Banjo Neck Model

[robinsoncr]

Hi,

Does anyone have a drawing or 3d model of a banjo neck? I have a customer that has inquired if I could machine them on the cnc. I have very little knowledge of how a banjo neck is designed. I'd like to get up to speed before I try to model his.

Thanks,
Chris Robinson

[turmite]

Hi Chris,

Go to www.mimf.com and poke around there. You will have to join to have access to all the files but there may be a print available for a banjo there. Not a model, but it's a start.

Mike

[robinsoncr]

Thanks Mike, I'd forgotten all about that site!

Later,

Chris

[NardisAmps]

Hey Chris, I thought you were on the road with The Black Crowes??

[robinsoncr]

I gave up the weed and road to make cabinets and guitar parts!

Ha, ha ha. That gets me every time!

Chris

[robinsoncr]

Would it be better to model the neck from scratch or have one digitized by a scanner?

Chris

[LiquidGuitars]

I think you get better results by hand modeling a neck or body somtimes.

LG

[turmite]

Chris it will be tons faster to have the neck laser scanned, and I can tell you where to get the best price.........but as LG said, you actually get a better model if you can model it and especially if you model it in Rhino. I had a guy that posted here on the zone scan a set of bullseye target grips for me. He provided me a nice model that had tons of little tiny triangles in it. It machined nicely but it took me three attemps to get it to load in Rhino and only then by using a 50% version of the scan. Admittedly I have an archaic pc that needs badly to be replaced........but $$$ are tight and I have to make do a while longer. That banjo neck would be at least 3-4 times as large as my grip file was.

Do you have a probe digitizer? You could probe a few critical parts of the neck and import that into Rhino and have a model pretty quickly.

If I can be of assistance let me know. I do have a digitizing probe!

Mike

ps did you ever get your file figured out? Did you see the two elevated sections of curves and tool paths?

[robinsoncr]

Hey Mike,

I'd like to learn how to model this neck. It's more complex than the strat style necks I've been modeling. I think it's the volute where the back of the neck transitions to the angled headstock that is intimidating me. I've been trying to talk my wife (aka Business Manager) into letting me buy a NextEngine laser scanner, but so far, it's a no-go.

A while back, I emailed the guy you had used for scanning but he never returned my email.

Regarding the toolpaths, I saw where the two vertical rows are elevated but I don't have an explaination. I'm going to play with it when I get more time.

Later,
Chris

[spoiledbrat]

If you are willing to send 2D views of this banjo neck, I would be glad to model this neck for you in Rhino 4. No strings attached.

I do have a Nextengine scanner, but I agree with turmite. Rhino will create a better machining surface.

[turmite]

Hey brat, can I just call you brat? Since you have a scanner I would like to ask you a question.

Can you use the scanner to just shoot a single scan say every .250" down the length of this neck and then use those points that are recorded to create curves to make a surface from in Rhino? I'm trying to figure out a way to obtain as few points as possible but enough to make the curves so I can then model the part. Not necessarily the neck but anything would work for an example.

Mike

[ger21]

Mike, I was thinking about something like that this morning. Why not use the Mach3 digitising wizard, with the appropriate stepovers, to create curves like you want. Then use Rhinoscript or something to extract create the curves. I know it's not as fast as you'd like, but it should work. The reason I was thinking about this, is that I already wrote a macro for AutoCAD to create a mesh form Mach3's point cloud, and it would probably be better for large models to just create splines and loft them. Man, if I could just find the time to get my router running.