Guitar Building

[Kevin L. Waldron]

Just thought that I might share what we have been doing with our lasers and cncs. We have been busy and haven't had time to be active in replies but we have been reading and watching.

We are cutting the tops and backs with laser, sound hole and inlay on some materials, sides, fret board including fret layout, kerfing, logo on peg head, plastic bindings and all kinds of acrylic templates as well as rubber working guards and much more.

We haven't sold our first instrument yet, but we have only had 1 guitar finished for about a week. We have 30+ instruments going.

What we aren't cutting/engraving with the laser we are cutting or making with the cnc and lots of hand tools. It takes about 50 hours per instrument including finish. We are using uv-cured finish.

We have been busy putting all kinds of things into the computer for cutting and making not sure where all this will lead but so far it has been a joy. We have now about 20 guitars in 3d, violins, cello, basses, ukelele, banjo and several more. I'm not sure how others do their instruments but I know that we couldn't survive without our laser.

Kevin Waldron

[Kevin L. Waldron]

Sorry file was to large first time.

Kevin

[Kevin L. Waldron]

3D Rhino example

Kevin

[Bob Savage]

Very cool stuff, Kevin.

[Curt Stallings]

WoW! You don't mess around do ya. Got any idea what you're going to charge yet? That's outstanding!

Curt

[Anthony Scira]

But I cant get MOP or Alabam to cut for nothing. Leaves scorch marks and all. It does do some nice wood inlays though.

[Dee Gallo]

Nice work, Kevin! Something tells me you have a bit more knowledge in this field than "hey let's try to make a guitar!". Very ambitious!

:) dee

[Kevin L. Waldron]

We are going to be selling the basic guitar including case starting at $2800 (50 hours average per guitar) ; species material, the amount of inlay, along with the time will be the pricing criteria from there. Personally I like a plain guitar that sounds great. So far so good. We will be using some unusual woods like Osage Orange(Hedge Apple -Bo-Doc) and many others that make good luthier woods but few use because of availablity (we have our own sawmill and kiln). Our next step for marketing is to try and get some artist endorsements (we are close to Nashville) as well as get another web site up and running.

We like many others here, just didn't do well with lasering plaques when the economy went south and we tried to think out of the box. Hopefully "we have choosen wisely"(Indiana Jones) we will have our guitar web site up and running in two weeks Lord willing. We possibly may end up making many other instruments other than the guitar. Our plan is to start mandolin and violin next. We already have the acrylic templates cut along with all the other jigs and computer files necessary.

Thanks for the ecouragement. This has been our passion for the last 5 months and we are glad to finally have some finished instruments and be able to show others what the laser can do with the proper software and some hard work.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Kevin L. Waldron]

Anothony,

We have two Universal Lasers. We have HPDFO lens for both machines and have found that it will cut mother of pearl and other shell products nicely. Not sure if other manufactures have such a lense. You might check. They are pricey but worth the price in certain materials.

Dee,

Not new to wood working, I have been doing reproduction furniture for 38+ years. We have only had the laser for about 1 year. I don't think that I would have been anywhere close to the quality without the laser this fast. This was our first instrument. Although wood working has a lot of common things building these guitars was a challenge. I thought that I never would get through building jigs and fixtures and the likes. I would start the instrument by drawing a 2d cad drawing and then if we need 3d files for the cnc we then would proceed to draw them. From there I could make physical templates and jigs for marking, cutting, shaping or the like or if I could cut or engrave in the laser I would. I just don't think that I could have ever had the kind of accuracy that the laser offers if we had done this by hand. It has taken awhile to figure out how much power is enough to do a job or what materials I can't cut or how fast I can do a job or how do I do this or that. Time will tell if we choose the right path.

Thanks

Kevin

[Frank Corker]

Kevin, jealous of your work, they look absolutely amazing. I would love to do something like that, especially with the raw piece of wood, the areas for putting some good images/drawings on there would be amazing.

