I am a NEWBIE

[rsera]

Hi,
I am a NEWBIE here and I have a few questions.Someone I know said that if I wanted to use my cnc router to make guitars with it I would need a special program for this,so if yes which one and do I have to program every little detail like how deep to rout or stuff like that.How do I setup all the 0 points xyz and so on ,as you can see I am as about newb as it get and thanks for any help.

[balsaman]

You would need 3D cad skills and some CAM (computer aided machining) skills too to make a guitar body from a block that only requires sanding and finishing. If you dont mind doing some work manually, you only need 2D cad skills to cut out the body's basic shape.

E

[NeoMoses]

If you already have a CNC router and know how to use it, I see no special programs necessary to build a guitar. Simple 2D toolpaths should be all that are necessary. What CAD and CAM packages do you currently use? What type(s) of guitars are you wanting to build?

[rsera]

Hi guys,
thanks for the replies,I have some basic cad skills but no cam skills.
I have several proggies (autocad,bobcad,3dmax6,solidworks) and i dont mind doing some extra work.I am looking at builing a custom jem(Steve Vai) to my specs because thwere isnt one out there that suits my personal taste and I also want it for inlay work.

[ger21]

If you can model the body in MAX, you can export it as a .dxf and use MeshCAM ( http://www.robgrz.com ) to create the toolpaths for the machine to carve the body. Meshcam is free right now while in beta, but it works pretty good. Download it and play with it.

Gerry