CNC Guitar Inlay Part 2 - Cutting Shell Material

[@macf4426]

The inlay is looking great Jay, I can't wait to see the finished piece. Thank you for sharing with us all the progress of the piece and how you made it 😀👍

[@liloukulele5238]

The challenge of learning the software and hardware is a bit overwhelming for the newbie. Your clear, concise step-by-step tutorial really helped overcome the intimidation of the whole process!

[@mikejohnson9327]

Hi Jay. Just want to say thank you for the inlay videos. I'm new to CNC but not guitar making but they were enormous help and easy for me to understand.

[@BrainRight]

You're welcome, I'm glad you found them useful and hope it works out well for your projects.

[@tomsears2471]

Your work is very beautiful. Visually, those pockets look a lot deeper than I would have expected. My assumption is that was just the depth of the material you were using. Thanks for sharing your techniques.

[@BrainRight]

I try to make the pockets just a little shallower than the thickness of the material, to minimize how much shell material will be sanded off. It doesn't matter much with plain white shell like this, but when using highly figured material like abalone, I try to fit the patterns of the shell into the design. The patterns change as you sand them down so it's best to remove as little as possible.

[@sj-kp1ks]

Thank you! Very useful -- I had no idea you could make a negative stock-to-leave. I plan to use your technique on a piece of furniture I'm making.

[@BrainRight]

Cool, I hope it works out well for you.

[@ruffalley]

Jay, I really enjoy your videos, very informative and clear thank you! I've used mdf as a backer and yellow glue to hold the pearl. Then soak in water to release, easier and faster than CA glue. Resawing the mdf to leave just a thin veneer before soaking speeds it up a lot. Also, nitro-methane is faster than acetone to dissolve CA, it's the material used in the commercial products.

[@BrainRight]

Thanks for the tips, as it does take overnight to release the CA and a faster option would be nice. Then again I'm not typically in a hurry since I have plenty of other tasks to do while it soaks.

[@kentvandervelden]

Nice to see new posts from you Jay! You've been missed. Best wishes, Kent

[@difalkner]

Good video and results, Jay! I'm glad you get the same results I get with Smoothing, too. And your guitar playing and the sound of the guitar is really nice, as well. Looking forward to the next video!

[@BrainRight]

Thanks David. I played the music on the first guitar that I made about 6 years ago and I think it sounded a bit thin because I haven't changed the strings in way too long, but other than that I was happy with the results from my new Tascam DR-40X recorder. I just pointed its built-in mics at the guitar and recorded so it's really easy to use. For the scene showing the router dust swirling up into the dust collection I really wanted to play Dust in the Wind, but I think there might be licensing issues with that. :-(

[@difalkner]

Haha! You could probably pick a portion of your own arrangement, not mentioning it by name, and be fine if it was just a short segment. I don't mean to hijack your video comments, but how does the Tascam compare to the Zoom recorders? You can send an email if you prefer.

[@darklink594]

I really need a cnc!

[@darklink594]

Update: I got a cnc lol

[@j.hankinson7803]

Great lesson in precision. Thanks for posting.

[@jaredreed1417]

Thanks for the good info Jay

[@rogerant79]

Amazing video. Bravo!

[@BrainRight]

Thanks, glad you liked it.

[@ernestoacebron]

Hi Jay! Thank you for the video! It was very useful, but as English is not my main language, there are some things that I wasn't able to understand properly. What kind of phenolic board did you use to hold the mother of pearl? Phenolic wood or some kind of phenolic plastic like bakelite?

[@BrainRight]

Hi Ernesto, I'm glad you found the video useful. Here is a link to the phenolic sheets that I used. I think that wood or thin plywood would also work, but it would absorb acetone when soaking it to release the glue. Some people use white glue instead of cyanoacrylate, and soak it in water to release the parts. www.precisebits.com/products/substrates/backingmaterials.asp

[@eisenmanguitars2416]

Thanks for doing these videos!

[@BrainRight]

My pleasure, hope you found them useful

[@twodogsathome]

Really well presented. Thank you

[@LiloUkulele]

This by far the best video I have found on CNC guitar inlay. The in-depth explanation and detail in invaluable. I am hobbyist luthier hoping to move up the skill level and start inlaying headstock. I just completed an online Fusion 360 class and am now looking for my first CNC machine to start some real world practice. ******Do you have a recommendation for a small affordable CNC machine?******

[@BrainRight]

Thanks Michael. I don't have a specific recommendation on a CNC machine, other than to consider looking for a used one if you're just starting out. The less-expensive machines are generally less rigidly built, which is a limitation but not necessarily a problem for a hobbyist. You can still get good results with a light-duty CNC machine if you slow down the feed rate and take light cuts, to reduce the forces on the bit etc. For inlay work I take very light cuts anyway because the bit itself is thin and fragile. For what it's wroth I expect that even the lightest-duty CNC machine should be capable of more accurate inlay work than a hand-held router, which is how many people do inlay. That said, if you can afford better quality then it may give you more flexibility to tackle more challenging projects.

