3D Carving in Plastic

[Jim Becker]

Yea, I do like cutting it. I even used some thick scrap to cut a prototype for a (bass) guitar project I'm currently working on.

IMG_E8474.jpg

[Mark Bolton]

How thick of material do you need?

[Brad Shipton]

Anything larger than 1"x12"x12" would work for now. It is likely I will need to make one larger one if they decide. I will probably get the full sheet.

Jim, is that your guitar or for someone?

[Jim Becker]

Jim, is that your guitar or for someone?

I'm building them for fun at the moment to learn, but may eventually take some commissions if anyone is willing to actually pay for the hard work. It's tough because there are some real decent sounding instruments on the market for far less than my material and component costs.

[Grant Wilkinson]

I'm very late to this party and very new to CNC. First, though, great work on the guitar, Jim.

I had not heard of HDU before this thread, but I've carved quite a bit of corian since I can get offcuts from a local cabinet shop. I've had success using an o flute bit to do the rough carve, then a tapered ball nose for the final pass. There are virtually no tool marks. I've used this process then used mold release to create figures using poured resin and the results are very good. (I hope this is at least a bit relevant. ) I've had some luck doing the same process, using pink foam insulation. After the carve, I use a heat gun to smooth things out, then spray with a dewaxed shellac before pouring the resin. My first couple of tries, I used too much heat and lost too much of the fine detail, but I'm improving.

[Brad Shipton]

Thanks for your input Grant.

Do you play Jim? I could see it being a real treat to play your own instrument. It seems a huge challenge to undertake if you do not play. I have 0% musical talent, so I would not know where to start. If you have not seen Carmine Street Guitars on HBO, I highly recommend it. He is an interesting character and it shows his love of woodwork, a little history of old NY bldgs, and music.

It turns out a relative works at a place that makes large scale displays all over the world. They may have some HDU off cuts from a Disney project.

[Jim Becker]

Do you play Jim? I could see it being a real treat to play your own instrument. It seems a huge challenge to undertake if you do not play. I have 0% musical talent, so I would not know where to start. If you have not seen Carmine Street Guitars on HBO, I highly recommend it. He is an interesting character and it shows his love of woodwork, a little history of old NY bldgs, and music.

I have been a musician since age 4...but primarily a keyboard player. At two times in my life, I played bass and guitar respectively, because "somebody had to do it". So I picked up an instrument and did what was necessary. For the bass, the summer band I helped found during my college years had another keyboard player who was also the singer. I did some key work but primarily played bass. In the mid-1980s, I was practicing with a (very good) local cover band as their keyboard player, but one set was primarily Pretenders stuff and needed a second git-fiddle rather than keys. So I traded an uber-heavy Fender Rhodes electric piano for a very nice Kramer aluminum horseshoe neck guitar and did the deed. Sadly, the project broke up when we couldn't keep a lead singer engaged. Every single one (and they were all excellent vocalists) turned out to have substance abuse issues. I enjoyed that whole time a lot and was sad we fell short just before we began to schedule into local clubs.

At the present time, I have difficulty "playing playing" these stringed instruments because of the wrist surgery I had a few years ago on my left side. But I'm still enjoying it immensely. There are some threads in the Musical Instruments section of SMC that I posted by builds in.

It turns out a relative works at a place that makes large scale displays all over the world. They may have some HDU off cuts from a Disney project.

If so, grab all you can handle...you will enjoy working with it, whether it's for the project you have at-hand or for other things.