CNC Milled Guitar
We built a Stratocaster type guitar with a plywood body milled with our Worktable CNC router. The following is a photo blog about it.
Design
2023
The original plan was to build a guitar using a slab of maple from a tree that fell down at our house. Maybe that will happen some day, but as of now that tree is still out there. :)
The design is based on a Fender Stratocaster. It is a good place to start for a first effort, and parts and accessories are easily sourced.
This is just an example of the goofy designs we messed around with:
Foam Prototype
Once we had a design, we iterated with a couple of foam prototypes. This allowed us to get the layout fine tuned.
One of those fantastic time-lapse videos of the CNC:
Plywood Prototype
Foam is not wood, and just as a final check we milled a laminated plywood prototype. Again, this was just to perfect the alignment of the holes and reliefs for the accessories.
Plywood Body
2024
OK, that plywood prototype turned out really nice, but it looked a bit boring. Just for fun we decided to finish a whole guitar using a plywood body, but it needed to look better.
The trick here is to laminate thin-veneered high-end plywood and then mill it at an angle to get a unique look:
We then filled all the gaps and voids with clear epoxy thickened with wood dust. That was sanded all smooth, and then several coats of lacquer was applied.
Finished:
