I finally have a few updates I can publish about the progress on this model ...
after much anticipation, the first M-Series body has been exhumed from its body blank. I'm at the airport typing this, so I'll need to suppliment this post with further details later. Until then, here's a few images for your viewing pleasure
all of the laminates glued up into a single 'Hippie Sandwich'. the first image is in the clamps, the second is the outcome of the squeezing
After a couple weeks of resting to allow the moisture content (absorbed from the glue) an opportunity to return to around 6%, the rough body was "exhumed" from the sandwich
the little fish tale at the butt is remaining wood from where the body was clamped in the CNC holding jig. this is easily removed with a hand router and pattern bit prior to detail sanding
ammended to add:
if you're curious/concerned about the 'chewed up appearance' in places like the arm contour - be assured that it's 100% by design of the CNC tool path ... contrary to commonly held misconceptions in the general public, there's still a TON of skilled hand work to do after a body or neck is taken off the CNC. the ridges you see are easily knocked down with a hand-held sander, and refined with further sanding and use of a cabinet scraper. unlike machining metal parts, part of the woodworking trade-off with CNC is weighing the added machine time cost to create a part that has less ridges vs. what can easily be done by skilled hand work.
more machine time = a 'cleaner' part, but the cost to do this is a slower toolpath speed due to its higher resolution
it's entirely possible that cleaning up the body contours could take 30 - 45 minutes by hand, while running an additional tooling path with higher resolution could take an additiona 20-25 minutes and only reduce the hand time by 10 minutes.
wait until you see the completed images, I think you'll see that all is good
all the best,
R
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