Hive
10-22-2007, 03:20 PM
I had decided that I wanted to build a solid body electric as a project in my Industrial Design class for my grad year, as my school had its own CNC router. 9 months of research and computer drafting later, I'd settled on some specs:
Walnut body with oil finish
Warmoth birds-eye maple and ebony neck, 25 1/2 scale
Gotoh 510 bridge/tailpiece
Kent Armstrong Distortion 214K and Ultra Distortion 215K
Concentric volume/tone knobs
Switches for coil tapping
Planet Waves auto-trim tuning machines
All in all, budgeting about $700 (though I've lost so many receipts that I have no idea how close I am to that)
The outline, pockets and component holes were all drawn out in MasterCAM. I based the general shape of the 'Vitruvius' on my Schecter C-1+, then scaled it down a bit and made it more pointy, modeling the contours and horns (roughly) on the Caparison Dellinger.
I had to wait on the arrival of my custom neck before I could do any machining since I had no idea what the neck pocket dimensions would be. It was June before I made my MDF prototype, seen here with the hunk of walnut I picked out:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/stefanreindl/guitar/IMG_6329.jpg
The board was not wide enough for a one-piece body, so I opted to make a three piece laminate with one central piece making up about 95% of the body. It was also unique in that the front side is a very dark, rich colour and the back was very blond, more like maple.
Here's the final body on the day of machining, a lot of reshaping still needed:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/stefanreindl/guitar/IMG_6366.jpg
You can see the laminated sections pretty well here. The major mistake in that was putting that really dark piece where the left horn would be, as it seems to create the illusion that there's something wrong with the shape there, especially in low light.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/stefanreindl/guitar/IMG_6369.jpg
I also realized afterwards that I had accidentally set the router to cut on the inside of my outline lines instead of on them, so the entire guitar lost exactly 1/8'' all around. I actually prefer the scaled down shape this error made, so no big there :smoke:. However, this really messed up my neck pocket dimensions so that the neck sticks out 1/8'' on one side, so some sanding will have to happen there. If I'm not mistaken though, this may actually lead to better playability on the higher frets, so we'll see how that goes.
Walnut body with oil finish
Warmoth birds-eye maple and ebony neck, 25 1/2 scale
Gotoh 510 bridge/tailpiece
Kent Armstrong Distortion 214K and Ultra Distortion 215K
Concentric volume/tone knobs
Switches for coil tapping
Planet Waves auto-trim tuning machines
All in all, budgeting about $700 (though I've lost so many receipts that I have no idea how close I am to that)
The outline, pockets and component holes were all drawn out in MasterCAM. I based the general shape of the 'Vitruvius' on my Schecter C-1+, then scaled it down a bit and made it more pointy, modeling the contours and horns (roughly) on the Caparison Dellinger.
I had to wait on the arrival of my custom neck before I could do any machining since I had no idea what the neck pocket dimensions would be. It was June before I made my MDF prototype, seen here with the hunk of walnut I picked out:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/stefanreindl/guitar/IMG_6329.jpg
The board was not wide enough for a one-piece body, so I opted to make a three piece laminate with one central piece making up about 95% of the body. It was also unique in that the front side is a very dark, rich colour and the back was very blond, more like maple.
Here's the final body on the day of machining, a lot of reshaping still needed:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/stefanreindl/guitar/IMG_6366.jpg
You can see the laminated sections pretty well here. The major mistake in that was putting that really dark piece where the left horn would be, as it seems to create the illusion that there's something wrong with the shape there, especially in low light.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/stefanreindl/guitar/IMG_6369.jpg
I also realized afterwards that I had accidentally set the router to cut on the inside of my outline lines instead of on them, so the entire guitar lost exactly 1/8'' all around. I actually prefer the scaled down shape this error made, so no big there :smoke:. However, this really messed up my neck pocket dimensions so that the neck sticks out 1/8'' on one side, so some sanding will have to happen there. If I'm not mistaken though, this may actually lead to better playability on the higher frets, so we'll see how that goes.