LeftyBassist.com

here's the first wood body cut on the new CNC ... and it's a 2-piece Alder body 5-string lefty with a single P pickup. here's a few images to wet your appetite













this one will be on display at the Jan 2012 NAMM Show. it's going to get a Maple/Rosewood neck. the body finish and pickguard colors are still TBD

all the best,

R

how many minutes did it take for your CNC to do the actual cutting (non-inclusive of Barney-time) of the wood?

cutter run time excluding weeks of CAD work, tool path development, tool path editing, CAD revisions, cutter tool changes during the body exhuming out of the blank, etc ... was a tad bit under 90 minutes. despite what it may look like in the images, there's still a lot of hand tool finessing remaining to be done before the body is ready for detail sanding and paint

I'm excited to validate that I'll be able to significantly shorten my start to finish time on new builds, which should allow me to increase the number of builds I can accomplish per year. this will help me keep my pricing stable unless raw materials start to climb

next on my dream list is enough build quantities to justify purchasing a tool changer and NC controlled variable speed spindle. the spindle will allow me to utilize a tool changer, and the tool changer will allow me to have each cutter I use loaded into a tool holder so I can programatically make tool changes instead of stopping the system for 10ish minutes so I can swap out cutters, reset the z-depth, load new gcode, send the cutter head to referential, and then initiate the next cutting process. the spindle and changer upgrade costs more than what I spent on my used CNC plus all the CAD/CAM combined ... it'll be a while before I can take that plunge (pun intended)

all the best,

R

Oh nice. A PBass 5 strings. Good pick. Would you consider a PJ design eventually? I love that.

the PJ configuration is already done (as are several others including a J/MM), I just chose not to cut the J pickup on this one

I've designed a complete libraray of standard pickup sizes in CAD. I have them all positioned so that they are referenced to their placement for a given scale (including 60's and 70's J-bass bridge pickup locations) ... to use a configuration I simply turn on that pickup configuration layer and select the geometry when I define my tool paths for a configuration. once the tool paths are verified as golden, additional bodies of the same configuration simply require re-running of the tool path code

all the best,

R

Nice,

Thanks for the infos

well I just unexpectedly received an extra NTS 5-string J-style bridge pickup in my latest Nordy order (paid for, not a freebie), so this bass might end up becoming a P/J since I have no other plan for this J bridge pickup at the moment

good thing the shipment didn't come on Monday instead of today (Sat), else this body would already have been off to the paint shop and I'd have a J pickup sittin around with nowhere to go

all the best,

R

Very Cool. That will add some more tonal options for those of us who like such things. Good to see you on the board again.

I pick this body (and a host of other bodies and necks) this Thursday afternoon

all the best,

R