A 3d printed bass guitar

[SamIAm]

51 minutes ago, Si600 said:

Sorry @rwillett for a quick hijack.

 

Sam, what measurements do you need? I've got 3 5er necks I can measure for you, two are strung and one is waiting for me to stop procrastinating and finish the bloody project!

Thanks Si, the hijack continues ... (Sorry Rob)

30 inch scale length

Nut end needs to allow for this headless string mount whilst allowing access to the truss rod adjustment

 

On my Ibby GSRM25, fret 22 is 70mm, which I suspect is the narrowest that would work (Which without modelling means the ebay neck is too narrow as it is 65mm with 24 frets  ).

Sam x

 

Edited April 10 by SamIAm

[rwillett]

Feel free to hijack. If this thread gets people talking, then that's good. Also I'll learn soomething along the way 

[rwillett]

2 hours ago, Paul S said:

What is the weight, do you know?

Yes thanks 😊

[rwillett]

1 hour ago, Jackroadkill said:

She's looking great, Rob.  I really like her.

Thanks. I'm quite pleased but already thinking of the next version. Too many compromises and not enough thinking in advance for my liking. 

 

I've learnt a lot though so that's good. 

[rwillett]

2 hours ago, Paul S said:

What is the weight, do you know?

At the moment it's 4.2Kg, however I'm not sure I trust the scales, so it's not light. 1.2Kg (or more) is the aluminium backbone. After saying that, it doesn;t feel any heavier than my 97 MIJ Fender Jazz.

 

I am a little surprised as the printed bits are 1.2Kg, never weighed the neck, but there's 2.4Kg+ on the neck and body, there's the bridge, pickups, controls and the tug boat strings. I reckon a carbon fibre backbone would take 0.75Kg off that easily.

 

Rob

[Jackroadkill]

A thought on the backbone; could it be thinner if it was on the top of the body, and therefore subject to less moment from the strings?  This may make it able to be a bit thinner and lighter.

[rwillett]

Good question...

 

I don't think that moving it to the top would make it much less succeptible to bending. I suppose that it would reduce the leverage as the height connected is lower. 

 

However it would significantly complicate things as a lot of stuff connects to the printed section that sits on top the aluminium backbone. 

 

Other ideas have included L shaped aluminium sides that would reinforce the current backbone. Not investigated this idea yet..

 

Carbon Fibre seems the obvious option to try. 

[Aidan63]

15 hours ago, SamIAm said:

Your build has inspired me to look again into following suit, but for me a short scale 5er headless would be my goal ... finding a suitable pre-built neck is proving difficult! Crafting one from wood with frets and truss is beyond my skills and having one made for me (even if just the carcess with me doing the finish) beyond my budget. I've seen some who crafting one from an aluminium t-truss and 3D printed parts, but this approach does not allow for adjustment of relief.

 

Sam x

one of the alibaba boys will be able to make you a cheap short scale 5 string neck , or try making friends with Daisy, she might be up for broadening her portfolio, making just necks a lot easier and quicker than making acoustics and she's in a shared workspace place where there might be a cnc woodworker or she might know one, and she could make a YT video or two and it all snowball.....

[rwillett]

14 hours ago, SamIAm said:

IF I had access to a large enough CNC machine I'd definately have a go at making some necks!

 

Sam x

I had a large CNC machine that I built, it would do 800mmx600mm, theoretically I could have made a bass body with it. A neck would be a challenge as it would too long.

 

Also just looking at every guitar neck I have and all of them would be tricky on a CNC machine. There are 3D objects and whilst the heal would be easy, the head would be non-trivial (as far as I can work out). 

 

As I've never made a neck and have no idea where to even start, I could be talking complete tosh and will certainly bow to other peoples greater experience in neck making. I'd be happy to tackle a body, certainly a slab body wouldn't be that difficult, but I reckon using a hand router and a set of carefully designed templates, I'd make a reasonable stab (probably bad choice of words) at it. Then again, I couldn't easily do the lovely Veroni shapes with a hand router easily. For one offs I suspect printed templates, a careful eye and a hand router would do a good job. Wouldn't want to make a hundred of them like that. Might be an interesting project for a group to take on and make 4-5 guitars at the same time.

 

Rob

 

 

[rwillett]

58 minutes ago, Aidan63 said:

one of the alibaba boys will be able to make you a cheap short scale 5 string neck , or try making friends with Daisy, she might be up for broadening her portfolio, making just necks a lot easier and quicker than making acoustics and she's in a shared workspace place where there might be a cnc woodworker or she might know one, and she could make a YT video or two and it all snowball.....

