A 3d printed six string....

[rwillett]

That Voroni generator isn't that easy to use, it puts sketches at a higher level in the component tree and some of the areas just didn't work.

 

However I have managed to get something out, it does look really nice and organic. This might for the basis for a Jazz body with a nice Fender Jazz neck I've got. This bass won't be headless as I can't cut the head off a Fender, well I can but I won't.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 31 by rwillett

[Stub Mandrel]

On 31/01/2024 at 10:25, rwillett said:

That Voroni generator isn't that easy to use, it puts sketches at a higher level in the component tree and some of the areas just didn't work.

 

However I have managed to get something out, it does look really nice and organic. This might for the basis for a Jazz body with a nice Fender Jazz neck I've got. This bass won't be headless as I can't cut the head off a Fender, well I can but I won't.

 

 

 

 

 

Have you considered filletting the edges... for comfort. Rounded edges usually print nicely too.

[rwillett]

The edges will be filletted (or chamfered or something). It's just not been done in F360. The six string was and the rounded bits took on a different shine to the rest of the body.

 

Now if I do expoxy resin the body, this 'shine' will probably go away. At the moment, the focus is getting the guitar winder to work. Struggling with issues on stepper motors not working together for some reason.

 

Rob

[Aidan63]

And this months Guitar Anatomy build winner is

 

[rwillett]

Tasteful 

[rwillett]

As I've more or less finished the headless bass, I thought I'd go back and look at the very first guitar I printed up. Just looked at it again and I'm going to apply all the lessons I learnt from the headed and headless basses back to the six string.

 

Here's rough sketch of the new version. A lot more open, a lot more rounded, a lot thinner (31mm vs 45mm), probably a little lighter. The colours are there to identify components and are not being printed. It's also not a three string. That's there to check the neck vs bridge height.

 

[rwillett]

Its been quite some time since I updated this thread. Its certainly not been forgotten. I'm gone back to my first 3d printed guitar and am applying what I learnt from the bass guitars, both headed and headless, back to the very first one.

 

This means:

 

1. An aluminium backbone with an appropriate thickness. In this case 8mm is fine. This means that the overall guitar thickness is now 34mm, down from 44mm. Thats a pretty big depth reduction which should make it easier to play and be a little lighter.

 

2. A very open and lightweight body. I know that people have endless debates about ash vs mahogany vs swamp oak or whatever and the effect on the tone. It doesn't seem to make a lot of difference to me (oh heresy!) as the signal is going through pedals and amps. I also avoid the discussion about whether cellulose allows the dead wood to breathe <rolls eyes> debate. Mine are plastic and seem to sound very nice. I have an 83 Westone Thunder, an 89 Telecaster, a 2024 Vintage Les Paul Clone and my printed ones sound different , not worse, just different. If Jimmy Page or John Bonomossa wish to compare and contrast with their legendary guitars (and skill) I'll be delighted to swap for a few years with them

 

3. The body hangs off a central backbone. It's a glued body that has a number of stiffening points in it. If the body gets damaged, it's relatively easy and cheap to replace the whole body. I've currently got two bodies ready, a black with glitter which sounds blingy but isn't and a Firehouse Red which I would class as a dark red. I've tweaked and tweaked and tweaked and then tweaked again to make it easy to print with zero manual interventions. This means I can print a whole body in around 40 hours at very high resolution, so a day across two printers. Using very high resolution, e.g. 0.1mm layers, means the curves are smooth. Post processing for the parts is now pretty simple and consists of a tiny chisel to remove supports and some steel wool to take any burrs off.

 

4. All the wiring now is hidden in the Voronoi struts. This has meant a custom solderless wiring harness needed to be done as there's no space to pass connectors through. However it looks so much neater without any chunky wiring channels.

 

5. I've also designed a custom laser tester to check that the neck positioning is spot on. This mounts on the bridge area and shines a very low power laser down to the a 3d printed target. The target has a small internal V to redirect the laster. As its plastic it defuses the beam safely, though I only point it away and keep the kids and pets away, especially the sodding cats who love this sort of thing. I don't trust myself taking measurements but I do trust my designs as that's proper maths

 

This is the whole thing, you can see the slight green reflection on the neck target. Thats probably only 1 degree out, so I'm pretty happy with that.

 

 

There;s a 'safety' screw that needs to be turned for the unit to work.  Not quite a deadmans handle but not too shabby.

 

 

The reflection is pretty much in the centre of the target but a tiny bit is off centre. The design is supposed to "amplify" the relfection so tiny changes in the neck makes a bit change at the end.

 

So far, its fitted together quite well and I'm almost pleased. Still things to update.

 

1. Remove countersinking from the aluminium backbone as it's horrible to do.

 

2. Adapt the laster pointer to check horizontal accuracy. Not sure how to do this one yet, but I'll have a think. I want to get the guitar set up as well as I can using tools rather than me using feeler gauges. Thats the very, very last thing. Need to get the height sorted out andI can see a pleasant evening of maths ahead of me.

 

3. Work out how to mount the P90's. The rail system I decided for the bass was OK but way overkill. I'll move back to suspending them.

 

4. Electrics are done, basically it's a Les Paul type system but specific for this guitar. I've two wiring looms ready, so there will be two of these I might sell one if any interest, but I'm not expecting any.

 

I'm a lot more fussy now about how it works and looks, so if it isn't 'right' I'll redesign it until it is.

 

Thanks

Rob

 

 

[rwillett]

I'm actually now in a reasonable state with the six string.

1.  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.
2. 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....
   
