I’m excited to share my Taylor T3/B inspired built. Before we go into details… pics!
This guitar features a mahogany/walnut body, flame maple top, walnut neck, and ebony fingerboard. I used an X-Carve 1000mm for all body/top carving, hogging out the body. cutting out the neck/fretboard, marking fret slots, and cutting inlays. Obviously a ton of non-CNC work as well (headstock scarf joint, sanding, binding, scraping, fret sawing, etc).
I actually cut out the neck first so I could visualize the final guitar:
After sawing fret slots and working out the inlays:
Hogged out the body and testing the top before cutting out and sanding:
Cut out and ready to start the real magic!
Fretboard cleaned up:
Binding applied, final test before electronics setup and glue-up:
CLAMPS!
Stringing it up for the first time to see how bad the frets needed leveling. Spoiler alert: really bad.
About 6 coats of General Finishes Arm-R-Seal Urethane
And finally… my dad taking her for a spin! As silly as it sounds… I actually can’t play 
8 Likes
Amazing. Very nice indeed.
Really nice project 
I can also relate, dont play the guitar but nevertheless aspire to make one 
Great build!! Can you tell me what software you designed it in? I’m a luthier. I just purchased an x-Carve and have no idea where to start. Easel Pro doesn’t seem to be the ticket for something like this.
Hi @Nathaniel1! I used Adobe Illustrator almost exclusively to design this. There weren’t any STLs or even blueprints I could find for the T3 or T5, so I used pictures of the Taylor T3 + dimensions from their site, and a fret spacing calculator for their scale length. It was a bit of a pain but worked out really well. The Illustrator SVGs were then loaded into CNCjs or sometimes into Easel Pro for churning out the pieces, parts, holes, etc. as needed.
Inkscape is a free alternative to Illustrator. I used that here and there as well for quick fixes.
Just my 2 cents after cncing guitars for about 15 years. Get yourself some 3d cad software. Most folks these days go with fusion360. I learned on Rhino3d, so I’m biased to that. You can do a lot with 2d, but if you want to carve necks and guitar tops then 3d is a must. I can’t speak for Fusion, but Rhino saves as a DXF or STL. For Gcode I convert 2d in Cambam and for 3d I use Meshcam. Both save as Gcode which can be opened in Easel or my preference, UGS. I routinely make fretboards, bodies, and carve necks. Once you get the hang of the software it’s a piece of cake. This German site has plenty of drawings of popular guitars. Stencils and drawings - GitarreBassBau.de
Thanks Martin,
This is great advice. I’ve bought a Udemy class covering Fusion360. I hope it’s not too hard to pick up.
Thank you for sharing your process. It looks awesome!!!
