Yet another 3d printed guitar - V5

[rwillett]

I've started work on another 3d printed guitar. I build a guitar first and then apply the learnings from the guitar to the bass. So a bass will follow and I'm trying to get both ready for the SW Bass Bash, which could be a challenge. 

 

The last 3d printed guitar was a decent guitar and I still have it, its still plays well and is as much fun as any of the guitars and sounds great with P90s in.

 

However since last year I've been thinking about how to improve the design, the build and the finish. 

 

For those of you who do 3d printing, it has many advantages but one big drawback is the surface finish on some sides, especially when you have gentle sloping sides and curves. So my last 3d printed guitar was 'slab sided' with a 6mm fillet along the top and bottom edge. Far more Telecaster than Stratocaster. The headless bass I made, also has the same issue. This has irked and bugged me for months and I resolved to do something about it. My goal with this guitar is to have a finish as good as I can possibly make it, I am targetting as good a finish as a decent 'ordinary' guitar (whatever that may mean), basically no compromises. I don;t want to have to say "it's a good finish for a 3d printed guitar", but it's a dammed good finish full stop. 

 

My aims are below. When I say guitar I also mean the follow on bass. 

 

1. A simpler design in Fusion 360 that allows me to make changes easily. I've learnt an awful lot more about F360 in the last nine months and realised I was using F360 in a poor way. 
2. A better and 'simpler' design of the overall guitar. I used Voronoi curves before which are nice but impose certain restrictions on the design. I want to make the guitar even more open that before.
3. I want to have a gentle curve, a tummy cut and a slope where the wrist would rest.
4. The neck mounting holes will be for a Fender Strat, if (and when) I get a neck, if the holes aren't for a Strat I'll fill the neck and redrill. It was a major hassle last time. 
5. The internal wiring channels for the switches were an utter nightmare on the old guitar. I want a better system.
6. I may (or may not) have a modular pickup mounting system that allows you to change pickups in minutes. I've designed one but it was designed for a back mounted wooden guitar. Still pondering that one. The system works with P90's, humberbuckers and single coils with a standardised wiring loom.
7. The finish must be as good as possible. Not "good for a 3d printed guitar" but just "bloody good".

 

Simpler Design

 

The new design was started about 10 days ago and is pretty much finished. I have ditched true Voronoi curves and have more or less the same style but simplified. Ditching the V curves, and thinking a lot more about the design up front has meant the design was mostly completed over 5-6 evenings. Importantly for those who use Fusion 360, an awful lot of tangential curves and fillets so it's smooth as, well, something very smooth. F360 does tend to allow you to do a hierarchy of design and I went too far down that route in the last designs. I've been a lot more disciplined this time and the design has 24 versions vs 180 versions from the previous one and is simpler all around. The tummy curves are built in and look utterly crap when printed  However I have a cunning plan, a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a fox...

 

Standardisation

 

Standardisation on a Fender Strat neck and filling the neck and redrilling to make it fit, removes so much hassle in the design. Lets face it, there are so many Fender/Squirer/clones necks out there, it makes sense. I'll apply the same logic to the bass that'll follow this.

 

If anybody has a decent Squier / Fender Strat neck and wants to sell, please let me know. 

 

Internal wiring

 

As I've got rid of the Voronoi curves and made pseudo V curves, the internal wiring channels are so much easier to design and more importantly to print. 

 

Modular pickups

 

Still not sure about this one. I have two cheap mahogany bodies sitting in my office that I was going to use as mules to test the concept. I've done all the design work on this modular system, I've got five pin pogo connectors and a standard wiring loom worked out, looks a lot like a Les Paul or Telecaster Deluxe with volume and tone controls per pickup. However a 3d printed guitar needs a strong backbone and I can't work out how to make it strong with two large rectilinear holes in an lump of aluminium. I suspect this may have to wait.

 

Finish

 

Well this is the big one...  I've set myself a high bar here. I'll be honest and say I've spent a few months testing out various ideas in the background and I think I have a solution. I'll leave it at that for the moment, but I'm fairly confident I've got a decent solution or even suspension

 

This is the original design from last year

 

 

and this is the new version. I think only three straight lines were carried over from the above, but the design was probably four to five times faster to do. It's also just as stiff and strong as the top one. 

 

 

The control panel is modular and is just a big gap at the moment. However the design of the guitar is about 40-50% quicker to print, so 8-10 hours per piece down to 4-6 hours per piece. Also the bridge and neck heal will be permanently fixed in (probably). 

 

I've printed the body into four sections and have started preparing them to be finished and assembled.  That's the next email in this thread.

 

Rob

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by rwillett

[neepheid]

Thanks for the detailed explanations.  Looking forward to seeing progress.  Following.