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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 
6. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Replace the silver screws on the back for the access panels. Black M2 countersunk screws on order.

 

 

 

[SpondonBassed]

2 hours ago, rwillett said:

I'm actually now in a reasonable state with the six string.

1.  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.
2. 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....
   
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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 
6. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Replace the silver screws on the back for the access panels. Black M2 countersunk screws on order.

 

 

 

 

Stunning Rob.

 

Your meticulous approach and commitment to development has produced something extraordinary.  I don't doubt that there are many minor improvements that you will want to do but as a proof of concept, it's there*!

 

*Of course, it has to sound good too.  If it sounds like a tissue box wrapped with a couple of elastic bands you might have overcooked it.

[rwillett]

2 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

 

Stunning Rob.

 

Your meticulous approach and commitment to development has produced something extraordinary.  I don't doubt that there are many minor improvements that you will want to do but as a proof of concept, it's there*!

 

*Of course, it has to sound good too.  If it sounds like a tissue box wrapped with a couple of elastic bands you might have overcooked it.

 

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?

 

 

[SpondonBassed]

7 minutes ago, rwillett said:

 

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?

 

 

Thanks, that happens to be a really useful vid for me at the moment.  I want to replace the scratchplate on my YamaCore bass.  Because I moved the pup, a standard P scratchplate wont work.  I already have the Dremel with plunge and table router attachments for it.

 

As soon as I find a three ply sheet suitable for the job I'm on it.

[SpondonBassed]

Of course... you could always print a three layer sheet to make the scratchplate from...

 

If that's feasible (and the print area is sufficiently large) I would happily cover the cost if you'd print it for me.  I'm sure it wouldn't be as expensive as the proprietary product would be.

Edited October 18 by SpondonBassed

[rwillett]

1 hour ago, SpondonBassed said:

Of course... you could always print a three layer sheet to make the scratchplate from...

 

If that's feasible (and the print area is sufficiently large) I would happily cover the cost if you'd print it for me.  I'm sure it wouldn't be as expensive as the proprietary product would be.

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

[SpondonBassed]

41 minutes ago, rwillett said:

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,.

 

Many thanks Rob.  Generous to a fault.  I am joking of course.

 

I have a few ideas to work out and no deadline.  Just chucking ideas about.  You understand.

 

What colours are available in printable materials?  Is it possible to print a transparent layer over an image that is embedded in the substrate?  Why would I want a blingy piece of commercial scratchplate on a Frankenstein bass that has a natural patina?

 

During the meanwhilst, you are stimulating my imagination with your printing projects and that is something you can't put a price on.  You have already done me a freebie.  You've refused any attempt for me to reward you or even cover the materials and postage.

 

Don't sell yourself short my friend.  You needn't be making a bundle out of it but if you do make any more stuff for me, I would dearly love to contribute something.

 

Sorry, back on track with the thread.

 

Cheers!

[rwillett]

34 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

 

Many thanks Rob.  Generous to a fault.  I am joking of course.

 

I have a few ideas to work out and no deadline.  Just chucking ideas about.  You understand.

 

What colours are available in printable materials?  Is it possible to print a transparent layer over an image that is embedded in the substrate?  Why would I want a blingy piece of commercial scratchplate on a Frankenstein bass that has a natural patina?

 

During the meanwhilst, you are stimulating my imagination with your printing projects and that is something you can't put a price on.  You have already done me a freebie.  You've refused any attempt for me to reward you or even cover the materials and postage.

 

Don't sell yourself short my friend.  You needn't be making a bundle out of it but if you do make any more stuff for me, I would dearly love to contribute something.

 

Sorry, back on track with the thread.

 

Cheers!

 

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

Edited October 18 by rwillett

[LukeFRC]

Random thoughts here - I wonder if you could do the outside shape (the metal bit on a Gus) out of 3D printed plastic and curved and then have a rebate in it and have the “body” made out of a single (or double piece) of pickguard material - and then another rebate on the centre block 

 

[rwillett]

1 minute ago, LukeFRC said:

Random thoughts here - I wonder if you could do the outside shape (the metal bit on a Gus) out of 3D printed plastic and curved and then have a rebate in it and have the “body” made out of a single (or double piece) of pickguard material - and then another rebate on the centre block 

 

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

 

Thanks

 

Rob

[Owen]

5 minutes ago, rwillett said:

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

 

Thanks

 

Rob

Welcome to a whole new world of design!

[Owen]

https://www.gusguitars.com/news.php?news_id=35

[rwillett]

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

[tauzero]

Can you replace the print head with a laser?

 

Or get a tame shark with a frickin' laser beam on its head, of course.

 

 

[rwillett]

6 hours ago, tauzero said:

Can you replace the print head with a laser?

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

[LowB_FTW]

2 minutes ago, rwillett said:

I decided that even a low powered one was too dangerous around me.

😂

 

Mark

[Richard R]

13 hours ago, Owen said:

https://www.gusguitars.com/news.php?news_id=35

A desktop only web site that doesn't work on a phone.  How quaint. 

[SpondonBassed]

18 hours ago, rwillett said:

You'd struggle to embed an image anyway as the filament comes out at 205C+ up to 250C depending on the filament.

 

When I said "embed" the idea was to print a layer that is composed of different coloured sections that combine to make an image.  I chose the wrong word.  I should have said "inlay" an image.

 

I'd make images in monochrome or combine more colours to make the inlay in the background layer.  The transparent top layer, as you suggest, could be perspex or lacquer.  My choice would be transparent or tinted resin.  With a bit of effort one could design a true 3d image (a very thin one) floating in resin.