CAD file for archtop guitar plates

Questions about tools and jigs you want to buy/build/modify.
Post Reply
Brian Evans
Posts: 922
Joined: Sat Aug 30, 2014 8:26 am
Location: Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia

CAD file for archtop guitar plates

Post by Brian Evans »

Talking to my neighbour this morning, who runs a custom cabinet shop. Turns out he has a large CNC router and would be happy to rough out plates for me. In the general scheme of things, how is a CAD file for this sort of thing generated? I have seen, in industry, little pointer like things that automatically map a surface, and I've seen people drawing on a computer. What sort of thing is common amoung wood working CNC machines?
User avatar
Randolph Rhett
Posts: 349
Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2012 5:19 pm
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:

Re: CAD file for archtop guitar plates

Post by Randolph Rhett »

The usual path, if you are not already an industrial designer, is to hire someone who is and pay them to develop a CAD file to your specs. The probe generally is to help you measure existing plates to get those specs. People don’t generally rely on probes to generate a finalized surface.

There was a recent post over on OLF where someone hired a student who appears to have done a great job making him CAD files of plates he cut on his CNC machine. He didn’t say what he paid, and didn’t answer questions as to who the engineer in question was. But perhaps you could ask him directly. In general design engineers charge $150-200/hr, and I would expect this to be an 8-12 hr job (assuming you already had well defined specs).
Post Reply

Return to “Tools and Jigs”