tools for a new builder: hand, stationary, or CNC?

[Mario Proulx]

This is where CNC shines... Our own Andy Birko at work...

http://youtu.be/6Vq1k4rvf3E

I also agree with CNC for carving electric guitar plates; no issues there, as long as you're not just using a generic pattern. Better yet, hand-carve one as perfectly as you can, then have that scanned then turn it over to CNC.

My headstock logo inlays are now cut for me on CNC; I had hand-cut them 73 times when one day I decided I had done that for long enough, so I took a good head-on shot of the 73rd inlay, sent the photo to a CNC inlay shop, and that was it! But I still have the hand skills to hand-cut custom scripts when asked to, and have hand-cut a few of my own logos since then when asked to use something other than the green abalone that the CNC'd ones were, and when the USFWS went overboard with the regulations regarding import/export of shell into and out of the US, I hand-cut my logos from maple until the CNC shop could cut them for me, from thin maple sheets I sent them. I still inlay every logo into the headplate here in my shop, so that I can still choose each and every headplate for every guitar. More often than not, I'll use an off-cut from the guitar's back as its headplate. This is an example of where CNC can cost you some of the 'edge' you have over the factories; your clients expect at least a little bit of YOU in your creation, and they love(trust me, I've been told time and time again!) knowing these little details we add to -their- instrument. It would be easier and more cost-effective to have the CNC shop inlay my logos for me into headplates they would supply, but I'd lose that one little detail. Then what's to stop me from losing another custom detail to a CNC at another point, then another, then it culminates in...., assembling parts made for me from wood not chosen by me or my client. What's the point there? My client may as well buy a factory-built guitar and skip the ten year wait period for one of mine, right? Right!
It's a tough row to hoe out there if you're going to try to compete against the big factories, so don't! Go one step further, a step they can't go to, and suddenly, the world will beat a path to your door.

[Andy Birko]

It's a tough row to hoe out there if you're going to try to compete against the big factories, so don't! Go one step further, a step they can't go to, and suddenly, the world will beat a path to your door.

As I'm sitting working on my parametric fan fret fretboard model I was thinking about this statement and you're totally correct. I'm now selling custom and semi-custom fretboards, bridges etc. made on my CNC machine. LMII can slot and single radius a board for $9. Probably takes them all of 3 minutes to do both operations. No way I could compete with that.

What they can't do is supply a custom scale, custom dimensioned faux-bound fretboard with a compound radius with customized inlay etc. at a fair price. On the other hand, I can

As I've said before, using a CNC machine to its fullest potential is as much of an art as learning to do inlay. One has to decide what's important to them and what they're trying to accomplish before buying tools. I'm sure that a lot of us started woodworking with TAS and then looked for projects to do with our newly acquired gadgets. Now that we're older and wiser we always advise folks to pick the project first and then acquire tools to achieve specific tasks.

I built banduras (and a guitar) with standard hand and power tools for over 10 years before I finally realized that I couldn't achieve my goals without resorting to CNC. The video Mario linked to is an operation that took hours on the drill press and always ended up with a few loose pins from the instrument moving. With CNC, I get it right the first time (although it turns out in this case I had a brain fart during the modeling which required me to drill 4 more holes on the drill press - the damn machine does EXACTLY what you tell it to). Imagine now if you had to drill not only 60 holes for tuning pins, but 25 corresponding holes for re-tune mechanism, 25 concentric holes for shafts, 60 perfectly holes for moving string nuts, 25 slots for other moving elements etc. etc. etc...

I bought the CNC machine to achieve those goals and I know now that I will be able to achieve it. In the process, I'm finding a number of other uses for it, mostly for contract work for others which is great - I get better with every project and I'm getting a loyal base of customers. I may have mentioned before but I get tremendous satisfaction from going from napkin sketch from a customer, to 3D model, to part in hand and for those who want that, they're very happy with the results.

I again wouldn't recommend going with CNC for a beginner. Honing my hand and standard power tool chops helps me tremendously with the programming aspect of the CNC. Figure out what you're going to do, then buy the tool to help you achieve it.

[Bob Hammond]

Here's a freedhand/computer-assisted lasercutter that may be in the Workshop of the Future:

http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/baudisch/ ... table.html