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A 3d printed bass guitar


rwillett

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On 02/02/2024 at 12:43, rwillett said:

 

You've clearly never experienced the unbridled wrath of Zoe have you...

 

I'd need the kitchen door open, a very fast car and a one way plane ticket to a plece without an extradition treaty if she caught me melting lead in the kitchen. To be honest, to be really sure, I'd need two major knee ops in advance to make sure I could get to the fast car before she caught me.

 

Hell hath no fury doesn't even come close to what would happen to me.

She sounds fcuking fabulous :thumbsup

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On 01/02/2024 at 18:32, Richard R said:

 Scuba instructor,  astronomer, maker, designer, programmer, sometime bass player.

 

Bloody polymaths! Coming onto our forums and making the rest of us feel inadequate! Send 'em home, or Mensa. 

 

Incompetent of Solihull.

😉

Still a dab hand at the one-room dump and rat skin loincloth though. Mr Stig?

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On 01/02/2024 at 20:03, rwillett said:

@Richard R

 

If only that was the case, you missed out annoying git, pedant, bore and person who nobody wants to talk to at a party....

 

...and incompetent bass player and poor guitar player.

 

 

I would not worry too much about the latter. Just think of the former criteria as channelling your inner Alan partridge and embrace middle age by using a notebook to capture your thoughts about “ great full English experiences” that you have had

Edited by Geek99
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6 hours ago, Geek99 said:

Still a dab hand at the one-room dump and rat skin loincloth though. Mr Stig?

Local council has been on a massive environmental health project, so no rats anymore. Foxes are too dangerous to try to catch and skin.

 

It's going to be chilly in February...

 

 

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6 hours ago, Geek99 said:

I would not worry too much about the latter. Just think of the former criteria as channelling your inner Alan partridge and embrace middle age by using a notebook to capture your thoughts about “ great full English experiences” that you have had

Alan Partridge channels his inner Rob Willett....

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If you have the time and patience, I would do something similar to the TB photo you posted on a removable panel that would allow you to spend some time playing the bass with all the options available. You'll probably find quite quickly that there is one that you really like and maybe another one or two that would be useful occasionally. Which of all those options you favourites will be will depend on what sounds you like, what sort of music you play, and how the other instruments in your band sound. There is no guaranteed solution, but I would say that pickup combinations that sound great on your own at home don't aways cut it in a band situation, and often the simple selections work the best. Once you have decided which combinations are actually useful, put them on a single switch and print a new panel for it.

Edited by BigRedX
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I'm playing about with how the control panel will look. I'm starting to favour a more organic look, as shown by the red plate below, rather than the Telecaster or a straight line look. This looks nicer to me, but would like to take views. This also allows me to cover the very bottom of the bottom left for any weight to balance it out if needed, also this allows for more space and more options. At the moment, I just put three knobs on and a socket.

 

I really want to preserve the rounded feel of it all.

 

image.png.f27854afbf52b1b3fecc02c50d55b3b4.png

Edited by rwillett
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@Jackroadkill

 

I'm tending to agree with you. Working on this design.

 

This gives me space for any weights or a preamp, or four knobs and a few switches. It'll probably be three knobs, vol, vol, tone :)

 

image.png.50b572cfd731bc9fe3cec1e33b12289c.png

Edited by rwillett
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After a lot of thinking about how to simplify things, I think I've got the design finished. I've been trying to work out how to simplify the printing and print at a higher resolution so it looks good. The issue was and still is, printing at a higher resolution takes a lot longer, a hell of a lot longer and when you have to do things like embed nuts to allow the pickguard to attach, you find that this needs to be done at 03:30 in the morning which is not conducive to a good nights sleep. So I have experimented with gluing nuts and similar in AFTER the guitar has been printed. This means that I focus on getting the nuts embedded early in the guitar print and then, let it print for the next 26 hours.

 

You can see this with the twelve large circular holes below. Ignore the large number of M3 holes,  they still stay there. I've now split the model to make each piece as big as possible so the bits only just fit on the printing bed. Before I had nine pieces, I'm now down to five (plus the neck adaptor).

