WezV - building an electric with the laser cutter.

WezV · May 2023

Following on from the thread where I purchased a diode laser, I'm going to do a build which uses it heavily.

The laser it a Sculpfun S30 Pro.

The guitar will be Zemaitis inspired, but with an inset maple top and different decoration rather than the usual engraved metal top.

One of the main things i wanted the laser for was more accurate marking out than I can do with my deteriorating eyesight.

So first step is to engrave the body blank with the centerline and main routes.

And whilst I was doing that I also cut some templates for the deeper body routes.

DannyP · May 2023

Exciting!

DiscoStu · May 2023

DannyP said:

Exciting!

Much!

WezV · May 2023

I should also mention the body wood is Bosse. Loosely related to mahogany. Closer to sapelle, but lighter in colour.

Its rather weighty, hence the chamber. It may also get some Swiss cheese holes in other areas under the top.

CasperCaster · May 2023

Watching with interest - @WezV threads are always entertaining and informative to follow.

paulnb57 · May 2023

Subbed, it will be interesting to see how good the laser cutter is…

WezV · May 2023

paulnb57 said:

Subbed, it will be interesting to see how good the laser cutter is…

There will still be a lot done by hand, the laser is just an assistant to help me along.

It will be used for:
Templates (cutting, i'm purposely going for a template heavy design with the inset top)
Marking out body (engraving)
Marking our fretboard (engrave fret slots, outline and additional decoration. possibly cutting it out too)
Making the inset top (cutting out and engraving additional decoration)

This is all stuff I know it will do now, but it requires me to think about my build process a bit differently. I'm going to do all the routing and fitting of the inset top before cutting out the body the usual way

WezV · May 2023

This is the top I chose. One I have had here for years.

Not massively figured, but I don't want anything OTT as it will feature some other decoration.

The outline is just drawn on for now to check positioning, I might flip it the other way

It's about 4mm thick, so easy to cut with the laser

I'm going to try to keep the pickup cutouts to make bobbin toppers for some homebrew P90s.

paulnb57 · May 2023

Bookmatched AND grain matched pickups….coool

WezV · May 2023

Plus backplates and a headplate, all grain matched, but possibly not colour matched. I may colour the top plate, but leave pickups natural... if it all works as expected

Jez6345789 · May 2023

Looking forward to seeing this. thanks as always

WezV · May 2023

Cut the maple bits and engraved some simple decoration

Cutting went great. Engraving needs to be sealed filled and levelled off. Also I changed my mind on bridge before cutting and didn't reposition the decoration.

WezV · May 2023

Routed

It's a pretty good fit.

I won't glue that on yet, will carry on working on the body first

WezV · May 2023

With pickup bits and the body outline.

Sporky · May 2023

Nice.

RocknRollDave · May 2023

Wow

Roland · May 2023

How many of us are thinking about getting a laser cutter?

nero1701 · May 2023

Roland said:

How many of us are thinking about getting a laser cutter?

me lol

WezV · May 2023

Well I did make one mistake. I should have engraved the patterns a bit deeper.
I went a bit fast and used an offset fill setting rather than the usual fill setting, which is more thorough but a lot slower

I think it's still workable even if I have to re paint in some of the lines at a later stage... or sand them off entirely and re-engrave at a slower speed.

I think I'm going to colour the middle of the maple, maybe just leaving the outer ring and pickups natural

The laser does cut the maple really well at these thicknesses.

WezV · May 2023

Now it's a body

Complete with matching wood backplates

I suppose I should start making a neck

WezV · May 2023

At the moment it is 5lb 4oz - might see if I can add some more weight relief under the plate, but its starting to get into a reasonable territory despite the heavy weight body blank

the templates for back plate routes are slightly larger than the plates themselves. The top is a friction fit, the back plates are purposely loose to allow for finish

The next laser job will likely be the fretboard

TTony · May 2023

How long did the various processes take, and was that *all* done on the laser cutter, or any routering needed?

Just interested to compare with my CNC experience.

WezV · May 2023

TTony said:

How long did the various processes take, and was that *all* done on the laser cutter, or any routering needed?

Just interested to compare with my CNC experience.

Everything done on the Bosse Cedar has been done with a router, using templates made by the laser.

The templates took about 2 hours to cut, going slow with extra passes to ensure they cut as cleanly as possible. Obviously a few hours designing and tweaking too.

I did use the laser to engrave the body blank with the various templates and center line, which made alignment much easier. that was a quick engrave job so only took 5 minutes

Routing was fairly quick because all the templates were ready to go and the body was well marked out, about an hour and a half even with the tricky recess. That includes pre-drilling the cavities

The maple bits have been done solely with the laser. it cuts really well so took about 40 minutes to cut and engrave it, but I think it would have benefitted from slowing down the engraving step to make it a little deeper

It's probably not much faster than making all those templates by hand, but it is a hell of a lot more accurate and obviously repeatable

WezV · May 2023

Fretboard.

I have used the laser to engrave fretslots and outline, as well as routing out some inlay slots.

This took about 25 minutes all in. The laser did a good job on the rosewood so the fretslots and outline are engraved 2mm deep, inlay routes are 3.5mm deep.

I suppose I could cut accurate thickness fret slots, but for now I am just using it to give a good deeply scribed line for the fret saw. I think I could have easily cut the whole thing out too.

I went with a 24.5" scale and 24 frets. Mainly to do something I don't have a slotting jig for.

I then spent a few minutes cutting some maple bits from the top offcut to fill those slots.

WezV · May 2023

Reclaimed mahogany neck blank

The issue with reclaimed wood... it has a big mahogany dowel on it and I have no idea how deep it goes

I wasn't lucky, its still there when rough cut, but only just, and doesn't go all the way through. I need to re do the headplate anyway so will go with a slightly shorter headstock design

Which gets us here

TTony · May 2023

WezV said:

The templates took about 2 hours to cut, going slow with extra passes to ensure they cut as cleanly as possible. Obviously a few hours designing and tweaking too.

I found a standard router to be far more effective at clearing out bulk than the CNC - it's a bigger cutter, so that'd make sense.

I'm wondering whether the sweet spot might be to use the CNC to cut the first few mm of the cavity, enough to then get a bearing guided router cutter in there to do the rest. That'd save the time of making and affixing the templates (and space of storing them all!).

Same experience as you re the fine/detailed work though - CNC is great for repeatedly cutting really accurate pieces and all the intricate stuff that you'd struggle (or worry) trying to do freehand with a router type tool.

Sporky · May 2023

TTony said:

I found a standard router to be far more effective at clearing out bulk than the CNC - it's a bigger cutter, so that'd make sense.

I think that depends - mine will run a 50mm long 12mm bit at speeds (by which I mean feed rates) I wouldn't risk with a router by hand. I used to have to slow it down because the previous chip extractor couldn't keep up.

Jez6345789 · May 2023

Not a moan but are there any pictures in this thread, as I seem to be seeing none if any from this forum. Which is weird if there are none fine but seems largely the same in classified here are the pictures and I see people comment but see nothing.

Is it a glitch or me

TTony · May 2023

Jez6345789 said:

Is it a glitch or me

It's you @Jez6345789 ;

There's another discussion (I think in the Help & Feedback) section re photo visibility issues.

Jez6345789 · May 2023

thanks thought it might be
Should of gone to specsavers lol

TTony · May 2023

Good points @Sporky - my CNC is set up conservatively, and I don't have any bits that big either.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

Become a Subscriber!

WezV - building an electric with the laser cutter.

Comments