Official Luthiers Forum!

Who here utilizes a CNC machine? I've just recently begun to think about the idea. What are a few entry level budget friendly CNC machines capable of machining a body as big as 16" x 21" (es335 sized)?

First, you might get more responses if you post in the CNC section.

Second, you need to give a bit more information. How much DIY are you willing to do? What does "budget friendly" really mean? Do you want to do necks too?

Generally speaking, buy the biggest machine you can afford that will do the job.

I personally use a couple Xzero machines but there's a ton of DIY involved in those and customer service is practically nonexistent.

Last year I was at the CNC workshop in Dearborn Michigan and saw this machine:

http://www.cncrouterparts.com/benchtop- ... p-314.html with this control box: http://www.cncrouterparts.com/4-axis-di ... p-260.html and it looked pretty darned solid.

It's got everything you need except control software, fixturing, vacuum and it's pretty cheap but, it's only got a work area of 25x25 so it might be small for electric necks.

Finally, before you start thinking CNC machines, you should start thinking about software and whether or not you can draw what needs to be drawn. I recommend Fusion 360 for anyone getting into CNC because it's dirt cheap and gives you functionality that you'd pay up to $20k with from other many other software houses. You should be able to use Fusion 360 for free to get started. Try and draw some basic parts, go through the tutorials etc. Once you have your feet dipped in that pool, you can start thinking about getting a CNC machine.

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I have an XCarve which is an interesting machine and has been developed quite a bit since I bought mine. I know from the Inventibles forum that there are a few people that have used it to build guitars.

See here https://discuss.inventables.com/t/telec ... ject/21292


The Xcarve community is quite friendly and users often share their data files with other users which can save the time and effort of converting design ideas into a CNC program.

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Keep calm and carry plasters