Luthiers using FreeCAD

[Mikele]

Nice !

I have not started the migration of the Body Part yet, compared with Fretboard+Neck the Body code is almost trivial But I wonder if users want some preview version without Body generation. I need to do a lot of work on the UI before releasing anything but I can just continue with the CAD code of the Body and work on the UI later or work on the UI now and on the Body later.

Hi Frank,

did anybody answer your question at all?
imho the neck is much more important to work on than the body.
A "simple" body is easiliy designed.

If I would receive a final solution for the neck first, I could final my project faster.
If I could make the perfect body first, I would have to wait longer for the neck solution.
Doesn't make sense to me.

If I'm new to it, I can deal with freecad for a while or I can work on the design of the body. Designing a body is a kind of another world. Pens, stencils, large drawings, a lot of imagination, real world measuring ...
A 1rst or long time luthier sometimes floats in imaginations.
To make this real with CAD and designung software is a great final step.

To be able to construct a neck with perfect transitions is wow!
To construct a body with perfect transitions may follow in the next step.

But the neck of those electric guitars is basic.

Cheers -
Michael

[mnesarco]

I have not started the migration of the Body Part yet, compared with Fretboard+Neck the Body code is almost trivial But I wonder if users want some preview version without Body generation. I need to do a lot of work on the UI before releasing anything but I can just continue with the CAD code of the Body and work on the UI later or work on the UI now and on the Body later.

Hi Frank,

did anybody answer your question at all?
imho the neck is much more important to work on than the body.
A "simple" body is easiliy designed.

If I would receive a final solution for the neck first, I could final my project faster.
If I could make the perfect body first, I would have to wait longer for the neck solution.
Doesn't make sense to me.

If I'm new to it, I can deal with freecad for a while or I can work on the design of the body. Designing a body is a kind of another world. Pens, stencils, large drawings, a lot of imagination, real world measuring ...
A 1rst or long time luthier sometimes floats in imaginations.
To make this real with CAD and designung software is a great final step.

To be able to construct a neck with perfect transitions is wow!
To construct a body with perfect transitions may follow in the next step.

But the neck of those electric guitars is basic.

Cheers -
Michael

Yes I think the same. I am working on UI things to release a preview version before christmas.

[Mikele]

This would be a great christmas present.

[Mikele]

Hi Frank,
how are you?
Hope your purpose is still present and you can make progress. Of course in all aspects of your life.
Best regards -
Michael

[mnesarco]

Hi Frank,
how are you?
Hope your purpose is still present and you can make progress. Of course in all aspects of your life.
Best regards -
Michael

Hi Michael, everything is going well. Thank you.

Some progress:

Screenshot from 2021-10-28 10-00-18.png (120.32 KiB) Viewed 2670 times

Screenshot from 2021-10-28 10-00-37.png (118.66 KiB) Viewed 2670 times

Screenshot from 2021-10-28 10-00-56.png (134.39 KiB) Viewed 2670 times

Screenshot from 2021-10-28 10-01-11.png (140 KiB) Viewed 2670 times

xmas is close.

[Mikele]

Frank, that's looking great!
I am almost overwhelmed.

Have a successful and enjoyable time.

[Mikele]

Hi Frank,
how are you?
Did I mention that I have 3D printed a kind of neck extension for a special project?
Everything worked out perfectly, although I have to say that it is a symmetrical object without complicated transitions. I didn't even need your workbench for this. But it turned out pretty perfect for me as it is my first project with FreeCad.
Freecad only did not want to do a few small things, e.g. individual bevels or roundings on any edges.

Because of the workbench: I know that you have to think about a lot when it comes to programming. Are you aware of all the necessary details in the sense of a Luthier?
The neckthrough version is probably more complex when I think of two body halves and pickup millings that go through the neck and the body.

Best regards -
Michael

[mnesarco]

Hi Frank,
how are you?
Did I mention that I have 3D printed a kind of neck extension for a special project?
Everything worked out perfectly, although I have to say that it is a symmetrical object without complicated transitions. I didn't even need your workbench for this. But it turned out pretty perfect for me as it is my first project with FreeCad.
Freecad only did not want to do a few small things, e.g. individual bevels or roundings on any edges.

Great.

