A first set of forms for this year! It's a cnc cut solera + outer mould + side bending form, made of plywood, MDF board, aluminum pipe, threaded rods and PLA.

Apparently CNC machines don't like long, continuous splines, like the parts of the outer mould. At one point the controller couldn't handle the huge amount of commands and slowed down, resulting in vibrations piling up and pulling the milling bit out of the spindle. The bit made a hole in the surface of my 1000€ vacuum table before exploding.

No lasting functional damage, except for the milling bit, but it hurt like hell - emotionally.

I plan to make a set of forms for a Torres guitar next - with optimized settings, so this mishap doesn't happen again.

Photos:

I'm not sure if this is the correct community to ask in but it seemed like it's worth a shot. I received a sitar from a friend to learn on. It's beautiful but well-loved and I've been trying to find someone to fix it up a bit. There's a guy in Queens, NY who works on them but I haven't heard the best things about him. The only other lead I've found is someone in Washington State who said I could ship it to him. I only have a soft case for it and fear it could be really expensive to ship that far. Does anyone here work on sitars and could also sell me a hard case for it?

I'll record a sound sample as soon as the strings have settled.

Edit: I got it to stay in tune for a few seconds!

I found it like this. No really.

Elbow deep in other more important projects, but I managed to fit in some time to push this OM cutaway a little closer to completion.

Adirondack top (maybe a little floppy…) and bubinga body (assuming it behaves going into the mold…).

I’ve been jokingly calling the buttwedge design the Double Black Diamond (DBD for short). Koa with ebony and glitter bullshit. Figuring out how to safely route the pocket was a fun puzzle that was definitely OVER ENGINEERED. Very pleased with the results though.

Taking suggestions for inlay designs for both the head stock and fingerboard. They’ll both likely be ebony or some other dark hardwood depending on what I can scrounge up. I have plenty of shell, stone, etc. for color and/or detail and a machine that can cut them a hell of a lot cleaner than I can.

This particular guitar is a giveaway item for a bunch of beer drinking craftsmen, so really almost anything goes.

More builds to come soon.

Keep luth’n!

Bubinga, Plum, and Walnut (yes it’s 4 pieces; I had to get creative and it’s getting color so you’ll never notice 😄)

It’s all Sitka. Back and sides to follow.

Just a "quick" project to test carving techniques on my new cnc.

Made from very old beech wood that was exposed to the elements (body), cherry (tailpiece and nut), maple (bridge).

Hi, 3d printing a nut guy again. Finally have all the materials and I think enough skill to model this thing on my own.

Exactly what tolerances should I have in the channels of the nut for the strings? Like, for example my low B string is a .59. How large should I make that channel? 1.50mm? A little more room perhaps?

Thanks for any responses!

Hey there. I have an Ibanez AX-7221 (Japanese made version) that has a damaged nut. I need to replace it, but am financially locked but do have access to a 3d printer.

Are there materials that can be printed which would be ok for this task and stand up to the stresses?

Edit: <3 to everyone that has given advice here. Much better than the 3d printing community's answers I got.

[Post from new lemmy.world account, because feddit.de is broken atm]

Spruce top, the body and neck are carved from a single block of maple. Picture of current bridge - the crown shaped one just sounded bad:

Sound sample: Vielle - arch bridge

More photos (with old bridge):

Alto Rebec on Printables

This is a 3D printable rebec I designed and printed earlier this year. It features a changeable soundplate with a complicated support structure on the underside, which I intended to mimic the acoustic properties of wood. The final version has a carbon fiber reinforced soundplate, which is not shown in the photo. You can find two sound samples on the linked printables page.

After half a year I could make a few long-term observations:

1. The sound quality improved significantly. A very noticeable wolf tone on the A string disappeared completely. Apparently the carbon fiber filament settled under string pressure - similar to wood

2. Several non-CF parts warped. The bowl is now 2mm wider and the fingerboard a bit crooked, which affects playability. This could maybe have been avoided if I glued the soundplate to the bowl instead of having it be held by string pressure alone, because it would have supported the bowl and not pressed against the underside of the fingerboard.

3. The carbon fiber soundplate didn't warp at all. I'll make the next printed Instrument entirely out of CF to avoid warping.

The mensur is identical to that of a violin, as is fingerboard, bridge curvature, and general instrument size. Currently it's stringed with 1/2 viola strings, tuned C-G-D-A. Body and neck are carved from a single block of maple. No soundpost, only a bass bar. After varnishing, I'll attach a standard violin chinrest and Wittner integrated shoulder rest, so it can be played like a regular violin.

I need mother of pearl 75mm by 30mm 1.8mm how can I find distrabuters selling this size?

Prices are all over the place and I'm totally lost.

This is a build from several years back. The body is chambered walnut sandwiched between Brazilian rosewood that was not useable for an acoustic guitar. I made the pickup rings, switch mount, and truss rod cover from copper and silver dust. It's not all polished up because I have played daily for almost five years.

In an attempt to keep activity going, here's what I'm working with for build two - black limba with a claro walnut topper. I have high hopes in particular for this walnut grain when it all gets finished.

In case any other luthiers end up finding their way here, I would love to hear experiences about working with black limba. So far I'm getting a lot more chipping and splitting than my first build, which was maple and sapele.