Creating a Guitar Body with RhinoCAM

Learn to use RhinoCAM to model a guitar body for fabrication in a CNC mill.

Interested in making your own instruments? Or do you want to see how computer-aided fabrication results in real-world products? This course is for you. Educator/DIY engineer Taylor Hokanson demonstrates how to use RhinoCAM to prepare a 3D model of an electric guitar body/neck for later fabrication on a CNC mill. This project covers a variety of techniques, including flip milling, profiling, pocketing, horizontal roughing, and parallel finishing, and shows how to adjust the model to account for third-party components like pickups.

Introduction

• Welcome
• What you should know before watching this course
• Using the exercise files

1. Setting Up the Guitar Body Model

• Customizing individual features of the model
• Setting stock, location, and size
• Adding bridges to the body
• Preparing the model for flipping

2. Milling the Guitar: Front Side

• Drilling for the control cavities and neck
• Simulating an individual toolpath
• Pocketing for the control cavities
• Roughing out the control cavities
• Running a finishing pass

3. Milling the Guitar: Back Side

• Toolpathing the back side of the guitar body
• Simulating multiple toolpaths
• Exporting G-Code to the CNC mill

4. Incorporating the Neck and Headstock

• Toolpathing the back of the neck and headstock
• Toolpathing the front of the neck and headstock
• Adding bridges to the neck

Conclusion

• Next steps