's another £100 minimum there. I have two Prusa's so there's less cost but it's not free even to me

 

1. The telecaster kit is £87 from Thomann. £77 + £10 delivery.

2. The core is approx £20 of filament plus just under 5 days of printing. Yep five days at the right quality level.

3. The piece that holds the control panel is around £10 at 30% infill and 37hrs.

4. The orange middle is 40 hours and £12.50 of filament

5. Odds and sods another 24 hours and £10 of filament

 

I have no idea how they can say its a cheap thing to make as it's not. The amount of printing and filament is ridiculous and I thought it's just designed to sell filament.

 

So I had a long think about this and was prodded by @Owen who is wholly to blame here. After a lot of thought I worked how to significantly reduce the amount of printing and still keep the strength using a 15mm plywood backbone.

 

I also set myself some other objectives:

 

1. All my own design so nobody can claim I'm stealing their design.

2. No glue. I hate glue, it gets everywhere.

3. As there is no glue, all fittings most be as hidden as possible.

4. Must be modular. I don't know which bridge to use yet, I don't know which pickups I want and, importantly, I might want to change them or add three pickups without having to print everything again.

5. Must be able to take different necks. I don't have a neck I can use yet, so not sure what I'm going to get. I'm looking for a thin telecaster neck but not found one on eBay I trust to buy yet.

6. Must be playable.

7. Must be easy to print and fit on a 220mm x 220mm print bed. The Prusacaster one takes four days to print one part. No doing that

8. Must be able to use different controls as I have no idea what I'm buying, Telecaset and Stratocaster wiring is easily available second hand on eBay so thats a good start.

9. As few as possible supports for 3d printing. This has zero supports needed at the moment. I'm delighted with that

 

So after a lot of scratching my head and thinking about things, I cranked up Fusion 360 (a 3d design package) and started work.

 

Everything is based around a 15mm plywood backbone

 

 

This is the end result of playing about and once my coping saw turns up from Amazon, I'll be cutting this out.

 

As I wanted to be able to use any neck, this is the neck section I've designed. Its easy to print (3-4 hours) for a wide variety of necks.

 

 

Here's the module for the neck pickup. This is wide enough for two pickups and has the routing slot cut out on the side.

 

This is the last module and its going to hold the bridge. Currently it's based on a Telecaster Bridge. The holes are not string through, but to bolt the bridge down. The plywood base bolts upwards to these three moduls.

 

We also need something to hold the controls

 

 

The cable routing is sorted out for the bridge pickup, but I need to work out the cable routing for the neck pickup(s). This is still work in progress and I want to get the amount of printing right down so a good chunk will be honeycomb and it will be in two parts.

 

Of course we now need the rest of the guitar body, so this is where the honeycomb comes in. The honeycomb is in three pieces and is bolted together using fairly hidden bolts. The honeycomb also bolts to the bridge, neck pickup and neck modules

 

And lastly we need a pickguard in place.  The pickguard is the largest I can make on my Prusa print bed of around 215mm. It's shaped for Telecaster controls but thats all I have to go on at the moment. The pickups will be suspended from the pickguard. The bridge pickup is suspended by the bridge.

 

Now it's easy to talk about, so here's some of the modules I've printed off to check for fit. Looks OK, so far, but until I can get the bridge in my hands and find a thin neck, I can't go much further.

 

 

 

 

 

Some various bits have been brought on eBay, an awful lot of countersunk M3 screws, telecaster parts but not a neck at the moment.

 

So if anybody has a thin neck with tuners they wish to donate or sell me, I'd be grateful.

 

Nothing likely to change until the end of next week as things turn up.

 

Rob

[Owen]

I am happy to take full responsibilty for my actions. 

[rwillett]

Thats good of you. I'll send the invoice shortly  😉

[rwillett]

I have now taken a punt on a Yamaha neck, a separate punt on a Yamaha body (non working as it has no neck), some cheap Telecaster parts and some other odds and sods from eBay. 

 

Still would like a thin Squier or Fender Telecaster neck <hint hint santa>

 

 now printing off drill templates for the plywood backbone. 

 

 

[rwillett]

A load of Telecaster type parts have turned up.

 

Further examination of the design, shows that the distance spacing between the hexagons wasn't enough to allow countersunk bolts and hidden nuts to smooth the design out. I want the design to be clean and fastenings to be as hidden as possible.

 

This meant throwing away everything with a honeycomb and starting again. The joys of product design.

 

Redone again and now printing the top left part at 0.2mm and 30% infill but with a lot of perimeter walls.

