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Dude you rock...congrats my friend...a cold beverage will be consumed today in your honor.


(and yes, I've been looking in on your progress... )

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

That’s really awesome Don…I glad to hear things are going your way… Enjoy.

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Rich S

"The inconvenience of poor quality will linger long after the thrill of a bargain has been forgotten"

This is great, Don. I have been following this thread myself, and it is very intriguing. You have done a yeoman's job on this project.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Thanks guys for the kudos.... I'm hoping to do the Sharpie Test with a small program today. If it does, then I'll post the results with a couple pics later today. There's still some work to be done with setting up the motor speed and so forth, but I'm hoping that will go relatively quickly.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I want to see those sketches, Don!

Having a few minor setbacks with getting the software set up for the machine...
Also had a BIG setback when one of the motor couplings let lose and I racked the gantry pretty bad. That's the disadvantage of using a dual-motor setup compared to a mechanical linkage between two ballscrews. If one gets interrupted and the other doesn't, it's a train wreck.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

UGH! Too bad!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

It's all good....I have it all back pretty much to where it was. And I have a lot of the setting exactly where they need to be for the number of electronic pulses etc. I'm almost ready to run the Sharpie Test.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I had the axes jogging around at 1000 ipm last night. That's scary fast! I'm going to slow it down a good bit and hopefully run that sharpie test tonight. Hopefully.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Any updates?

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Jeremy Vonk

Ok, an update...

I have been successful in getting it to run a small program and almost got a Sharpie test to work, but I've encountered some issues with the motor drives overheating. I had to add better heatsinks and cooling fans, but then I encountered issues with the power supply for the cooling fans.
One thing after another!!
Anyway, it looks as though the other issues I had with the gantry racking and such were related to the drives overheating and stopping, which makes perfect sense. I have some new parts on order to get the drive heat under control, and hopefully then I can do a real sharpie test and start cutting something. With any luck, I'll get the parts on Friday and I should be up and running this weekend for keeps.
I also bought a big sheet of HDPE for making vacuum fixtures for things like tops and necks and fretboards and bridges, etc.
I'm also fortunate to live near a place that makes a lot of really good gasket material for such applications, and was able to pick up some nice stuff last week. I'm ready to roll as soon as I can get the overheating issue under control.

Gotta get that backgammon board started.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I can only imagine the myriad of issues that can come up when you are building a machine like this from scratch. I can't wait to see this thing in action!

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Jeremy Vonk

It's not as bad as it seems, but the details can kill you. The mechanical stuff is fairly straight-forward, but the electrical stuff can be murder. What also happens is you end up buying all kinds of stuff that you don't need.
For example....you need socket head cap screws for assembling the frame. No problem. You could buy them a couple at a time from the Borg for a small fortune, or buy a box of 50 from McMaster Carr at a much better price. So you need 55 screws? Well then it's two boxes. Now you have a spare (45) 5/16-18 socket head cap screws that you'll never use. Same thing with electronics terminals and such. And don't forget the aluminum extrusions and plate. Inevitably, you buy a little more than you think you really need. That's only common sense. Then you change the design, and you need way less than actually bought. Then you start down the road going one way, and realize it's overkill, then scrap the parts you spent $160 on, and buy some new stuff. I have a couple boxes full of stuff like that.
Then you're at the mercy of the electronics parts you buy. The only way to know for sure if they're faulty is to hook them up and try them out. So yeah, there's tons of things that can crop up, but for the most part you're just getting a huge learning experience, and all that comes with that.

Then, you get the thing built, and realize that now you have to invest in specialized router bits for inlay, and vacuum fixturing, a vacuum pump, and a whole assortment of things you didn't foresee when you started. Yikes!

That said...If I had to go back and make the decision to do it myself or buy something, I might still do it myself. I'm starting to think that the whole challenge of guitar building / cnc building thing is more what I'm about than the actual finished product. I think I like the challenge, but then I get bored with it and it's on to the next thing. Which explains why I haven't built a guitar since the reso a couple years back. Climbed that hill...now where's the next bigger one?
Yep...that's me.

Brock always asks me what I'm going to do with the cnc once I finish it...and I suspect he feels it will mostly collect dust. He may be right.

Then again, it could help me build a new wide-belt sander or something....

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Don…I have a stock pile of nuts and bolts that covers 8-24 through 3/8-16 in both hex and socket caps and in several different lengths that I consider an investment into the future. There’s nothing like being able to place a finger on what you need immediately and not to have to run to the hardware store for a nut and a bolt. Taps are also great to have around. I am sure you’ll need those extra bolts when you build your next machine.

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Rich S

"The inconvenience of poor quality will linger long after the thrill of a bargain has been forgotten"

Made my first real test cuts yesterday. I was disappointed with the accuracy of the squares I cut though. The 4" square measured 3.995" instead of 4", which is unacceptable in my book. Then I discovered that the router mount had become a little loose, and could easily account for the error with increased vibration and runout.
I'll post an update later once I get things tightened back up. I shot a video yesterday with a cheap RCA "Small Wonder" video camera, but for some reason I can't get my Mac to view the files as video. It makes me wonder if it's a PC-only piece of equipment, which wouldn't make any sense to me, and yet...it doesn't work.

Don

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

That sounds like a celebration to me!

Celebration? Not yet... I still have some tweaking of the unit to do in order to get it all perfectly squared up, and also get the accuracy a bit tighter. But it's looking pretty good so far. At first, I did a circle that wasn't very circular. It looked like a circle, until you measured it with a digital caliper. Now a circle is a circle, which is a good thing. I'll never get accuracy like Bob gets on his Fadal, or the speed either, but it should serve for making a backgammon board or two.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

...or the bill!

You rock, Don. Looks like you're a few tweaks away from wasting immense amounts of 'because I can' time cutting stuff!

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

I hope so!

Here's a couple quick pics of the finished product. Sort of. Still have some work to do with fixtures etc.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Lookin good Don. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on that mini spindle.

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Jeremy Vonk

I'm hoping to put it through some paces this weekend. If so, I'll post the results and give my impressions. John Watkins also has one of these. I'd love to hear what he thinks of his too.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

It is looking awesome Don! I cant wait to see what neat things you can cut up when you get all of the test patterns worked out.

By the way, I found a neat program on the net to cut snowflakes out of old CD's. My wife loves to use them for Christmas Ornaments.

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Reguards,

Ken H

That's cool !

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

spent some time tonight reading through this one... fascinating! Is the machine still up and running and cutting incredible things these days?