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Title says it all
Considering a small Cnc for necks / fingerboards, bridges / acoustic parts but don’t know where to start. I know it’s probably like everything else in that there are toys and then there are actual entry level.

I don’t really know if I want to decide to go this route, but it won’t hurt looking.

I have the room. I have a background in graphic design with vector based programs but no CAD experience .

If you were starting with Cnc learning where would you start?


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I'm in the same boat. Just now learning Rhino. Tutorials galore on both YouTube and Vimeo, but the program also comes with its own step-by-step tutorials - working on those now.

I'm thinking about CNC, too. The X-Carve looks like a good way to get into it, but I have yet to pull the trigger. Check out these Highline Guitar videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/trideciple ... ?query=cnc

Start with a budget. Double it and then begin your research.
Machine is about 40% of the outlay. Electronics, spindle, and VFD about another 40%, software and bits the balance.
There are many makers of CNC. You need one with EXCELLENT customer service that responds in a timely fashion. Forget Chinese mfg. if you’re a noob you will be needing plenty of help from the mfg. and China fails in that area.
CNCrouterparts.com is a good resource for research, decent pricing for a quality machine, and offers above average support. I’ve done business with them but have no other affiliation with them.

Thank you for your input


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Looked at cncrouterparts and their kits look so much heavier duty than the xcarve and stuff. Not bad pricing either .
It’s just another world and I don’t know the language yet ha


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I was hoping around 3k could get things moving in the right direction if I were to decide to invest that way, and it doesn’t look like that’s out of the question


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Snow, the cncrouterparts kits are definitely beefier than the xcarve's, but that pricing you see does not include everything you need. Look under "Recommended Accessories" under the basic kit (CRP2448). Even the cheapest plug-and-play electronics system is listed at $1545. Just those two items alone with shipping are going to put you close to 4k. And this price doesn't even include the router or spindle - among a few other necessities.

Scroll down a few posts and read the thread titled "xcarve thoughts". Not trying to sell you on it, I'm not entirely sold on it yet myself. But some of these entry level cnc's might get you where you want to go without having to invest a lot of money.

Be sure to watch this video as it will give you a taste of what's involved with something as basic as a fretboard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLa8Yg6V934

Darren,
Two points I raised and it was said from experience. Make your budget and then double it and the 40%,40%,20% split.
I went the “entry level” route at first and it afforded me the experience to then go to a better machine. That said, I could have saved myself $2k bypassing the entry level machine. My nephews are glad I made the mistake as they got the entry level machine.
I now run a Fineline Automation machine on CNCRP electronics and 4k spindle using Mach3 and Vectric Aspire. Am very happy with all but will say that FLA makes a good machine but customer support is sorta schizophrenic.
As with anything else, you get what you pay for. Go cheap...get cheap.

Hi, Gasawdust. I was just replying to Snow's post mentioning he could get into a CNCRP machine for 3K. I just wanted to point out to him that the kit price is not all-inclusive. I was excited when I looked them up, at your suggestion, and saw the price, but then soon realized that price is for the mechanical portion of the cnc machine only. I'm gonna have to "mow a few more lawns" this summer before I can afford one of those. But I'm sure it's definitely worth the investment. Thanks for turning me on to them

I’m still undecided as to my direction. The downside is it a an entire new war room. That said learning a new skill is always a great way to level up in life. I could also probably use the machine to support my wife in her essential oils business:) hmmmmm perhaps that should be my angle:)
B


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If you are thinking about getting into CNC for lutherie, I have a few suggestions. Mostly it boils down to having realistic expectations of what you want out of the machine and not trying to buy a machine that will do everything. I've been using a CNC machine in my small lutherie shop for a little more than ten years. Some tasks are near trivial, others have taken years to accomplish and still give me sleepless nights.

First, it can't cut what you can't draw. There is no public database of 3D guitar models out there just waiting for you to plug into your machine. Be sure you really want to invest the time into learning how to do that. It is a skill set that does not come naturally for most. Drawing complex 3D surfaces, like a neck shaft blending into a heel, is beyond many professional draftsmen. OTOH, you can take some line art from the web to cut 2D pockets for your inlay relatively easily. But either way, it all starts sitting in front of a computer screen drawing what you want.

Second, be realistic about what you want the machine to do. There are many tasks that you might think you want a CNC machine to do. For me the brass ring was reliable and consistent acoustic guitar necks. The problem is that machining an acoustic neck requires a machine an order of magnitude stiffer and much more expensive than most hobby and semi-pro machines. Most wood working machine kits are meant to cut 3/4" wood sitting on a 3/4" spoil board with a 2" bit. An acoustic neck might need a 6" bit to do a heel and shaft, and be able to retract far enough to clear the top of the 4-1/2" heel while the blank sits clamped in a jig that may be an 1" tall, all sitting on a 3/4" spoil board. Cutting an acoustic neck may require as much as 8" of clearance and 8-10" of z travel. Find a machine with that much Z, and stiff enough to cut those inlay pockets at the bottom of that travel and you will probably be talking in the multiple thousands of dollars.