[@JonHodgins]

This is looking great. I wonder if the second wing didn't fit because of an interference between the other inlay parts. It might fit without gaps if you cut the inlay parts 0.05mm smaller and cut the pocket 0.05mm bigger, rather than just put the 0.1mm tolerance adjustment all in the pocket size

[@BrainRight]

Thanks. Yes that would probably work, and it might be a better starting point for next time. Obviously I didn't want to re-cut these inlay pieces but now that I know I'll need about 0.1mm I can split the difference. Any final fine-tuning (e.g. 0.03mm) would be just on the pocket though since it's only a single toolpath to modify and only the wood to re-cut.

[@tmenet]

I have a 0.8mm bit and I am trying to find feeds and speed as well as depth per pass. I'm surprised you didn't mention your settings. Could you share you feeds and speeds?

[@BrainRight]

There was a link in the video description to a page with my settings etc. but the link was broken, and it's fixed now: brainright.com/cnc-guitar-inlay/

[@DanI-yh9lu]

I see the info on the bit purchase now.

[@yoan4152]

Hello, I have a doublebass fingerboard and want to put fret and inlay on it. I have to do SURFACING because it's not perfectly flat. - What would be the order between, surfacing, fretting, and inlay ? Thanx in advance, cheers

[@BrainRight]

I would start by flattening the fingerboard. Then do the inlay and sand it flush and to final surface finish quality. I'd use a long, flat, hard sanding block to keep the surface flat. Then fretting would be last.

[@yoan4152]

@@BrainRight Thanx a lot :) that's what i was thinking about.

[@paul-tesla]

That's really great video. Thanks a million. Well, are you mounting/gluing MOP on a cardboard?

[@BrainRight]

I used phenolic board, which is more stable than cardboard.

[@paul-tesla]

Oh, I see. Thank you so much.

[@MrPaulviles]

Very helpful thank you!

[@BrainRight]

Glad it was helpful!

[@garynorwalt6140]

Thank you, great videos. Ive used Aspire to do this but have wanted to see how Fusion would do it. Have you tried using painters tape as a hold down? There are lots of videos of this technique and it doesnt require extra day for Acetone to dissolve.

[@BrainRight]

No I hadn't heard of using painters tape, might try that next time.

[@liloukulele5238]

Do you manually lower the cutter to set zero (starting point) in the Z axis? (sorry if this is a dumb question-totally brand new to this)

[@BrainRight]

I usually jog the Z axis down close to the surface, and then slip a thin piece of paper under the bit and jog down in very small steps until I feel resistance on the paper, then zero out the Z axis. There are other methods but that's quick and close enough for my needs.

[@DanI-yh9lu]

When cutting the mother of pearl and tips in cut depth per pass, router speed, and plunge rate? Also type of bit - fish tail or something different? A source to purchase the bit? Thank you. Dan

[@BrainRight]

Good question - I added the feeds & speeds info to the video description and I'll do that on my other CNC videos from now on. These are pretty conservative feed rates, as I am more concerned about breaking a bit than going as fast as possible.

[@user-wy5ik6zq4r]

Great video. Thx

[@spitfirekid1]

Great video. Very inspiring! I’m about ready to try cutting my first inlay CNC inlay on my Shopbot Buddy Alpha. Using pink snail Abalam. Using v-carve pro because that’s what I’ve got. Was planning on using a 3-flute .023 diameter cutter with .01” depth of cut per pass, 18,000 RPM (high precision spindle drive) and 6 inches per minute feed. What do you think?

[@BrainRight]

Glad you found it helpful. For comparison, I used a 0.031" diameter cutter at 24,000 RPM with 0.01" depth of cut and 9.8 ipm feed. Your numbers aren't much different, and your slower feed is appropriate for the smaller (more fragile) cutter. You could bump the RPM to the maximum for your spindle but I don't think it would make a big difference. Abalam may cut differently but I don't have experience with it. Here's a link to the feed-and-speed guidelines from precisebits where I buy my cutters: www.precisebits.com/materials/ivory_shell/natural_shell.htm

[@spitfirekid1]

BrainRight thanks so much for your input. I appreciate it. I cut everything out today and it went great. I don’t post shop videos on my personal KZbin account but posted a quick video on my Facebook page “Roberts.Luthiery” aka Roberts Guitars.

[@grahambray6976]

Superb

[@Warpfield]

Instead of applying the CA glue directly onto the Mother of Pearl, why not stick some tape to the MoP and another to the phenolac board and glue the in-between?

[@BrainRight]

That could work but I'd be worried about getting the small pieces off the tape without breaking them. I'd also be worried about the shell shifting on the tape while it's being cut, although the force from the router bit should be very small with the shallow cuts I'm taking.

[@gerryoneill8881]

GREENSLEEVES!.........thank you for holding.

[@gerryoneill8881]

I didn't think my humorous comment deserved a black heart,but thanks anyway.

[@BrainRight]

The hearts show up in red on my browser, and at any rate KZbin doesn't give me a color choice so it's just a heart. Cheers.

[@gerryoneill8881]

@@BrainRight Thanks,I should have mentioned that it was a good video as well .

[@Shorrey]

You could also rearrange the bodies' copies on a new component, so that you did not need to adjust the template every time. Check it out: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oJS9q6ZqoZ6Eo7c