 

Who is Daisy?  She sounds like a good person to know

[Aidan63]

Daisy Tempest, Tempest guitars, she is on all the socials @daisy_tempest and has a YT channel

 

[Aidan63]

take a look at Driftwood guitars yt channel, they use cnc for making the basic necks and other things, they have a clever heel joint, the dogbone, which is cnc, they make acoustics and also a tele solid body which they developed the neck to be cnc made

Most guitars that are mass produced use cnc for the basic cutting and shaping, can be seen in many yt videos of factory tours, Keisel is pretty open about what they do, I think Warwick have shown their set up, even Gibson now use cnc

[rwillett]

3 minutes ago, Aidan63 said:

Daisy Tempest, Tempest guitars, she is on all the socials @daisy_tempest and has a YT channel

 

Useful 

[SpondonBassed]

Have you considered CF rods?  I know some people have used them along with truss rods in neck manufacture.  Perhaps they'd work in your bass body?

[rwillett]

@SpondonBassed

 

I earlier contacted a specialised carbon fibre manufacturer and asked them about replacing the aluminium backbone with a slimmer and lighter CF backbone. They were really quick and helpful, I paraphrase their response below.

1. CF is about as strong as aluminium  (a little stiffer) but its approx 30% lighter.
2. The current thickness of 15mm will probably need to stay but the replacement would be lighter.
3. The CF piece could be made stronger by going to Unidirectional fibres, but multiple test pieces would need to be made.
4. Structural calculations may help.

So thats not an option here.  The CF rods will be less stiff than the plate (unless they are bigger), so need to put the thinking cap on again.

 

I include one of their futher comments as its very helpful and really explains it. As I don't have permisison to use their name, I'll hold it back, but they were very good.

 

"A lot of people hear comments about “carbon being stronger than Steel” and although not untrue, its very specific - eg in reality “weight for weight” carbon IS stronger than steel but the volume or dimensions of a carbon part replacing steel would be bigger but the low density means it is still much lighter overall. Certainly we have seen people use carbon rods etc in instrument necks but to replace what you have, you are likely going to need to bond a lot of pieces together which is not so practical."

 

Thanks

Rob

Edited April 11 by rwillett

[BigRedX]

These days if you have the right tools, making a neck is no more difficult than any other part of guitar construction.

 

When I made my guitar back in late 70s I bought a ready made neck mostly because buying a truss rod or a suitable saw for cutting fret slots was near to impossible. Stephen Delft was doing a series of articles in International Musician magazine and he made his own truss rod from scratch, and modified a saw by filing the set off, and while the school metalwork shop probably had the facilities it would have taken too much time and the guitar wouldn't have been complete before the end of the school year. I'd made a balalaika the year before where did make the neck (it was a neck-through construction and the string tension was low enough for me to dispense with a truss rod), but the narrowest saw available to me was still too wide for the frets to fit snugly and most had to also be glued into place.

 

Of course now I can order a ready-made truss rod and all the right tools on line, so if I was going to build a guitar or bass I wouldn't think twice about making the neck.

[rwillett]

That's interesting. I will look closer into this. Suspect it won't be this year though. 

[Si600]

On 10/04/2024 at 21:25, SamIAm said:

Thanks Si, the hijack continues ... (Sorry Rob)

30 inch scale length

Nut end needs to allow for this headless string mount whilst allowing access to the truss rod adjustment

 

On my Ibby GSRM25, fret 22 is 70mm, which I suspect is the narrowest that would work (Which without modelling means the ebay neck is too narrow as it is 65mm with 24 frets  ).

Sam x

 

Here you go, they're all 34" scale unfortunately. 

 

Peavey Millennium BXP neck.

45mm at nut

61.16 at 12

68.94 at 21

 

Aria Pro2 Magna Series.

46.80 at nut

61.52 at 12

68.14 at 22

14.5 string spacing at the bridge.

 

You'll have to wait until next week for the P-Bass.

[Baloney Balderdash]

On 10/04/2024 at 21:25, SamIAm said:

Thanks Si, the hijack continues ... (Sorry Rob)

30 inch scale length

Nut end needs to allow for this headless string mount whilst allowing access to the truss rod adjustment

 

On my Ibby GSRM25, fret 22 is 70mm, which I suspect is the narrowest that would work (Which without modelling means the ebay neck is too narrow as it is 65mm with 24 frets  ).

Sam x

 

The neck of the GSRM25 is 67mm, not 70, at the 22 fret, Ibanez's own specs: https://www.ibanez.com/usa/products/detail/gsrm25_02.html

 

It has a 16.5mm string spacing, so just a question of reducing the string spacing at the bridge, and just doing so by 0.5mm, to 16mm, to gain the additional 2mm missing, easily doable with individual bridge pieces. 

