By doable guitar pieces do you mean castable metal bits? Your machine is a little small for being able to handle the wood, but as a jeweler, making precious metal knobs, tuners, plates, bridges, etc. should be easily done and quite lucrative.
I have done this in my area for custom instruments, as well as guns and motorcycle bits. There is not much interest in instruments in my area - but from the response I have gotten here, the response in your area should be completely unhinged INSANE. Especially after you do one for someone famous, which inevitably happens pretty fast.
I use a Model Master myself, and have some of these parts already designed, so I can easily just toolpath 'em for your machine for the ones I have done already. I could even do new designs to order if you like and could pay something for my time.
One secret use I have found for the Model Master is inlay. Luthiers don't believe it til they've seen it, but make some samples and you will make professional inlay folks cry first try. Literally. You can make a criminally stupid amount of money for not much work - hell, you could probably make an easy career and retire early out of just this alone in your area.
Try using a profile bit - tip size doesn't matter as long as it is pretty wide, or better yet to practice just resharpen and square up a bit you've dulled or nicked already. Included angle doesn't matter either, I use 20 degrees.
Try taking a hardwood block to start, or an old guitar fingerboard, and cut inlay shapes. Most guys do circles, squares, rectangles, or perhaps even trapeziods for a reason. Anything else (particularly with inside curves) tends to break or be impossible to cut the inlay pieces for without many, many tries. It is extremely skilled, arduous work.
In our case, take something like standard plastic mother-of-pearl inlay sheet and cut out your desired shapes REVERSED, sheet face down. You are cutting them from behind, as it were. Use another plastic sheet underneath to prevent going into the table, as you do need to cut through, and double-face tape your workpiece down. You can use small tabs if you have to.
Now mill the same shape, not reversed of course, into the wood. Leave it a touch shallower than the inlay material thickness so it can be sanded flush by the luthier. Make sure to leave it a couple thousandths larger so your piece fits, and DEFINITELY groove/corrugate the bottom of each cut so there is a place for glue. Otherwise your piece will fit so tight any glue will interfere with the fit and crack it.
The reason for cutting the inlay backwards is that the included angle of the bit means the piece is undercut slightly, and incidentally at the same angle as the pocket. This is a side effect we naturally get, but is one of the most demanding things to get right doing it by hand!
My first sample piece had a number of shapes, including a progression series of very complicated .75 x .5 inch mother-of-pearl unicorns, each with a slightly different pose on each fret. The headstock inlay was a very narrow sweeping cursive script of the name of the couple who owned the store, done in one piece. That is just as easy for you and I to do as simple squares! Although it was only my first try and wanted to get thier opinion on what could be improved, I got (nicely) run out of the store instead. The husband of the team was truly impressed and thought it incredible. He covered it up and asked me not to show it to his wife or others around the shop, however. Seems his wife had spent 30+ years perfecting hand inlay, and had a reputation as a master at it, but he said she couldn't do anything close to what I had shown him. Said she would be devastated, inconsolable. Especially if she had known I could turn inlay out like that in an hour or two.
Just make sure to charge at least 5 times what you think it's worth, 'cause that will still be cheap compared to hand inlay. Try this, and in your area you'll easily make a million bucks in short time. If you do, you owe me a sports car, though....
Get in touch with me if you want some toolpaths, or to hire me to model some new parts. Besides, if you do, I can give you a couple of even more lucrative secrets you can use in that area that I don't want to be public, as I am currently using 'em my area too...
02-17-2007, 06:49 AM
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