[Tom Bull]

Beautiful work!
I would definitely suggest you develop a great logo and engrave it on the inside where they usually have a paper label. Maybe have a place where custom built ones will have the customers name, etc in there too.
God bless you endeavors, the workman IS worthy of his hire.

[Anthony Scira]

As an amature luthier myself I must say the quality of work you are doing is amazing and has little to do with the lasers. It may be a tool to make it a little quicker, but your woodworking skills have way more to do with your end product than a laser.

And if Peck can answer the lens question that would be awesome.

[Jeanette Brewer]

Anthony,

Good news! Your Epilog Helix has the Radiance Optics included at NO CHARGE! All Mini24, Helix & EXT systems have this feature.

http://www.epiloglaser.com/legend_radiance.htm

[Mike Mackenzie]

Sorry Jeanette, the optics are not even close to being the same.

[Roy Brewer]

Sorry Jeanette, the optics are not even close to being the same.
Jeanette (who refuses to become technical) asked me to respond w/the difference. For all interested, Epilog's Radiance(TM) Optics have two corrective lenses whereas the ULS has one corrective lens. The functions of the corrective lenses are 1) To make the dot size smaller and rounder 2) to increase the coherency of the beam so that the energy applied to the product is extremely uniform across the engraving area.

The smaller dot size allows greater detail (very small letters for instance) and increased energy density to allow for direct metal marking without spray/brush chemicals before lazing. The smaller dot size along with the 2nd corrective lens is what allows Epilog to make the world famous Aztec calendar by the hundreds . Often I'm asked "which machine made the Aztec calendar?" The answer is: "I have no idea except it was done with a model that has Radiance Optics." These are made by filling the table with blanks knowing that samples from any part of the table will be the same.

I hate it that virtually all of the other laser manufacturers have pulled out of many/most of the trade shows. It was great for "head to head" comparison. Actually, I don't recall anyone ever coming out of the ULS booth showing us anything that had been done with the HPDFO that we couldn't duplicate with Radiance Optics. Technicalities aside, everything that can be said about the functionality &/or quality of any optics package (optional or included) can be easily verified in a price comparison or side-by-side comparison that doesn’t rely on the vagaries of “they aren’t even close.” That's why most of the seniors on this forum recommend that the seekers insist on hands on demonstrations with the files & materials to meet their applications.

[Mike Null]

Other than for a sample sent to me by ULS done with the fancy lens set up I have seen no samples by either but as far as marking metal I can do that with the standard 2" lens in my Trotec Speedy 300.

I'm not suggesting that it's better or even equal to the Epilog and ULS but besides marking stainless steel without chemicals (slow) I could match the sample engraving on laminated plastic that ULS sent.

[Anthony Scira]

What thickness of alabam are you cutting out of curiousity? I can cut the really thin stuff from Laserbits with no charring. But its not really a quality guitar inlay. The white MOP (mother of pearl) discolors on the edges making it useless.

[Kevin L. Waldron]

Anothony,

Regularly cut .075" mother of pearl. I haven't tried cutting beyond .125" which appears to be close to the maximun. The mop will chalk more than yellow with the HPDFO lens but it will also yellow. (We do have 150 watts one machine and 60 watts other machine)

We really have more trouble cutting ebony 1/4"-1/2" I suspect it is because of the oil in the wood. The ebony will char on multi-passes and just seems to turn into a burnt wood charcoal. We tried originally to cut the sound hole rossetts with the laser (inlay) but because of the radii in the Sitka it would not cut consistantly and we had to abandon this method. We do cut the sound hole out with the laser.

If you want more specifics let me know and I will be glad to share. We have now cut and engraved a lot of different exotics for the instruments along with all kinds of acrylic,acetate, and polycarbonates. ( poly/lexan will cut, if thin enough, on the laser fairly well .010 -.1875 it will yellow slightly on the edge. We also found that you need to leave the covering on both sides.)

Kevin