Recommendations from Guitar Makers Required

While a lot of the upgrades may have adequate workarounds, I’d be lost without a z probe. It is a real hassle when you are trying to make accurate parts to get the tooling to sit on your material. The z probe is a time saver too. Guitars require a bit more accuracy than other woodworking tasks might require. As an example, you are working on a guitar top that is 1/8" thick and want to excavate rosette channels to a certain depth. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be, so sitting there trying to determine if the bit is within a few thousandths off the top can be a headache. One of the firsts things I did when I got my machine running is to find a zeroing macro in this forum and apply it to the x carve z probe. If you don’t buy the premade one I’d suggest you make one and learn how to use it.

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Thanks Martin -
I have the z-probe loaded in my cart ;). I think I’m set w/ what to buy save for the bit sets, and software… still doing some reading. It seems the ‘Carving Bit Super Pack’ would give me a good variety to start w/ and I’d need to source some fret slotting bits. Thanks again for the tips.

Mike

I think it would be remiss if I didn’t provide this opinion. I can’t speak to the superpak as I wouldn’t use half of them, but it appears that there isn’t a 3/16", or 1/4" straight bit in it. I’m sure the pak bits are great for engraving, but that’s a small part of luthiery. I can tell you you’ll want to get a couple bigger bits for hogging out cavities. The Dewalt certainly can handle a larger diameter. My go-to brand is Whiteside these days. You get what you pay for with router bits. Freud and CMT are my next level. In a pinch Lowes has bits, but they are just about the same price as the Whitesides 1/4" shank online. Check Amazon. I just “drilled” some holes for threaded inserts in my spoilboard today. It’s 1/2" plywood.

Marty.

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Hey gents -
Just wanted to share an update. My shopping list is pretty much dialled in with the addition of some .6mm fret slot bits I’ll pick up on eBay.

I’ve also downloaded the ‘hobbyist’ version of Fusion 360 and added the ‘post processor’ to the cloud.

I’d like to dive into a project in F360 (even better if it were a ground-up fretboard tutorial). Can anyone recommend some tutorials to get started? I’d like to emulate this:

But using F360 versus Rhino and GRZ as Highline is using. I’ve read a few forum posts here that indicate F360 streamlines the approach take in the video (using multiple programs).

Basically, I’m looking for a jumping off point / project to get my feet wet w/ F360 - guitar oriented is preferable but open to anything.

Thanks!
Mike

I’m not sure of your background, but here are some things to get you going. When you have questions, a lot of users here use Fusion 360.

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Maybe this will help in some way.

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This is great Neil - thanks for the resources. I’m about to pull trigger on the machine tonight. I’m excited but feel like I’m hitting that proverbial ‘big red’ button ;).

Thank you, Martin. I’ll give this a read.

This is a great tele build from start to finish using Fusion.

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This looks promising! Thanks Rich.