On the other hand, cutting fret slots into 1/4" stock or cutting a head plate with a pocket for your logo can be done on a simple and inexpensive machine. So what do you really want and need?

Thirdly, understand that small CNC's are still not a fully mature technology. The mechanical components are relatively simple and relatively settled. As a result there are hundreds of small shops trying to sell you welded frames or aluminum extruded kits. You have the full range from Openbuilds to Laguna. However, none of these people are making the electronics or software. They might sell you a package, but all they have done is sourced them from the same places you could directly.

Those electronics and software are still wildly in flux. Do you use Mach software? Maybe grbl based solution? How about Kflop, Smoothstepper, Smoothieboard, UCCNC? Which controllers, Gecko, Toshiba, Leadshine, Arduino/gshield? The options are dizzying and change monthly.

Do you have the interest and time to experiment with all this? Figure out what works for you?

I don't write this to discourage anyone, but I hope that my experience can help people avoid some of the pitfalls. My usual recommendations when asked by friends or at the school about getting a CNC machine is to start small and see if you really have the interests and skills to do simple things, like inlay your logo into a headstock veneer or mill some bridges. That is still a ~$1,000 investment, but at least it isn't a $5,000 investment. If you are a tinkerer (and who among us isn't) the Openbuilds kits are probably the best bang for the buck I've seen. For $1000 you get a robust little machine that is easy to assemble and can do some inlay work or bridges. $1,700 will get you a machine that is large enough for an electric guitar body or neck. You may not be banging out Les Paul bodies by the dozen on that machine, but you will learn what is involved.

Starting off with a pro $6,000 machine that needs so many new skills to use seems totally bonkers to me. It's like saying you want to go camping for the first time, so you buy full expedition gear. Yeah, it is a waste if you buy that simple tent and camp stove and discover it is your passion. That cheap sleeping bag won't get you up Denali in winter. But having never camped do you start there?

I appreciate your post:) and I see your points.
There is always much more involved in a venture like this than is on the surface, just like deciding I want to “build a guitar”.
here are some things that may help :
————
I DO have a fairly extensive graphic design background. HOWEVER it ends with Corel and Adobe.

I DO NOT have experience in 3D rendering as of yet.

I DO NOT understand, yet how to get the idea / shape into a 3d form that is usable by the machine. (But I’m sure that’s just part of the process)

What I’d like to do: Fretboard slotting / bridges / necks (I don’t mind doing scarf joints and segmented heels) if the machine had enough travel.
———-





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If you want to play with computers, prepare for a long learning curve.

It will be much faster to learn to do proper inlay by hand... if that is your goal.

Great post, rlrhett!

May I ask what path you would take if you were in my shoes and just learning Rhino and wanted to get to where you could make guitar necks (which I'm assuming is the most complicated of the guitar CNC processes)? How would you proceed in learning the CAD -> CAM -> CNC workflow? Is there anything you've learned along the way to make it a straight and narrow path for beginners? Not looking for shortcuts, of course, I do understand that even if it's possible to be a straight and narrow path, it's still a LONG one.

Sure. First I would say forget about Rhino if you are just starting out. Fusion 360 is free, includes the CAM component, and the workflow is more standard being in the same family as all Autodesk products. Rhino was a great package, and where I started ten years ago, but that was then and this is now. In a few years Fusion may be passé, but for today it is the best game in town. It is also supported by an amazing number of YouTube tutorials and a great community forum. I was struggling to get the transition of shaft to headstock right, asked a question, and someone WALKED ME STEP BY STEP through it! Amazing. Apparently Autodesk is paying pros to go on the boards and help out. That never happened with the Rhino community.

I help teach at Palomar College (a community college in California) at their excellent wood working and lutherie program. A unique and amazing program the administrators are hell bent to kill, but that's another story. When one of the lutherie student want a primer on CNC, I usually suggest that they start with one relatively simple component: a bridge.

I think starting with a familiar and small piece and working through the whole workflow: design -> drawing -> tool path strategies -> blank prep -> table/holdown prep -> milling is the best way to understand this tool. You are forced to work through the whole process. A bridge includes some flowing surfaces, but is basically a 2.5D design. You have exposure to some complex CAD work, but at it's most basic. It is a small blank, so the stakes are not high in time or material. It MUST be precise, which is really what CNC is all about. You'll know if you made a mistake. You are likely to use at least two bits, maybe more, giving you some tool path planning exposure. A bridge must have certain parameters, but may have artistic flair as well. You can even inlay the wings or tieblock if you want.

Start however you would normally do this without CNC. I assume a paper sketch of your design on graph paper (unless you already draw on the computer). You can watch YouTube videos on how to import a 2D sketch into Fusion, including scanning a piece of paper and placing in the program as a template you can trace. Work through as many different ways as you can to generating the 3D object. You can use traditional loft, sweep, extrude or go to Autodesk's unique t-splines modeling environment.

