guitar neck

[woodman08]

has anyone machined out a neck on a cnc machine .
This would have to be a 3 dimension type cut .I have found most people purchase the neck and cnc the body.
i would like to try a neck,not sure just how to go about it.
For one thing you would need the 3d file

[luthier]

I've been doing this for a while. You need to get a 3d program. I chose Rhino as it seemed to be pretty popular. The nice thing about Rhino is that it will handle DXF and DwG files too. I downloaded the tutorials and then started to play with the various commands needed to create a neck. There is a tutorial on officialluthiersforum.com that is pretty useful. I start out with a perimeter of the neck and then build up from there. Once you have a handle of the commands it is pretty easy. The hardest part is creating the surfaces that blend together. While I'm sure that I could improve if I knew more about Rhino, I'm pretty happy with the way my necks are turning out.

[woodman08]

I use cut3d or aspire to create the gcode from the *.stl file,but there are no *.strl files out there for a neck.(i cannot create that type of file)
The guitar body is not a problem,i really would like to see if i could do a neck ,the only really tricky part is where the holes are as that part is at a bit of an angle

[luthier]

Rhino can save your drawing as an STL, DXF, DWG, and a myriad of other file types. I use MeshCam to convert the STL into the Gcode. You can download Rhino for free and it just has a limit on how many saves you can do....

[woodman08]

ok thanks ,think i have a trial copy of rhino on file ,will try it

[NB70]

I cut out a tele neck, using an STL file I downloaded. The project is described here:

Link: CNC guitar neck

[woodman08]

thanks very much ,iam going to try it

[woodman08]

I use cut3d or aspire from vetric and the question i have is how do i position the blank for the second cut,i was thinking on machining the top (rough then finished ) and then flip the blank and do the bottom cut (rough then finished) but when i say flip do you just roll it over so the neck is in the same position just on the backside.
Some 3d cuts the blank is reversed upside down.
guess trial and error will show this to work or not,hoping someone has done this

[luthier]

I've only done necks that have a separate fretboard. You should check out EHawley's thread on making a tele body and neck. It is at TDPRI.com. It shows how he milled a neck including showing the fixturing etc. I'd imagine if you used a wide enough blank and you make the centerline of the blank the centerline of the neck, you could just flip the blank and start from that same zero point again on the other side. I'd use some stop blocks to hold the rectangle in place with some doublesided tape. Obviously your drawings would have to line up too when you create the gcode. If you did a separate fretboard drawing you could change neck shapes without having to redo the whole drawing.