 

 

This is 20 hours of printing and has circa 10 embedded nuts inside to screw things together. This allows it to be easily changed in the future.

 

Here's in the cross sectional view in Fusion 360. The Telecaster Bridge will need far more design work now I have a telecaster bridge to use. The sketch at the left is the mounting hole for the guitar strap.

[Andyjr1515]

Fascinating!

[SamIAm]

Brilliant work!

S'manth x

[rwillett]

This is why 3d printing (and product design) can be so difficult

 

 

The above shows a slot for an embedded M3 square nut with the screw channel running into it.  I was out by around 0.3mm and it breaks the wall and compromises the strength of the part.

 

Oh well, need to track it down and move it by a mm or two. It could be worse, I could have spent 20 hours printing it

 

Rob

Edited November 1, 2023 by rwillett

[rwillett]

Something just turned up from the postie.

 

Not sure what it is, perhaps a pick guard or perhaps a plectrum or two?

 

[rwillett]

Turns out to be a thin Yamaha guitar neck.

[Paul S]

This is even more fascinating that Kniphofia northiae offsets   In a strange reversal I have no idea what you are doing but it is magnifcent 😂 

[rwillett]

ha ha, that made me laugh and I needed a laugh.

 

I'm 3d printing a modular guitar body to hold a guitar neck, specifically a Yamaha 121DM, the controls of a telecaster/stratocaster (pickups, knobs etc). The idea is that I can change the pickups, controls and neck over as my whim takes me.

 

This was brought about because I wanted a thin neck as my thumbs are knackered from rugby, my 89 Squier Telecaster has a weak neck pickup but lovely to play, I fancied a Tele that has humbuckers but wanted a thin neck etc etc. I want my cake and want to eat it.

 

I was going to do a bass but the tension of the bass strings meant I thought I'd practise on a six string first.

 

I do a lot of 3d printing so the design is done (more or less, still struggling with the output socket, I have a load of cheap bits picked up off fleaBay and am currently printing the bridge holder. This has been tailored for the cheap one I have.

 

 

and the neck pickup module

 

 

This leaves the five components below

 

 

The various holes are mounting points for screws. There's about 30 hours of printing this lot still to go. The last piece will the bottom left one, as I'm trying to work out how to fit the output adaptor as I want it to be a strat type. I may have to give up that idea as I may not have the space.

 

Rob

Edited November 1, 2023 by rwillett

[rwillett]

Just finished doing the neck pickup module. Looks really good, but I missed four screw mounting holes in the base of the module. Here they are highlighted in blue rings.

 

The downside to 3d printing is that once its printed you can't go back and modify the print. With wood, you can keep modifying it until its right. 3d printing is very unforgiving.

 

Took 60 secs to rectify but 8 hours of printing just down the drain.

 

 

[rwillett]

The good news is that I have managed to work out where to put the output jack port, the bad news is that it's not a strat type port, there's not enough space. Perhaps Leo Fender knew this some 70 years ago

 

This module has been very difficult to design. It has to bolt though to the bridge module but you don't have the hexacombs to get a bolt in.  The bridge has no space either, so I ended up putting four big access holes in this module to allow me to screw things together. Also have to have a cut out for the control panel, routing ports from the neck pickup, and an output port, without it being solid and weighing a ton and taking a week to print.

 

This is it on PrusaSlicer with a height of 32.6mm. Basically its a cut away You can see all the access slots and all the holes for embedded nuts. It's still missing the pickguard holes but this print run is to make sure it all fits. There will be another print run at higher quality and it'll be even longer

 

 

There's 12 hours of printing there at 0.3mm qualify and 30% infill.

 

 

[Daz39]

36 minutes ago, rwillett said:

Just finished doing the neck pickup module. Looks really good, but I missed four screw mounting holes in the base of the module. Here they are highlighted in blue rings.

 

The downside to 3d printing is that once its printed you can't go back and modify the print. With wood, you can keep modifying it until its right. 3d printing is very unforgiving.

 

Took 60 secs to rectify but 8 hours of printing just down the drain.

 

 

Dim question - is it not possible to very carefully and skilfully drill the 4 missing holes and save re-printing?

[rwillett]

@Daz39

 

Short answer - No!

 

Long answer

 

A couple of reasons.

 

1. Holes are designed into a print. Where you see a hole, the slicing software generates extra layers around the hole. Drilling through doesn't do that. The inside of a print is air and plastic. If you drilled through it might work but its weak, but the second reason is....

