3D Printing

[Chalks]

Hey guys 'n' girls.

I am sure you all know about 3D printing. It has been around for years now. Here is a link http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... sfeed=true

Does anybody really think it will change guitar building?

Greg

[Nick]

Does anybody really think it will change guitar building?

Greg

Don't think it will change guitar building at all, all plastic guitars have been done before and I can not see any evidence that those took over the world. Obviously that guitar was made on a high level printer but I have access to a benchtop model & to get any sort of decent finish requires alot of additional finishing work. They have their uses but I can't see them 'revolutionizing' anything really, a tad of journalistic freedom was used in that article i suspect "Pundits say the technology ushers in a manufacturing revolution", it's just another tool used in manufacturing IMHO. I think us wooden guitar makers can breathe easy for some time to come yet .

[kiwigeo]

I use tools not toys

[Paul B]

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

[kiwigeo]

I'm a cynic. Out on my job I have a bunch of guys whos job is keeping a running graphical log of geological and drilling data as we drill a well. In the old days this was hand drawn on sepia with Rotring pens. Whenever a print was required the sepia went into a tube full of ammonia along with some photo sensitive paper and within 5 minutes you had a print.

Now it's all done on a printer off a computer database. By the time the guys have sorted out software bugs (and/or how to use the software as well), found the spare cartridges for the printer and then spent 30 minutes printing out the log (can only do half a page at a time on an ink jet) the whole process has taken the best part of an hour.

[woodrat]

Now it's all done on a printer off a computer database. By the time the guys have sorted out software bugs (and/or how to use the software as well), found the spare cartridges for the printer and then spent 30 minutes printing out the log (can only do half a page at a time on an ink jet) the whole process has taken the best part of an hour.

Martin...thats the Hate part of our Love/Hate relationship with computers....

John

[charangohabsburg]

Now it's all done on a printer off a computer database. By the time the guys have sorted out software bugs (and/or how to use the software as well), found the spare cartridges for the printer and then spent 30 minutes printing out the log (can only do half a page at a time on an ink jet) the whole process has taken the best part of an hour.

Martin...thats the Hate part of our Love/Hate relationship with computers....

John

Having first only read the quoted part of Martin's post I almost thought that Martin's preferred wood provider (the only one who still could keep up with Martin's acquisition pace) would now print out Tiger Myrtle, Blackwood and Spruce logs!

[needsmorecowbel]

Has anyone seen any good pyrography on guitars? I saw the above link for 3D guitars when looking for pics of pyrographed guitars. I was thinking it could be an interesting way of doing a sunburst without spraying a sunburst finish albeit time consuming and unnecessary. Most of the stuff I have found is just crappy pictures of jesus...

[Chalks]

Sorry I have been away for a while.

I don't personally think this type of thing is ever going to replace the fundamental qualities of wood or anything like that. It may not even revolutionise the craft. But, maybe one of you really creative artisans out there that have a really great idea for a tool, fixture, part, whatever but to make it it is prohibitively difficult or even impossible. Well it may well be able to be done now. Different materials, from various metals like titaniums to plastics to metal plastic composites. Crazy! What you looked at was just gimicky IMO. See http://www.google.com.au/search?q=3ds&h ... 76&bih=812 and for home machines it is getting a lot cheaper now.
Ya neva no.

Chalks

[Nick]

But, maybe one of you really creative artisans out there that have a really great idea for a tool, fixture, part, whatever but to make it it is prohibitively difficult or even impossible. Well it may well be able to be done now. Different materials, from various metals like titaniums to plastics to metal plastic composites.

The types of plastics that these printers use are fairly limited at this early stage but they already have a plastic that can be used in a 'lost wax' form of casting ,in that a male copy of the part is printed that is then put in the middle of casting sand, the sand is heated & the plastic melts away leaving a perfectly formed pocket in the sand for metal to be poured in. This is really useful in making cast parts that aren't available anymore infact this is where I first saw 3D printers being used, Jay Leno loves his old cars & had a rocker arm off of one of his old bangers that was broken in half & he couldn't get one off the shelf so he had the arm glued together then scanned by a 3D scanner which fed that info into the printer which in turn made a perfect replica, this was then used as the pattern for the mold. He has a limitless supply of old rocker arms now I recently used one to replicate a 'knob' off of one of our centrifuges, the machine was so old the suppliers didn't carry spares for it so I just re modelled the knob in Autodesk Inventor (3D CAD) then fed the model into the printer's software & a half hour later I had a new knob to breathe new life into the centrifuge. So it has practical uses in the world but it's just another manufacturing tool & hardly going to revolutionise the world around us.

[Chalks]

Hey Nick. This subject is a little off this forum, but the type of thing everybody knows as 3D printing is kind of old hat. It has really evolved over the last 8 or 10 years. It is really more accuarately known as additive manufacturing as opposed to traditional subtractive manufacturing. Leno printing a plastic part for a lost wax casting just doesn't happen now. There are plenty of high performance parts that are made by additive process such as laser sintering, eletron beam melting, etc and they are all loosley termed 3D printing. Landing gear for aircraft being so-called printed directly from CAD data with little post processing. There is even talk of 3D printed organics like body parts being done soonish. It probably will not revolutionise fine hand made instuments, but it is causing a revolution in manufacturing low volume high value extremely difficult to manufacture parts and products.
But anyway we are here to talk about the beauty of wood and fine instruments. If it could print a beer I think I'd shout.

Chalks

[Clancy]

Went to the Brick Expo (ie:Lego) and saw this piece of 'additive manufacturing'.

I think my son prefers it to anything that's come out of my workshop

140720122519 (Medium).jpg (50.19 KiB) Viewed 16550 times

I wonder what bracing they used?

[J.F. Custom]

Hmmm.

Now that is strange - an 11th fret to body join ?



Jeremy.

[Chalks]

Now here I was thinking it was a gimick and that it was probably something that would struggle in this conservative world of luthiery.

Chalks

[charangohabsburg]

Hey guys 'n' girls.

I am sure you all know about 3D printing. It has been around for years now. Here is a link http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... sfeed=true

Does anybody really think it will change guitar building?

Greg

I had to dig this one out...

Obviously, today 3D-printing guitars, guns and gimmicks is cold coffee. Now they print houses.

[simso]

Well its not really printing a house,

Its printing things like large lego blocks capable of making a house with, I cannot see how that could possibly be cheaper or more time saving to justify the machine required to do the job, Personally I think its just a novelty thing.

[charangohabsburg]

Of course you are right Steve. I am not an expert on building houses, and like you I can not really see a great advantage of 3D-printing large bricks, except than they can say now they were the first who 3D-printed houses and, of course that they claim this method to be cheaper and potentially more environmental friendly. However, I would prefer a wooden hut over a 3D-printed house, and the same goes for guitars (of course ). But well, some Chinese may think differently.

[simso]

They truly are in a world of there own

[Dennis Leahy]

Well its not really printing a house,

Its printing things like large lego blocks capable of making a house with, I cannot see how that could possibly be cheaper or more time saving to justify the machine required to do the job, Personally I think its just a novelty thing.

In the world of lutherie, I could see some sort of "printed composite" necks becoming accepted - but I hope not the acoustic bodies (a la Rainsong.) I think most every guitar lover on the planet would have to die and a new generation born that might see composite/plastic acoustic guitars as desirable.

I do think the 3D housing/architecture thing is going to take off in a BIG way:



Dennis

[simso]

Yes well, there are people who love ovations