 

To compare the 4 string Hofner Violin Bass only got a string spacing of 14mm at the bridge, so not like narrower string spacing than 16.5mm is completely unheard of and unplayable on a bass, and the 0.5mm reduction required to make it work will hardly do a huge difference in feel.

 

Edited April 17 by Baloney Balderdash

[SamIAm]

7 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

The neck of the GSRM25 is 67mm, not 70, at the 22 fret, Ibanez's own specs: https://www.ibanez.com/usa/products/detail/gsrm25_02.html

 

It has a 16.5mm string spacing, so just a question of reducing the string spacing at the bridge, and just doing so by 0.5mm, to 16mm, to gain the additional 2mm missing, easily doable with individual bridge pieces. 

 

To compare the 4 string Hofner Violin Bass only got a string spacing of 14mm at the bridge, so not like narrower string spacing that 16.5mm is completely unheard of and unplayable on a bass, and the 0.5mm reduction required to make it work will hardly do a huge difference in feel.

 

You're right @Baloney Balderdash, I remeasured with calipers and that is spot on.

But I find the spacing on my GSRM25 too tight, I've tried the TMB35 which has a bridge spacing of 18mm (as does the EHB1005SMS) and I liked it (tho both had other issues that put me off); my GSRM20 has 19mm which I love (but just 4 stings!) ... I much prefer the wider spacing and my aim for a self build is 18-19mm.

Sam x

 

[SamIAm]

23 hours ago, Si600 said:

Here you go, they're all 34" scale unfortunately. 

 

Thanks Si, sadly my fretting hand does not cope with anything more than 30 inch.

Sam x

[rwillett]

The bass is sitting in a corner of my office. It plays well though still has the tug boat cables for strings. Not set the strings at all.

 

Focus for the last week has been, filling, sanding, priming and learning about PETG with a sander.

 

PETG is the material I have chosen for the body of the guitar, it's stronger than PLA, significantly more rigid, glues/welds well and is fairly inert. It also handles heat well, though at the moment, it needs to handle water well as the weather in North Yorkshire is wet, wet and then even more wet.

 

However PETG isn't as good as taking paint, I also have no idea about filler on it. So I'm trying various fillers, various sandpapers and various primers to see what works and what doesn't.

 

I'm also experimenting with joining stuff together to make a single pickguard as opposed to two separate ones.

 

So lots of wet and dry papers, lots of head scratching and not much progress

 

The aim is to have the bass finished for May 17th, painted, lookimng good and ready for the NW and Scottish Bash.

 

Rob

[rwillett]

The filler experiment continues, it does appear that a wood filler works best at the moment. I don't need a lot but PETG is quite difficult to sand down, it's pretty tough.

 

Did a lot of filling yesterday, let it dry overnight and if I find an hour today, I'll have another go. It turns out that PETG fills the sanding disks very quikcly, even though not a lot comes off. Its a funny material.

 

Also been experimenting for the first time with multi colour printing. As my printer is limited to 220 by 200mm (or so), I assumed I would have a pickguard made. The pickguard I wanted is below

 

Currently I have to print this in two pieces, but I wondered if I could print it in two pieces, join it together with a backing plate and sand it down. I then wondered about putting a layer of white in the black. I've never bothered with multicolour printing, but set it up in PrusaSlicer, put a roll of white PETG and ended up with this. Quite pleased as the white line is subtle. It's a sandwich of 1mm black, 1mm white and 1mm black. There's a chamfer around the edge as well.

 

I'm not too concerned about the top as I'll sand that down, spray paint it and then either lacquer it or epoxy resin it. The finish is still to be decided. I'll print the other half of the pickguard during the day and glue them together. A tiny amount of filler along the seam and I suspect that it will be invisible. If this works, then larger multi colour pickguards are an option.

 

 

Rob

[Richard R]

That looks like a slippery slope to 3D printed fake binding 😁

[rwillett]

@Richard R Not sure what faking bindings are? Can you explain please.

 

These are the two pieces joined. I've filled and sanded and am down to (upto?) to 240 with the wet and dry. The surface is dulled, the join between the two pieces looks OK, there is a thin line of filler, and other bits of filler. These are going to be spray painted so I'm not at all worried about how they look at the momen, though I have to say my ability to take photos that look bad is wonderful

 

A primer/filler coat will get rid of most of the ridges, but my intention is to spent another hour with more wet and dry to get this as smooth as possible.

 

 

The back shows where I joined the two pieces. Played about with different papers on the back before the front. Just about all of this will be covered with copper tape, so not concerned about the looks.