2. ... The hole contains an M3 square nut. You can see the outline in the picture below (as well as the wall layers in the hole). Plastic is not good to screw into, so I embed an M3 nut into stuff that joins together. Pulling bits of plastic together using an embedded nut, a metal bolt and plastic in between is fine. You can get quite a lot of tension before you crush the plastic. 

 

So every hole has to have the right length as the nuts are embedded. I could simply put a hole in and use a hex nut and a bolt. Dead easy, but it looks like sh1te.

 

I do make drilling templates, so have made one for the plywood backbone, its no effort to drill through, but it simply doesn't work.

 

 

Thanks

Rob

[rwillett]

And as I write this, I have a print head crash and have just lost 10 hours of printing on my bridge module. <sigh>

 

Giving up for the night and going to coach Tri-Tigers girls U16 rugby union team. Big games against Liverpool St Helens on Sunday in Liverpool.

[SamIAm]

42 minutes ago, rwillett said:

And as I write this, I have a print head crash and have just lost 10 hours of printing on my bridge module. <sigh>

 

I feel your pain!

S'manth x

 

[Richard R]

3D printing sounds expensive.  And complicated. 

However- this is very cool and I'm following it with great interest!

[rwillett]

It's not too expensive. 1kg of PETG or PLA is around £20. However special filaments can be a lot more. 

 

Simple things are cheap and easy. Ceiling roses are trivial to design and print. 

 

These modules are the most complex I have ever designed as:

 

1. There's a lot of them that have to fit together and each way they fit is unique.

 

2. How they bolt together is important. I don't want any screws or nuts to show. I keep saying I don't have OCD but I do wonder at times 😊

 

3. Access to the countersink screws using an Allen key is difficult. You have to think how long the Allen key is and how much rotation you can do. A 22mm long bolt will take a long time to screw in with a 30 degree movement. You only really find this out when you assemble things. I may have to put access holes in as it's so tricky and I don't want to do that. 

 

4. I have a lot of embedded nuts that need to be put in. This requires every hole to be carefully designed to hold the nut. This means I have to stop the printer at certain layers to put the nuts in. If I leave it too long, the material cools down and this was probably the reason for the head crash. 

 

5. It could also be because I'm using hardened steel nozzles as opposed to brass. Different thermal characteristics of temperature expansion of brass hot ends with steel Nozzles mean the nozzle can come loose. First job today is to replace the steel Nozzles back to brass. Then recalibrate the head level and start again. 

 

6. The 3d design program is basically 3d maths. You build-up 2d sketches and then extrude the designs into 3d space. Some of the designs I have to 'manufacture' in the program. So you have to design and extrude and cut in a specific order to get the part you need. If you accidentally change something before these steps, it may go dramatically wrong or it might be a subtle error that you don't notice until you print or assemble. 

 

7. I make mistakes. I forgot to put holes in to hold the pick guard so the work was useless anyway. There's a lot to remember.

 

It's complicated at first but you learn as you go and build up the skills. I started at the beginning of lockdown and knew nothing. I had a cheap Ender 3  Pro off Amazon and built a CNC machine as pretty much my first project. All the hard design work had been done by somebody else. All I could design were simple cubes. I just kept learning and designing new stuff that got more and more complicated. It helps that I have a maths background and can think in 3 dimensions, probably due to the pure maths I did years ago. However you don't need to have these traits (not sure if they are skills), just practise and learn and except things will go wrong. I lost 16 hours of printing yesterday. That's across two printers, I'll lose more this week getting it right without a doubt. At first it's so frustrating, now I learn what went wrong, shrug my shoulders and start the following day. 

 

Hope this gives some clarity

 

Rob

 

 

Edited November 2, 2023 by rwillett
Clarity

[rwillett]

Here's an example of how things can wrong. This is the bridge module that will hold a bridge (doh). It's designed for a Telecaster bridge and so it has three large holes in the recess to allow the bridge pickup screws to seat. That's all fine.

 

However the back of the bridge (that's the blue area) doesn't go down to the very bottom of the module. It goes down 29mm and it should go down 44mm. There should be two rows of three screw holes for mounting purposes,  however there is only one row. The module that connects to here has two rows and when I designed it, the bridge had two rows. Somewhere when I changed something, the back of the bridge 'lost' 15mm. It's trivial to just add 15mm back in, but I've got to go back and undo the screw holes (with embedded nuts in), and fix them OR I backtrack and workout what went wrong and fix it from some N steps ago, where N could be a very large number. 