Once you have a good model, make up a dozen blanks out of oak, pick up a fist full of carbide spiral bits from ebay (1/4", 1/8", 1/16" and maybe a round nose 1/4") and find yourself a community CNC machine at a school or FabLab or something of the sort. Be prepared to spend hours running back and forth from your Fusion on your laptop and the machine tweaking the toolpaths. You will likely find that your blanks won't work for CNC. How are you going to cut out the bridge and hold it down to the table? Where does the bit need clearance to travel? What kind of holdown and indexing jig will you need? Try cutting out the bridges. Be prepared to break some bits.

Rinse, wash and repeat. When cutting out a bridge feels routine, you will have a good idea of what might be next. Experience at this point will be worth much more than anyone could teach you in a tutorial or book. You will begin to get a sense how fast you can push a 1/4" bit through dense hardwood, whether it makes sense clear an area with a big bit but waste time stopping to swap out a little for rest machining or just do the whole area with the little bit. You will learn whether you should make an oversized blank screwed to the waste board, or stop the program mid way and change the way you are holding down the blank. You will learn how much it stinks to have failed to think through a hold down only to ruin a bit on a screw or watch your piece begin to slide along with your bit ruining both. Most importantly you will find out if you have the temperament for working with such a finicky, capricious, evil minded tool.... Er... I mean... amazing capable tool that I love!

I would certainly go through that process first before investing heavily on CNC.

Rlrhett,
Just curious if you are still using your first CNC or did you buy your second machine first, as I have heard others suggest.

I bought my first cnc about 8 years ago. I found it basically unused on CL for I think it was $1200 with a computer loaded with Vcarve pro 5. It was a cnc shark base model 13"X 24". It used a colt router and was great to learn on. Parts of it were made of HDPE so if you crashed the machine it would give a little. It's not a good machine but the price was right and it came with $600 worth in software. I sold it 4 years later for $1400 no computer or software.

Software... 90% of what you are interested in doing can be done using Vcarve. It works really well for inlay work, I cut my headstock profiles, tuner holes, fret slots, fretboard profiles, fretboard inlays, I radius my fretboards with it. I cut A-style mandolin family plates, archtop guitar plates, plus all of my jigs and fixtures. You will need a much stiffer machine than the shark for many of the above operations. I also own Rhino, and Fusion 360 (free) and rarely use them. Vcarve is so easy to use and has good tutes.

Machine... 24"X 24"X 6" would be acceptable. 24"X 30"X 8" would be better. My machine is a CRCPRO4848. Not the best machine out there but it was the best bang for the buck at the time and the company offers great support! It nice if you can afford a spindle. They are designed to run 24/7 and are much quieter that a router. If you plan to cut shell with it it needs be able to turn 24k rpms.

I did this on the crappy, but good to learn on cncshark.

rl, thank you for answering my questions!! That really puts it into perspective. I'm going to take your advice and start designing a bridge. Might need to watch a few more tutorials on YouTube, but I've been making some headway with Rhino. After that I'm going to look for a nearby MakerSpace to see if they can help with the rest of the journey. I really appreciate you taking the time to help us noobs out.

Oh, and Snow, I hope you don't mind that I've kinda hijacked your thread, but I'm assuming, since you're new like me, that you are in need of this information, too.

Michaeldc, what is it you don't like about the CRCPRO4848? Gaswdust recommended the company up above, and I've turned my attention away from the X-carve in favor of the machines made by CNCRP.

Actually I really like my machine. There are just machines out there that are stiffer and more accurate these days. It does do everything I ask it to though. I'd have a look at their Benchtop Pro http://www.cncrouterparts.com/benchtop- ... p-462.html . Also, their plug-n-play systems are worth every penny. Nema-23 steppers are plenty strong enough for what you are gonna be doing. That's what I have on my bigger machine and they work great!

M

I’m reading as I go too.
You don’t know what you don’t know until you know what you don’t know.


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I'm on my third. And if I was to do it again, I think I would have started with an even smaller and cheaper one first to learn on. I wanted one right off the bat big enough to carve a 21"x17" arch top. Plain stupid.

I completely understand both sides of that
I don’t think anyone has asked strait up, but what are your thoughts on an x carve unit?
The HUGE downside I’ve seen that is obvious is that I THINK the z axis only travels 3”...is that correct ??


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Actually it says it's got 65mm or 2.55" of Z. You'd be able to do fretboard slots, inlay, and outside profiles on a pre radiused board. You'd likely be able to do head stocks as long as the router bit can reach out over the front edge of the table by 1-1/2" or better. Rosettes would be no problem. You are going to have to go very slowly to get decent resolution. The frame extrusions are tiny.... What is it using for software. Can you download a demo copy and play with it?

Edit... Bridges would also be possible

The stiffer and more accurate machines, are they in the same price range as the CNCRP's?