Jazzmaster modeling in Solidworks

[XYZgnomon]

I have decided to make a Jazzmaster body model in Solidworks for my own enrichment. I have never modeled an electric guitar before, although I have extensive design experience.

I have had some problems sourcing good data to build the model from, though. There is a .STEP file on GrabCAD, but it has errors. There are a lot of PDF drawings floating around that look something like a Jazzmaster, but are missing just enough data to make them nice to look at but not useful for CAD. Then, there is Electric Herald, which I bought plans from today. It's only slightly a little more useful but is still not enough information, and I question some of the elements of the DXF. I don't have Adobe Illustrator, but I opened the AI file in Inkscape and it didn't have much useful info either, with only a single layer.

I am surely missing something, and I'd like to know if anyone here knows of a good engineering print of a Jazzmaster. Even more useful would be any insight you have in to HOW Leo Fender and his team drafted the Jazzmaster in the first place. I have to assume there are a number of tangent arcs whose centers are offset in X & Y from the bridge as the datum, since they almost certainly did this in pencil on a drafting table. I'll concede there may be the occasional spline from a French Curve, but again, that's the stuff I don't know.

I would bet the Warmoth guys are reading this and laughing at me, since they probably went through this themselves over the years.

 

[Re-Pete]

I admire your determination to try this.

Leo Fender & his crew were probably not very scientific as to try an engineering approach like you described, to get the offset design. More likely, he drew it roughly and told them to make it. He did actually get a Patent for that design btw. Gibson found that out when they introduced the Firebird.

I also wouldn't expect Aaron or anyone else at Warmoth to DM you with their program data for their machines!  :laughing7:

If this is your first guitar body, maybe start on a more simpler design first?  :icon_scratch:

 

[Rick]

Just buy one and take measurements.  Pete is right.  Fender was trial and error to get the shape he wanted.  He’d make something, get people to try it listen to them, respond etc.
I remember reading about Parker and stienberger being pretty scientific but even they had a fair amount of art.

 

[XYZgnomon]

Re-Pete and rick2,

I am specifically looking for the arrangement of all of the hard data points, like the neck pocket, the size and shape of the pickup routs, the distance between the neck pocket and the bridge, and stuff like that, using the center of the bridge as a datum. The actual body contour is important but I don't really care about that until the end. The problem is that there is virtually zero reliable data out there, or at least not all in one place.

One website or print might have a nice neck pocket spec, and another some thing else, etc. but nowhere has anyone (that I can find) put it all down in one place. Even Electric Herald, who sell DXFs and PDFs really don't have any actually usable data in their stuff. I will probably use their body contour as an inspiration, but the rest of their stuff isn't great, at least not for what I want to do.

 

[stratamania]

Perhaps this might be of help to you.

https://guitarsandwoods.com/guitar-and-bass-plans-jazzmaster-1620732737.html

 

[swarfrat]

No Solidworks experience but I am a novice at Freecad.

First thing I'd suggest for electric guitar bodies is - work from the template. Don't model things like roundovers. They should be a fillet applied to the solid. You want to extrude the from the router template sketch just as if you were making a body with a router from a paper template. Template -> Extrude -> Dress it up.

Even an undimensioned drawing can be helpful if you can get it staked down and measure establish X and Y scaling. Also - treat your pickup/cavity/bridge routes as a separate drawing/template just like going through the builder. It took me a little bit to get sketches into my head that it's not a drawing, it's a template for making one part. The plan with everything on it is a good paper reference, but in the end you'll end up with a lot of things like sketches with one hole, to make this part.

 

[XYZgnomon]

Perhaps this might be of help to you.

https://guitarsandwoods.com/guitar-and-bass-plans-jazzmaster-1620732737.html

It's a pretty picture, but there's no data there.

 

[stratamania]

Perhaps this might be of help to you.

https://guitarsandwoods.com/guitar-and-bass-plans-jazzmaster-1620732737.html

It's a pretty picture, but there's no data there.

Looks like it is blacked out to me. The purchased version would have the detail, perhaps contact them to check.

 

[swarfrat]

You can also just figure out the DPI from the scale length and snap your sketch onto the bitmap. If they were selling original art I wouldn't be comfortable doing that but they're selling a drawing ripped off from who knows where.

 

[XYZgnomon]

Perhaps this might be of help to you.

https://guitarsandwoods.com/guitar-and-bass-plans-jazzmaster-1620732737.html

It's a pretty picture, but there's no data there.

Looks like it is blacked out to me. The purchased version would have the detail, perhaps contact them to check.

I can tell from the blurry low-res image what it would have, and it appears to be along the lines of the same kind of offer from Electric Herald. I'm sure these are fine rough outlines for making manual jigs and fixtures that approximate a Jazzmaster, but it's not what I'm looking for. I have found that if there are PDFs or DXFs for sale, then they are almost certainly just outlines for printing out and either hanging on the wall as art or for gluing to a board and bandsaw-cutting it out.

