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Private member DiscussionCAD/CAM

Laser cutting a fretboard and possibly a bolt on neck

I have access to a nova thunderlaser 5-something and I saw a video of somebody cutting out a fret board as well as the fret slots, as well as an entire neck out of a blank with a laser cutter, and I’m wondering if this is a reasonable thing to do and if anybody has experience with the kind of shrinkage that would probably happen with such a deep cut in the neck blank. Any insight at all is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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Belated reply — I really struggled with maintaining verticality on my cuts when I did my first guitar with help from one. The fret slots were very V shaped you'd need to clean them up manually. Luckily…
Private member DiscussionCAD/CAM

Blender Plugin

About: I have created an Add-On for blender that at the moment generates fret positions and makes a fretboard according to several parameters. This makes it extremely easy to get started with modeling a Guitar in blender. If you are interested it please give it a whirl and let me know what you think about it and if you like it, what you don't, what you would like to see etc... If you do like it and would like aid its development please d…

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There are several free "add-ons" that allows cam functionality in blender. The one that immediately comes to mind is blender-cam. But for me personally since I use a laser getting it to an svg file is…
Private member DiscussionTools and Jigs

Finish Damage from Proper's Workstation

Hey everyone, I just had a Tele clone built by a small builder in my Proper's Guitar Workstation for a new nut and a fret level. It was clamped down in the workstation for less than a day. I just noticed that the rear hold down clamp left its footprint in the finish. No, I don't know what type of finish the builder used, but I'm trying to find out. I'm thinking its not nitro or poly because I use my TVPGW everyday and this has never hap…

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Thanks Doug. I probably should have worded things differently. My goal wasn't to appear to throw shade unnecessarily at the workstation or question its efficacy. I was wondering if the urethane could…
Private member DiscussionCNC

Headfirst into the CNC deep end today

I'm the proud new owner of a "new to me" Fireball Meteor CNC machine. It feels really odd to have a computer in the shop but I guess I need to get used to that. Fortunately for me, I am well versed in CAD, unfortunately not so much on the CAM side of things. My 3 kids are all experts and are steepening the learning curve dramatically, this would be overwhelming if they weren't helping. So far I'm using the Fusion 360 personal use versio…

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Here's the video of how it's going so far, skip to 18:48 for the CNC part. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyoosBNV6xQ Pretty good I think but I still have a long ways to go. My youngest son and I did g…
Private member DiscussionTools and Jigs

What happens to LMI tools?

Was using one of my favorite tools today and wondering what happens when LMI is gone? Is there a possibility someone takes over production of these great tools and jigs? When I heard about LMI closing, I immediately went and ordered a backup fret tang filer…a tool I use every week.

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It is my understanding that StewMac is slowly taking over and may reintroduce some tools.
Private member DiscussionTools and Jigs

Dremel bit to clean up fret slot

I had to pull some frets on a neck I built to straighten it out 😣 given that the neck is bound, cleaning up the slots with the little StewMac fret saw with the red handle was a serious chore I’d like to avoid doing ever again. I’ve heard the little Japanese fret saw Stew Mac sells is nice to have but also I’ve always been shy about putting a Dremel on the board to get the job done and I think I’d like to try that out. Curious about othe…

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Man…
Private member DiscussionTools and Jigs

Birkonium Fret Press Cauls

Just got these and they are really neat. If you like to press frets and do compound or imperfect radius fretboards, these are the ticket.

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I designed that caul set and had Andy make a few sets for our shop and for students of our fretting classes. After being frustrated with the gaps between “standard spec” cauls vs real world variations…