 

The screw holes are important as this fixes everything together. I've gone over the top with screw holes as this is the first version and it's easier to remove them as it's too strong rather than go back and add them in. Thats my view anyway. These lost three screws may be wholly unimportant OR they may be critical. At this point in time. I've no idea so I err on the side of caution.

 

3D design is about telling a story and you have to get the steps in all the right place in the the right order. I seem to have a lost of page of the narrative and now have to work out how to recreate it. It could take me 10 mins or 2-3 hours to fix it. I alos have a day job to do which is nothing to do with this, so time is precious.

 

[Owen]

Day jobs suck!

[rwillett]

Day jobs pay the bills to allow me to play these sort of 3d printing games. If I relied on music to live, I'd be dead of cold and famine within two weeks

 

Rob

[Richard R]

13 hours ago, rwillett said:

It's not too expensive. 1kg of PETG or PLA is around £20. However special filaments can be a lot more. 

 

Simple things are cheap and easy. Ceiling roses are trivial to design and print. 

 

These modules are the most complex I have ever designed as:

 

1. There's a lot of them that have to fit together and each way they fit is unique.

 

2. How they bolt together is important. I don't want any screws or nuts to show. I keep saying I don't have OCD but I do wonder at times 😊

 

3. Access to the countersink screws using an Allen key is difficult. You have to think how long the Allen key is and how much rotation you can do. A 22mm long bolt will take a long time to screw in with a 30 degree movement. You only really find this out when you assemble things. I may have to put access holes in as it's so tricky and I don't want to do that. 

 

4. I have a lot of embedded nuts that need to be put in. This requires every hole to be carefully designed to hold the nut. This means I have to stop the printer at certain layers to put the nuts in. If I leave it too long, the material cools down and this was probably the reason for the head crash. 

 

5. It could also be because I'm using hardened steel nozzles as opposed to brass. Different thermal characteristics of temperature expansion of brass hot ends with steel Nozzles mean the nozzle can come loose. First job today is to replace the steel Nozzles back to brass. Then recalibrate the head level and start again. 

 

6. The 3d design program is basically 3d maths. You build-up 2d sketches and then extrude the designs into 3d space. Some of the designs I have to 'manufacture' in the program. So you have to design and extrude and cut in a specific order to get the part you need. If you accidentally change something before these steps, it may go dramatically wrong or it might be a subtle error that you don't notice until you print or assemble. 

 

7. I make mistakes. I forgot to put holes in to hold the pick guard so the work was useless anyway. There's a lot to remember.

 

It's complicated at first but you learn as you go and build up the skills. I started at the beginning of lockdown and knew nothing. I had a cheap Ender 3  Pro off Amazon and built a CNC machine as pretty much my first project. All the hard design work had been done by somebody else. All I could design were simple cubes. I just kept learning and designing new stuff that got more and more complicated. It helps that I have a maths background and can think in 3 dimensions, probably due to the pure maths I did years ago. However you don't need to have these traits (not sure if they are skills), just practise and learn and except things will go wrong. I lost 16 hours of printing yesterday. That's across two printers, I'll lose more this week getting it right without a doubt. At first it's so frustrating, now I learn what went wrong, shrug my shoulders and start the following day. 

 

Hope this gives some clarity

 

Rob

 

 

 

Thanks for posting that. This confirms that I really must not buy a 3D printer, as it would end in divorce!

The problems you describe are exactly the sort I like solving, and would happily waste hours doing so. 

[rwillett]

@Richard R

 

Make t'other half a nice printed bracelet or set of ear rings in mud brown. I'm sure she'll relent. I'll print htme for nothing so you can surprise her on Xmas morning....

 

I have made an awfully large number of things for the house. Our house is quite old and has lath, horsehair and plaster walls. Difficult to find a celing joist, so rather than filling the holes and painting over, I printed some large black or white discs to hide my efforts. I also design and printed a rather nice frame for the Philips Hue floodlights. The Philips design is poor as it doesn't allow cable to come in from the side or top, but only from behind. A couple of hours later solved that problem. I also recall the toilet seat has a fix I made out of plastic.

 

I do keep promising to make a proper pair of cup holders for my Seat Leon estate. It has a massive computer system, electronic this and that but can you actually put two normal (not even grande) take away coffee cups in, no. B45t4rd$

 

I think a cheap Ender 3 Pro V2 should be on your Xmas list or if you can sneak one in, a Prusa MKS4

Rob

Edited November 2, 2023 by rwillett