body shape

As you can see from my previous posts, the CNC machine was used for much more than originally intended. So as a next step it came naturally to also apply it to fine-tuning the body shape.

As CamBam isn’t really the best tool to draw Bezier curves, I resorted to good old Adobe Illustrator to draw the outline:

Although not trivial, this could then be exported as DXF and then imported into CamBam to base the toolpath on.

I had to order an extra long end mill tool to cut all the way down from 40mm height to ground (took a while too…)

This slope actually done manually:

The next design decision was not what I had planned (although one guitar maker had warned me when I bought the ziricote). The problem was that this slab of wood was darn heavy:

More than 50% above a standard Strat body:

So as I needed a lot of room for electronics anyway, I decided to cut pockets everywhere, turning this axe into a semi-acoustic (or maybe quarter-)

Much better now :)