Inlay artist wants to jump into cnc

[1bordeaux]

Hi All,
I'm looking for advice purchasing a factory made cnc.
Any comments on the most recent Shopbot?
I'm a one man gang, cutting inlays and building guitars in a home shop.A friend in San Diego has an older Shopbot he uses for building instruments and said the newest version is much better.
comments?

Direction?

You can see what I cut by hand @ www.bordeauxinlay.com

thanks for the help.

[strat]

not sure about the retail units just wanted to say nice work and welcome aboard

[anoel]

Dude, Nice inlay work on your site.

I did my first cnc inlay a few weeks back. I hear nothing bad about Shopbot most owners seem pretty happy. But you might want to check out http://ww.K2CNC.com, IMO you'll get a better quality machine for about the same or less money and you'll not be stuck with proprietary software and controls.

[1bordeaux]

Thanks for the kind words!

I've been directed towards the techno-isel products to achieve the precision my craft demands.
It's quite an investment for a novice to CNC.
Can anyone offer alternatives with similar specs / components?
They also suggested Enroute as the software of choice for my 2D tool paths.

[anoel]

Techno-isel makes nice stuff but.... $$$$$

Honestly, Inlay is pretty light duty work for a Router. I did the inlays posted here on a homeade machine and the inlays and pockets are a perfect fit, read that as zero gap/no slop. My machine is no where near the build quality of A K2CNC, and it was not really taxing the machine at all. The K2CNC machines can have ball-screws and have excellent linear bearings and rigid frames, with Gecko and Servo options added... that'd be more than enough. And save you a TON.

While Enroute is probably a nice program. You can get the precision you need with just about any CAD package (I like Rhino3D) and for 2D Toolpaths SheetCAM can do the work you need. Enroute is +$2K.... alone. SheetCAM is just over $100. Did they tell you that you should buy ArtCAM too?

Are you looking to do complete instruments? or just inlay? I just want to make sure that you are not buying more than you need to. Do some more investigating before you commit.

[1bordeaux]

Nathan,

Thanks for the reply.
Look at my web site at www.bordeauxinlay.com to see some of my hand work.
i intend to use the machine for producing inlays and fingerboards, and eventually various guitar parts, including necks.
I have already turned down several orders for +500 logos because i did not have a cnc.
I want to assure accurracy and repeatability, since this is a full time venture,( or adventure)!

[ger21]

If your talking that kind of volume then you may be better off with a higher end machine. But you really need to do some research on the software, imo. Not necessarily because Enroute is so expensive, but because you need to make sure it will work for you. I'm not familiar with Enroute, but high-end software does have it's place. You just have to be very thorough in your research of it.

[1bordeaux]

The sales reps reasoning for that particular software was the ability to do 2D toolpaths easily, since I explained I wanted, of course, a simple introduction to getting up and running.
As I stated early in this post, I'm a newbie!
Please continue to give me alternatives; I'll take the plunge,(no pun intended),on the machine cost if it means not having enough precision /capabilities a year from now.

[ger21]

Will you be drawing your inlays in Enroute? Or drawing them somewhere else and importing them. If your drawing them somewhere else and importing, then I don't know if Enroute offers any features to make it worth the price. If you'll be drawing your inlays in Enroute, you should make sure you can do it easily and quickly.

[1bordeaux]

Hi Gerry,

According to the software info for Enroute, It offers a direct path between any sign layout program, including CASmate, Autocad,etc...

The sales rep said it would make it very easy to get started in cnc.

Advice? Comparable products?

[ger21]

What I'm trying to say is that if you're not drawing with Enroute, you can use something like sheetcam to create toolpaths for $150, vs $2K. What are you going to draw your inlays with? I don't want to try to steer you one way or another, just trying to help you to understand whats available. It seems to me like you really don't have a good understanding of what you're getting in to.

Basically, you're going to need to draw your inlays. Then you'll create pockets for the inlays, and cut out the actual inlays. Then the drawing is converted to g-code. Whether the conversion is handled by sheetcam, or enroute, the results will be similar. From looking at the website for Enroute, I don't see anything that it offers specific to inlays, and if all you'll be doing is inlays, then you won't use most of its features.

Download the demo of Sheetcam, and play around with it and see if it will work for you. You need to try stuff out. Just try to make sure you know what you're buying.

[1bordeaux]

Gerry,
I'll do that.
Do I understand correctly that I can scan line art and then move it to a program to create a tool path?