Hey all, I'm starting up an new shop for making custom, artistian guitars, basses and instruments. I also have a 501c3 corp making instruments for charities, schools, community centers. The production guitars will be made on big CNC, no problems there. Maple necks will also be produced, but the fret slotting time is giving me problems. It takes a ling time to mill slots into a maple neck, and fret sawing is even longer. I'm thinking of making a 2 axis CNC machine that will accomodate the neck and use a slitting saw in the Y axis. It could all be done with a Arduino and grbl. Question is, is it better to move the neck along the X-axis or move the cutter head. Moving the neck requires a single high precision slide to hold the neck, the cutter just moves in the Y to cut the slot. Any thoughts? Thanks, Fred
Six of one, half dozen of the other. Material requirements will be about the same either way. I would probably move the neck, but that's just me. It simplifies the wiring just a bit and the saw would be a bit more stable. Just remember moving the neck will require the track to be around twice the length of the neck so the system will take up much more space than moving the saw. The key question here is what would the length of the longest neck be or more specifically the longest distance between the first and last cuts?
what about a right angle head with a saw blade in the big CNC ? for the production necks it is much faster to use a bunch of saw blades on a mandrel that cuts all of the slots at once. for custom necks with straight frets a right angle head with a saw blade will do it nicely. for custom necks with curved or fanned frets,stick to the milling (-:
Hey guys, thanks for the responses. Unfortunely, a good right angle adapter for the Laguna is going to be very expensive, plus I need the machine for making bodies. I could rig up a angle grinder or Dremel to my Shapeoko XL which will work in a pinch, but I also want that for prototyping and testing use. I found something close to what I'm thinking on the net. I do not know who drew it or if it was ever made, but do you think I could do a machine like this in OpenBuilds parts? Credit to whoever made it, it's a great looking design. Thanks, Fred
Would actually be easier to build with OpenBuilds parts than as shown. Long C-beam actuator in the foreground, 20x40 support rail with a 20mm gantry plate to the rear and a short C-Beam actuator across the top to move the blade. Could also be done with V-Slot® NEMA 23 Linear Actuator Bundle (Lead Screw) as opposed to using the C-Beam actuators.
Hey Rick, This is great! I'll DL a Openbuild partslist and rough out a machine. I think you guys have thr parts in format for Fusion 360 right? I was also thinking outside the box, using a mandrel with multiple cutters, running in a lathe. I could build a sliding platform to sit on the lathe bed, with a curved, somewhat eliptical Y guide, mount a neck or fretboard, slide it through and cut them all at once. That is a later project, I'm focusing on the auto-fret machine now. If I build a good one, I can share with everyone. Cheers, Fred
You'll want that 3 axis you want to follow the radius of the fret board...I've CnC'd several bodies and redone necks on CnC's I design
