MIMF

I've made hundreds and hundreds of necks with a CNC and agree that it's not an easy task to get it going. As others have mentioned, the CAD part of the neck is the most difficult to master and then you have the machine issues to deal with such as heel clearance etc. For me now a days, making a neck ...

As I see it CNC has the potential to open up artistic capabilities that would be nearly impossible without it..... There are obviously things that can only be done by hand that no CNC could ever be trained to do The original question is interesting but I think is only relevant in an academic/philos...

Even if I'm at 0.010" of backlash I'll be pretty happy. I doubt that. .010" of backlash is way too high for anything but the coarsest of work. If you modify your belt drive to be like the one I showed in the link, you should be able to get to about zero backlash and zero stretch. You'll b...

Heh - failed to notice before - you've almost re-invented the servobelt drive. Check out this video: http://bell-everman.com/products/linear-positioning/servobelt-linear-sbl With a couple small changes, you can eliminate error due to belt stretch. I've got a friend making something very similar. Goo...

That's too bad, because you were right! Yea, I think there's some incantation that was missed or something. Obviously Trevor got something working. At the end of the day this is just academic for me. When I need a compound radius fretboard, I simply make the right entries in a spreadsheet, rebuild ...

Long compasses are a bit twilight-zone, aren't they? Completely. I'll stay out of it. I got into this on another forum making the same suggestion as you did and was proven wrong. Now I'm somehow unable to prove you wrong on this one so it seems that the rules governing long compasses change dependi...

One approach to a compound radius jig would be to replace the curved rails with an inverted "V", making a long compass, and then having the tubes closer together at one end than the other. This doesn't work. A given long compass (moving part) will make the same radius irrespective of how ...

If you have to go that route then look at the new Gecko G215 driver/ motion controller which can be programmed with simple G-code and run autonomously. Good call on the 215 - I had just read about that a few months ago and forgot completely about it as it's of really no use for what I'm doing. Alth...

Interesting project. To drive a stepper motor, you'll need some type of drive and as Eric said, something to give it step and direction pulses. The drive is what converts the step and direction pulses into power signals that will move the motor in the right direction, e.g.: http://www.geckodrive.com...

I use SolidWorks for the CAD side of things and VisualMill for SolidWorks Pro for the CAM side of things. VM4SW is the same as RhinoCAM and from the same software house. I'm pretty happy with them, especially since they're relatively affordable compared to the industry standards when it comes to CAD...

Great work for a totally home made machine!!!

You'll definitely want to upgrade to the 5-start screws to up your speed. At the speeds you're running, you'll blow through tools at an alarming rate!

They don't sound the same after a week or two. When a wound guitar string is made, I think they put a little twist on the center wire and then place the winding. After the winding is on, the twist is released, and this tightens the winding. When you use a guitar string for you bandura, do you simpl...

Don't use polyethylene glycol to tighten tuning pins. This is a very questionable practice and probably destroys the pin block. If you have a loose tuning pin, remove the pin, place a small shim of wood along side the pin, and this will most likely fix the problem. I wonder if you could elaborate a...

Don't know if this will help you too much but perhaps you can find someone local with a CNC machine? I used mine to do this detail for the sound hole in an instrument I made for my son. It was very nerve wracking because I had to strap a fully finished and buffed instrument to the table to cut it bu...

I had some minor problems with me (they sent the wrong nozzle sizes) but we ended up working it out. Hopefully it will work out for you too!

There's nothing wrong with the nylon cup. It does absorb color but I've never had it bleed back out into a clear finish. Doesn't seem like it's worth the extra $40 to me.

I've got one of these: http://www.spraygunworld.com/products/Asturo/MiniGun/Mini%20MasterCase.html which works out pretty well. I don't have any high end guns to compare it to so I can't really say how it compares to them. The one thing I would recommend is to go with the 1.0 to 1.5mm tip set. For r...

it seems like it would have to be a compound radius fingerboard to work. Am I thinking about this wrong, or does the sanding process by hand tend to cancel this out somehow? As everybody else mentioned, you're absolutely correct. The correct compound radius will indeed give you a constant height fr...

Speaking of math, something that I find very confusing is how a long compass and a contraption like this can yield the same results.

If it's truly that the nitro fumes are the issue, simply look for a finish that's not going to bother you. Nitro is a great finish and all but there are other options out there that are as good or better than nitro. Varnish is a fantastic finish and in my opinion, polyester is the bomb. As far as du...