 

I have most of the rest the pieces as well, neck, lightweight tuners, bridge, pickups (though I may wind my own), control knobs and tone controls. So I've about 7-10 days of printing but I have six 1Kg rolls of black so should be OK.

 

 

 

image.png.221a19bf7388bc3d71c51c3047afd07a.png

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36 minutes ago, rwillett said:

No problem, let me book myself into a hospital to have all my good taste, common sense and aversion to bling removed :)

 

Give me a few days.


Rob

But if you make them bright enough you’ll be able to see your bass from space and how cool would that be? 

 

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12 hours ago, Count Bassy said:

Note that Lead, especially lead shot (if loose) will damp vibrations, and might alter the tone.

Not sure what the difference will be here as the body is plastic and there is a plywood back. I've just had a blast on the 3d printed six string and compared it to my Telecaster, its different but the sustain feels the same. Now I am not a good guitarist, I'm not even sure I'm good enough to be even a bad one, so other people will have a different opinion. I'll bring all my guitars along to the NW Bass Bash so people can play and find out.

 

The bass might be finished by then (I hope).

 

Rob

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Might have underestimated the printing time a wee bit

 

image.png.066a2663f2515b8a90e55a1ece4eb828.png

 

This will take 28 hours <gulp>. No embedded nuts so fire and forget.

 

image.png.2acb8cf58d2d5dfa79e1860e441ac6ff.png

 

This one is 37 hours :( 82MB of g-code, hoping nothing goes wrong. Lots of embedded nuts 18 hours in, so around 09:00 tomorrow morning.

 

image.png.647406d99d643b1662277ea8e514f5ce.png

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1 hour ago, Richard R said:

Good luck!

 

It's the first layers that normally go wrong. So far, so good. Both printers running, just changed the filament on them so they'll now run through the night. Thats the idea anyway.

 

I'm normally up around 06:30 so will check in on them.

 

if these go OK, then two more to go, similar times to print. I'll set up the webcams on the next lot so I can do time lapse recordings.
 

Rob

Edited by rwillett
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So far so good.  The picture below is the Top Right of the guitar. 22hrs 43mins to go. The hexagon pattern is the support for the undeneath of the middle of the guitar. This support will be cut away as the middle of the guitar is H shaped. The bottom part of the H will be the plywood backbone.

 

IMG_2157.thumb.jpeg.99fa9bb6592b12db0b7df93747ab4ab9.jpeg

 

This is a cutaway of the guitar so you can see the H. This helps provide strutural integrity

 

Untitled5.jpg.7bc4ee249c9195fc5edd8654ddfeb4cd.jpg

 

This the the top left and middle. This was 38 hours long and now down to 18 hours or so. The section on the right in the picture below is the top left of the guitar. The section on the right with the the holes is where the bridge and pickups will go. The holes on each side allow pickups to be mounted directly to the guitar OR I can mount the pickups on a pickup shield.

 

IMG_2158.thumb.jpeg.5d12dd1461cc98defa501d19b2c97956.jpeg

 

There's one more major section to print after this and then I can think about assembly.

 

I now have the Hipshot lightweight tuners, thanks @Raslee. I will need to make some bushingsso that they are a tight fit.

 

I have also been filling the back of the guitar neck wher the old mounting screws were with bamboo skewers and TiteBond. It was suggested that Bamboo is a good choice as its a very hard wood and it comes in 3mm wide skewers which are a bit big, but I trim them down. The only problem is that the colours don't make at all :( Any suggestions as to handle the colour difference welcomed.

 

 

image.thumb.png.577d4be735a87a1734f0811ae4873d12.png

 

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Headstocklaminated.thumb.jpeg.3eab4b62baf8788846fc14b4e3e70ed8.jpeg

1 hour ago, rwillett said:

Any suggestions as to handle the colour difference welcomed.

Laminate ? Heres one I did in walnut to match the body . Looking good so far mate . It confuses me just looking at it . I'm fine with wood and metal but the whole computer/CAD thing is for my next life I think 😁

Edited by JohnH89
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