rwillett Posted November 25, 2023 Author Share Posted November 25, 2023 16 hours ago, Daz39 said: He doesn’t have a basement yet, give him time! Oh I do have a basement, its full of a large biomass boiler, hot water tank, pipes and boxes we haven't opened from the last 2-3 hosue moves Rob 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rwillett Posted November 30, 2023 Author Share Posted November 30, 2023 I have now almost completed the design for the next version. I don't think a single component has been carried over from V1. Some of the neck measurements and the plywood backbone have remained but every other element has been redesigned based on what was learnt from V1. It looks similar but thats about it. The original ideas for the first version were: 1. All my own design so nobody can claim I'm stealing their design. - That still stands 2. No glue. I hate glue, it gets everywhere - I am now experimenting with glue. I have a number of different types of glues from various superglues, Bostick Hard plastic Glue, and the current favourite FloPlast, a solvent cement from my local builders. 3. As there is no glue, all fittings most be as hidden as possible. - This still stands but I have significantly modified the structure to make it easier to print. I have removed most of the bolts and screws from the outside structures and am assuming glue will hold them together. Certainly Bostick Hard Plastics glue and FloPlast are very strong. 4. Must be modular. I don't know which bridge to use yet, I don't know which pickups I want and, importantly, I might want to change them or add three pickups without having to print everything again. Completely rethought how this works. Before, I would have to unscrew the whole guitar to change the bridge or pickups. Not any more, I've thought about this and now have a simple set of adaptors. 5. Must be able to take different necks. I don't have a neck I can use yet, so not sure what I'm going to get. I'm looking for a thin telecaster neck but not found one on eBay I trust to buy yet. Struggling to find one at the price so the Yamaha one off the proof of concept is going to be used. 6. Must be playable. The last guitar was light and easy to play. 7. Must be easy to print and fit on a 220mm x 220mm print bed. The Prusacaster one takes four days to print one part. No doing that This is still applicable. I have changed the design to make it printable without a lot of interventions from myself. I'm now down to four big pieces rather than five. 8. Must be able to use different controls as I have no idea what I'm buying, Telecaset and Stratocaster wiring is easily available second hand on eBay so thats a good start. This version is going to be based around a Telecaster Deluxe. I also think that a lot of the control sets on eBay are junk so am working with House of Tone to get a better set of pots and controls. 9. As few as possible supports for 3d printing. This has zero supports needed at the moment. I'm delighted with that Lesson learnt from the previous guitar is that I need to print the top of the guitar facing down to get the nice smooth finish that the Prusa satin plate provides. This means supports for the three modules in the middle. However as these are hidden from view, no so concerned. So I've picked up a pair of Tesla pickups, thought a lot more carefully about the design and parameterised just about every dimension so I can adapt as needed. The Tesla pickups are bottom mounted so are designed to fit to the guitar and not to the pickguard. That has spurred me to make the pickuops more modular. The same with the bridge, I've gone for a cheap and cheerful hardtail off eBay. Its not quite finished yet, but the second iteration design was a lot easier as I had learnt from the first one. If I take the pickguard off You can see a row of mounting points. The bridge uses these mounting points, in this case the tesla pickups do. They can be moved back and forward to change the tone. I could even get a third pickup in. There's a tiny mounting plate to make the Tesla pickup work. There's now a cable channel to the three way switch on the top. More routing ports to the four pots at the bottom. Learnt my lesson and provide a lot bigger space for controls. The back will have a simple plate that fits across it to hide the void. The strap button mount points are in. Things to do are: 1. The output socket channel. 2. Put the screw holes in for the pickguard. The pickguard will have to be printed in sections as it's too big for my printer. If it works, I'll get one made to measure. 3. When the bridge arrives, make the mounting points on the bridge. 4. Finish the neck mounting section. 5. Keep experimenting with glues just to check stuff like shear strength. Some of the glues are very strong, but how about if I knock it sideways or heat it up? 6. Hope and pray that the Tesla pickups aren't too high. I'm working in mm here and I reckon I have around 2mm spare. I do have a solution to lower the pickup by 4mm but it's a hack. Trying to finish this for Xmas, but have done no printing so far. Lots of test prints to check, but nothing real yet. Rob 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 Awesome Rob! It is inspiring me to try similar (But a 5 string short scale headless). Woodworking ... daunts me, but Fusion 360 and 3D printing do not! I might have to steal reuse some of your design concepts S'manth x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rwillett Posted November 30, 2023 Author Share Posted November 30, 2023 11 minutes ago, Smanth said: Awesome Rob! It is inspiring me to try similar (But a 5 string short scale headless). Woodworking ... daunts me, but Fusion 360 and 3D printing do not! I might have to steal reuse some of your design concepts S'manth x Happy for you to steal what you like. The key thing with this version is that it's easier and simpler to make. The next version will be a bass, probably not a five string short scale headless, but I want to check some stuff out with V2. The design workflow is important. The order you do things is really important and I did it the wrong way for V1, but I might have done it the right way for V2. Basically get the 'master' dimensions roughed out, width and position of bridge, where does the neck go, how high is it? Position of pickups is pretty unimportant from a design point of view. Once you have that, then do the honeycomb, but do it as a repeating pattern, and make each side big enough to handle a clamp end so you clamp to glue. The repeating pattern requires maths but it's not difficult, simple trigonometry. Overlay the printing size of your prusa and then start looking at outlines to fit. Its a bit like object oriented programming to be honest Rob 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 Thank you kind sir! Gang of Four, Booch ... teeth cut on OOP (I even worked for a short time with Richard Helm in Auckland!) I suspect (STRONGLY!) that finding a suitable neck will be the biggest obstacle! (Build one S'manth ... shudder!) S'manth x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul S Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 30 minutes ago, rwillett said: The next version will be a bass, probably not a five string short scale headless, Cute little double cutaway shorty would be nice, especially if you are looking for people to test it... