This may have been discussed before but I can’t find it.
I am a bass guitar builder and I’m looking to see if I can get by with the Woodworker. I need finished dimension of 32" for my necks. Can the Woodworker provide this?
the working area is about 32.5"x32.5" with about 36" between the rails. A 32" bass neck would be pushing the limits of the working area when you consider many tool paths will go outside that length - to cut contour around the neck would add 2x the thickness of the tool you’re using. I have personally built a few bass necks on the woodworker by either tiling them along the Y axis or putting the stock in the woodworker diagonally. That being said I have ordered the upgrade to the Journeyman to speed up this process.
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Using the ole Pythagorean theorem says you can get around 45” on the diagonal.
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I have thought about this, but I’m new to CNC so I’m not sure how to go about this.
Michael, can you provide some insight as to what this process would be?
A neck blank is generally 4-5 inches wide it’s not quite a working length of 45 inches, I generally stay under 40 inches and I’ve not had any issues. Basically you rotate your design in whatever CAD program you choose to use and then create your toolpaths based on that.
Many of the necks I create have an angled headstock which is carved separately so I generally end up carving the neck along the y axis with the angled headstock overhanging the wasteboard.
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Hi Brandon, Depending on the software you use to define your tool path, most should work the same fundamentally, you would do your layout from corner to corner (diagonally) instead along a single axis (X or Y). Then when you mount your work piece you would align to the diagonal.
Draw a line from front left to rear right for instance and set up along that line.
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Thanks for this. My headstock are flat so it should work by angling the blank and tool path.
Because I’m new to this I was trying to use Easel. I’ve drawn my designs in AutoCAD and imported the DXF into Easel. I can’t find a way to rotate the material in Easel, so I’m thinking I need to move to a different software to layout for tool paths. If you know a way in Easel I’d like to know. I may just invest time in learning Fusion unless there’s a simpler software you know will work.
Thanks for all the help
Can you rotate in AutoCad before you export? If Easel wants an X or Y axis as a datum, draw a rectangle around your intended tool path before you export. Then do not carve the rectangle only the path inside the rect.
I think I have figured out how i will layout my tool paths on a 32x32 spoil board. Brackets to align the neck blank and corner alignment things for 2 body blanks.
I think this should work. Obviously I would not be able to mill a body and neck at the same time with this layout but I can do 2 bodies at the same time.
What do you think? Do you see any issues with this idea?
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Looks like you nailed it!
Now that I have my tool paths figured out without the machine, it’s time to place my order.