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X-carve

DarkPenguin

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Thinking of buying an X-carve by inventables.  Anyone tried to use a hobbiest milling machine to carve a guitar before?

I'm pretty sure it can't do the neck but I'm not sure about that.
 
I've never seen one before, but it does look like it would work really well.

And the price is reasonable compared to  some I've seen.

Please keep us posted.

https://www.inventables.com/technologies/x-carve
 
DarkPenguin said:
Thinking of buying an X-carve by inventables.  Anyone tried to use a hobbiest milling machine to carve a guitar before?

I'm pretty sure it can't do the neck but I'm not sure about that.

I think it may depend on what you mean by "carve a guitar", and how much time you want to spend. Roughing out a body is not a trivial task and I seriously doubt the thing has the horsies to do that. It looks like it's more for doing decorative work. Y'know - engrave a flower/skull/logo here and there and what have you. If you look around YouTube you can find some videos of body/neck cutter mills and they're pretty substantial pieces of gear. I mean, if it was easy, we'd hire girl scouts, right? The Warmoth's of the world would go out of business. But, real CNC mills that are accurate, repeatable and will last more than a minute are pretty damned expensive. I'm a fool for a good tool but I still job out CNC work.
 
Point taken.  I think it depends a bit what router I get for it.  I suspect the bosch would do well.  I'm waffling about buying it for other purposes but if I can mill a guitar out if it...  I'll probably buy it and stuff a cutting board in there and see if I can grind a guitar body out of it.

Might just make a CNC for the same money.  Solsylva plans are pretty detailed and make a fine device.
 
Bosch makes some very good tools and are highly recommended. But, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. By that I mean, shuffling a bigger cutting tool around an x/y/z axis requires bigger servos and bigger servo controllers. The software to control such things doesn't change much, but the hardware certainly does. That's why you don't see too many guys with that kind of tool in the shop. It can get stupid expensive. Unless you're in production mode where the tool is turning out product relentlessly, it's really tough to justify.

There are some machines out there you can get in the $5K range that will do what you ask, but you usually have to add the computer and software after the fact. So, figure another $3K or so. On the plus side, you can make bodies/necks for next to nothing, relative to what you'd pay for retail suppliers like Warmoth, USACG, Mighty MIte, et al.  So, if you think you have a market, it's a good investment.
 
If interested in making guitar bodies, a router would be the best option. Which is what the x-carve is but as Cagey suggested I doubt it has the stones to machine a body. You would need something like the Laguna IQ router..
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Hmmm...  Would be for a single body (probably)...  Ah, well, I'll probably still buy one but my other uses would not need the 1Mx1M (800mmx800mm cutting area) bed so I could get by cheaper.
 
One of the things I've learned over the years is that when it comes to tools, it only costs a little more to go first-class and you're rarely sorry. Also, buy more tool than you need. Oddly enough, you always need it.

Problem is you don't know it until you break the damned thing or screw something up, then you have to buy the right thing on top of what you already bought. Makes the right tool even more expensive. Just skip the first step, and do it right.
 
Aren't most of the home CNC guitar builders using ShopBots?  If you have a TechShop near you, they'll have one you can use for free...well, with a membership.
 
Wolfie351 said:
Aren't most of the home CNC guitar builders using ShopBots?  If you have a TechShop near you, they'll have one you can use for free...well, with a membership.
Never heard of shopbots, but I'm sure there are hundreds of CNC routers out there to choose from. And I've definitely never heard of a shop that will let you use their equipment for free..

But I do know Laguna machines, they've been around for a long time. The shop I previously worked in had a couple Laguna mills that were in the shop for over 25 yrs, and we worked the hell out of them and they would just keep on going...
 
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