Because of the workbench: I know that you have to think about a lot when it comes to programming. Are you aware of all the necessary details in the sense of a Luthier?
The neckthrough version is probably more complex when I think of two body halves and pickup millings that go through the neck and the body.

There are thousands of details in guitar making, and there are many variations in electric/acoustics guitars/basses/ukuleles/mandolines/... My goal is to provide a tool mainly for luthier apprentices and enthusiast that don't want to spend a life in cad software figuring out how to do a fretboard. When I built my first guitar I was overwhelmed with all the things to consider so I started the workbench to do some simulations before start making anything in real life.

One big problem is that luthiers are not CAD experts in general, so the language is quite strange. I want to provide a tool in luthier's language and not in CAD language. So we can adjust the fret number, scale, neck break angle, etc... instead of extrusions, boolean operations, nurbs, etc...

It is impossible to create a tool that cover all possible guitar designs without more advanced CAD tools, so the idea is that Marz Designer helps with a big part of the process for complex designs and if possible cover nearly 100% of the design of more standard designs similar to stratos or les pauls.

I have found that the neck geometry is the most problematic to do in FreeCAD because of limited surface tools, and because the problem is hard to generalize to support parametric designs with multiple asymmetries and custom profiles. In a neck (without even considering neck-thru) there are many complex things:

- Custom Heel geometry
- Neck Angle
- Headstock angle
- Custom Volute geometry
- Asymmetric profile section
- Asymmetric profile evolution from nut to heel
- Truss rod alignment and safe isolation
- Heel cut geometry (different from custom heel geometry)
- Pocket depth
- Custom headstock geometry
- Smooth transitions in between all sections...

The current MarzWorkbench for FreeCAD only contains my early ideas and solutions when i knew almost nothing about FreeCAD and OpenCascade , I have learned a lot of OpenCascade in the past two years and the current Marz Designer version (WIP) has nothing in common with the MarzWorkbench implementation.

I think I have finished the modeling part for bolt-on-necks and set-necks, But modeling is only a part of a whole application. Multithreading is also hard to get done right and C++ is not precisely a cooperative language (But I love it), there are also more aspects like application file format, cross compilation to support Linux/Windows/Mac, Installers for each platform, The plugin architecture to allow extensions, etc......

I work on all this things only few hours a month as a side project. I hope I will have something to release soon but it will imply a lot of support requests and i don't have time to attend that. So I want to release something stable enough to keep support tickets at minimum.

So, back to your question: I am myself a luthier apprentice, not an expert. This has been a journey and there is a lot to learn yet.

Frank.

[Mikele]

Frank, what a summary! Thank you.

I was a bit selfish and only thought about my electric basses. There are so many instruments ...
I am currently trying to find a company that can mill continuous necks for me. I reserve the right to design the body halves.
That's why I constructed such a neck as a test: just set the body thickness to 44 mm and the fretboard end margin to 350 mm. Even with the current workbench construction, the result would be so good that with a little bit of surface finishing, I think it would be a great result.

You are totally right, there are lots of things to do and to take into account.
I'll keep my fingers crossed that you can do everything the way you want it to be.
Trying to reduce the number of support requests to a minimum later is of course very smart.
Hopefully everything will work out with regard to the neck construction.

(Please do not forget the possibility of installing several truss rods. Or carbon reinforcements on the side of the truss rod, at a certain angle, not parallel. But you surely realize that.)

Wishing you much success and a good time.
All the best -
Michael

[mnesarco]

(Please do not forget the possibility of installing several truss rods. Or carbon reinforcements on the side of the truss rod, at a certain angle, not parallel. But you surely realize that.)

To keep it simple, I will keep only one main trussrod with parametric dimensions location and alignment, but for more advanced designs an svg file can be imported and carved from the neck (same method as headstock/body/inlay carving in the workbench)

Btw, all the parts created in MarzDesigner can be edited further in FreeCAD, and my plan is to have a dedicated workbench that connects the two to do advanced things in FreeCAD. I don't want to create a full CAD software. So for advanced things the workflow will be something like:

MarzDesigner -> FreeCAD -> CAM -> CNC

But also the idea is that everything can be exported to step files, so other CAD products can be used too, but for FreeCAD there will be a full seamless integration.

Cheers,
Frank.

Wishing you much success and a good time.
All the best -
Michael

Thank you. All the best to you too.