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 On a more detailed note ... with (I imagine?) a light body, is neck dive an issue? S'manth x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rwillett Posted November 30, 2023 Author Share Posted November 30, 2023 16 minutes ago, Smanth said: On a more detailed note ... with (I imagine?) a light body, is neck dive an issue? S'manth x That's an interesting question, so far for my six strings, not an issue. However it could be, given the size and weight of a bass neck. I did think that this would be a problem for a bass. One option might be to make the end of the body hollow to pack weights in, enough to balance it out OR use one of the anti-dive straps. I do know that my V1 is quite light, certainly lighter than my 89 Telecaster. I can't see the advantage for me to build a neck. I don't have the skills and I couldn't do a better/cheaper job than buying a decent neck. Thats a bridge too far for me <no pun intended> The design workflow is important as you are basically programming the model from step 1 onwards, you are applying instructions to sketches, extrude this, split this. Then apply a sketch to that part of the model and do more instructions. The way you plan this is important as the order is critical. Miss a bit out and it doesn't work. 25 minutes ago, Paul S said: Cute little double cutaway shorty would be nice, especially if you are looking for people to test it... Bascially a short scale SG? Rob 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul S Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 1 minute ago, rwillett said: Bascially a short scale SG? SG-ish. Maybe more rounded, if I were being picky I bought one of these Encore DC shorties a few years ago. Lovely thing, wonderful proportions. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 Uh oh. I have a spare 5 string neck....... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 12 minutes ago, Owen said: Uh oh. I have a spare 5 string neck....... Short scale? S'manth x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rwillett Posted November 30, 2023 Author Share Posted November 30, 2023 20 minutes ago, Owen said: Uh oh. I have a spare 5 string neck....... That could be a mistake stating that... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelDean Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 I came across this design for a bass earlier. I know you want to make your own design, but thought it might help inform decisions as you go forward! https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/gadget/phi-bass-all-3d-printed-electric-4-string-bass-guitar?fbclid=IwAR1ApeHSJw09xML_RmGAu76oCnJqBqLQXwjbrRK0XzrHSTgMsh8vi9nCKUw 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 2 minutes ago, MichaelDean said: I came across this design for a bass earlier. I know you want to make your own design, but thought it might help inform decisions as you go forward! https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/gadget/phi-bass-all-3d-printed-electric-4-string-bass-guitar?fbclid=IwAR1ApeHSJw09xML_RmGAu76oCnJqBqLQXwjbrRK0XzrHSTgMsh8vi9nCKUw Interesting approach of using an aluminium backbone ... hmmmm. S'manth x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rwillett Posted November 30, 2023 Author Share Posted November 30, 2023 It's a good idea usind aluminium extrusion. Didn't think about that. I'd be a little cautious of 2020 as it does bend, however there may be different grades in use that are better than others. The nice thing here is that you can attach an awful lot of stuff with t-nuts which are cheap as chips. Can't work out how he's done the neck. Is it printed? I'm out and on my phone so can't quite see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 Neck looks printed, I see artifacts. S'manth x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 The description says it's all printed (barring the Al extrusion and hardware). Don't know about the frets (pre-placed slots and hammer in the frets?), and looks as if the nut has a metal rod running across it. Presumably the neck is actually two side fillets which are secured to the extrusion, possibly by having tangs on the fillets which slide onto the extrusion. I would think that a 2020 extrusion backbone would make it even more suitable for a headless build than a headed one as there wouldn't be the tuners hanging off the side of the headstock, all the load would be directly along the backbone and only exerted on it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 Something that could be a bit awkward is that the pickups are on the underside of the pickup cover, so the cover isn't optional. A piezo bridge could solve that. Also, the bridge is a simple non-intonatable one. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 I assume with a 20x40 extrusion one would not have to worry about a truss rod? S'manth x 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 14 minutes ago, Smanth said: I assume with a 20x40 extrusion one would not have to worry about a truss rod? S'manth x You would have to worry about getting your hand round the neck though. It would be very close to rectangular cross-section. And the torsion isn't lateral so the additional width wouldn't be that helpful. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 I don't want to come across as too negative on this, it looks like a clever idea but there are some things which could be improved. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 11 minutes ago, tauzero said: I don't want to come across as too negative on this, it looks like a clever idea but there are some things which could be improved. -ve ... no! It is from such input that we can work to improve things S'manth x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpondonBassed Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 40 minutes ago, Smanth said: I assume with a 20x40 extrusion one would not have to worry about a truss rod? S'manth x No but only because you'd be worried about your fibre intake... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 I love watching your design process, @rwillett Inspiring! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rwillett Posted December 1, 2023 Author Share Posted December 1, 2023 (edited) I wouldn’t say design process as such , more the fumbling of a blind man with his eyes closed in a dark room searching for a black cat who may or may not be in the room Edited December 1, 2023 by rwillett 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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