FWIW, I knew people would kindly offer these sorts of links, and I genuinely appreciate it. There are technical differences between the commonly available decorative prints, a design patent or a technical drawing, and any number of terms near to those. From the outside, it's probably not easy to sort one from the other.

Again, thanks, but the search continues.

 

[XYZgnomon]

You can also just figure out the DPI from the scale length and snap your sketch onto the bitmap. If they were selling original art I wouldn't be comfortable doing that but they're selling a drawing ripped off from who knows where.

It was after trying this several times that I realized it was a dead end and asked for help here. These decorative prints just don't have enough information, and the accuracy is suspect; I would expect a pocket for the Jazzmaster pickup to be concentric to the pickup mounting tab, but that hasn't been the case in the prints I've seen and it's a red flag. The same goes for the neck pocket; I have found Adobe Illustrator files where the neck pocket profile does not match the neck profile. For a poster on the wall or for hand tools, none of that matters!

 

[XYZgnomon]

For clarity, here is an example of what I am actually looking for, but this is for a Stratocaster: WARNING: PDF DOWNLOAD LINK https://www.electricherald.com/diagrams/stratocaster/Fender-Stratocaster-62.pdf

With this drawing, I can accurately model a Stratocaster in Solidworks. However, I'm looking for a Jazzmaster. If you know of a similar engineering drawing of Jazzmaster, please link to it here! 

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Looks like you may have to be a trailblazer here. Get a Jazzmaster, take the measurements, build the diagram, and then share it with all of us here. Thanks in advance!

 

[DangerousR6]

Being a machinist, I've been into reverse engineering since the 90's, that actually lead to my little neck plate biz. So I've been into all kinds of cad software, I've used just about everything from Autocad to NX, and Solidworks is a good one. But I've always leaned towards Mastercam, mostly for the versatility of creating a model and being able to create tool paths all in the same software.

Anyway, I've had several guitar bodies made from my cad designs and they came out perfect. But I started with the neck pocket and pickup layout as my base. I did as someone mentioned, and took a body i had on hand and took some detailed measurements of the layout. Then thru Mastercam I imported a jpeg of the body and vectored it, mostly for the body outline. Then used the best dimensions I could find for OAL and OAW, and scaled the vector to fit my pup/neck pocket layout to the lengths and widths of the bodies.

These are two of the guitars I modeled first.

[/url]Billy Bo finished by DangerousR6, on Flickr

[/url]Krank n stein12 by DangerousR6, on Flickr

 

[XYZgnomon]

Being a machinist, I've been into reverse engineering since the 90's, that actually lead to my little neck plate biz. So I've been into all kinds of cad software, I've used just about everything from Autocad to NX, and Solidworks is a good one. But I've always leaned towards Mastercam, mostly for the versatility of creating a model and being able to create tool paths all in the same software.

Anyway, I've had several guitar bodies made from my cad designs and they came out perfect. But I started with the neck pocket and pickup layout as my base. I did as someone mentioned, and took a body i had on hand and took some detailed measurements of the layout. Then thru Mastercam I imported a jpeg of the body and vectored it, mostly for the body outline. Then used the best dimensions I could find for OAL and OAW, and scaled the vector to fit my pup/neck pocket layout to the lengths and widths of the bodies.

I actually learned to model in Mastercam in machine tech school, so I get where you're coming from.

Honestly, I didn't think it would be so difficult to find source material, although I knew I would get a lot of offers of help with PDFs and DXFs and stuff that looks like engineering data but isn't. The old me would have gotten into arguments with strangers online because they thought I didn't appreciate their help, when all they really did was the same Google search that I had done a thousand times. Today, I thank people for their help, which I genuinely appreciate.

I was just going over this:

It's from this project from https://hawkridgesys.com/blog/solidworks-pdf-3d-model:

[youtube]btDNHh01-hA[/youtube]

There are actually several dimensional inconsistencies in it, specifically with the bridge pickup rout, where Pythagoras disagrees with Leo Fender. I'm modeling it exactly how you suggested, which is how I found this problem so early in the process. Either way, it's not a Jazzmaster.

 

[DangerousR6]

I know what you mean about locating source material, I went the the same thing trying to find dimensions on Billy Bo, none to be had anywhere. So I improvised as best as I could. I was able to locate in my files a drawing I have with dimensions of the Jazz, you may already have it, but just in case here it is. I do have several pdf's with dimensions.

 

[stratamania]

I get that you have a Strat similar to what you are looking for and a Jazzmaster good enough for templates. Given a Jazzmaster is the same scale length and uses the same neck pocket as a Strat and the same body thickness etc I thought that might be enough for you to extrapolate enough data from each and for the rest design/model/improve it from there.

I see DangerousR6 has posted a JM drawing also with some dimensions.

 

[mayfly]

Nice drawing there Doug!

 

[Rick]

I always wondered where to put the strap button.  Now I know!

 

[DangerousR6]

Nice drawing there Doug!

:toothy12: