Official Luthiers Forum!

Very cool Bob! I've never thought of the break away supports. That's a good idea.

We've thought about getting one for printing out parts for making our matchplates but can't really justify the cost. Though our only good pattern maker is getting pretty old and we have been exploring other options. We are looking into CNCing the matchplates out. It seems to me this is our most cost effective way to go about it because we don't have to invest in any equipment to do so.

So you want to get into casting. Well study up! There is a lot going on that most people don't realize. Take a gating and risering course if you can. It'll help.

Synthetic ebony?

If you like your ebony made out of acrylic...then yes! The piece in front of the drum would cost more than a nice luthier-built guitar from a 3D printing service company, but I suppose it gets more affordable if you're the company that builds the machines.

3D Systems is in a bit of a state of terror these days, as they've had a stranglehold on that type of printing (SLA, look it up, it's awesome) since the eighties and now the patents are expired and others are playing in their field. They're responding the normal way, by innovating and out-competing the new guys...just kidding, they're throwing frivolous lawsuits at everyone!

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Good points on the ZCorp for subtle layering and the auto support structure. The layering from ours and another local one is visible, but of course much better than FDM. The casting mold app is cool -- we don't have a foundry, but that's good to know, thanks. My main problems with the ZCorp are that it isn't really a "rapid" prototype device (high labor), fixing with CA is hard to control, and the product is weak.

Yes, we've made enclosures for our RepRaps and the part quality went up markedly. We tried heating the air but didn't find much improvement, although we haven't studied it closely. Another big improvement has been a sheet of glass on top of the heated platen (which otherwise distorts with temp). Still, we're not getting uPrint quality yet -- the next suspects are extrusion and motion control. It'll be a great day indeed when the open source designs rival the commercial ones.

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David Malicky

Well, the ZCorp is still a lot more rapid than having a model-maker carve the thing by hand from a brick of proto-board, so I guess they can hold on to that . The ZCorp printers do start looking like lower labour devices when you're printing stuff that would have had loads of support structure, but the weakness of the finished product and the lifetime of the consumables limits their use. There's an engineering consulting firm up the road here that used to have one, but the consumables went bad in a matter of months and they never cooked through them in time so they gave the printer away to the art school.

Nice to hear you're Pimping your Raps (as it were). I think keeping a very constant internal temperature in the enclosure would help with consistency of extrusion, and of course having a really good extrusion mechanism wouldn't hurt. Most of the mechanisms are still a lot more on the DIY side with attempts to print as many parts as possible, etc, where some good metal feed gears would really make a world of difference. On the motion control bit, I wholeheartedly agree- you're just not going to get the sort of smooth motion, especially in corners, with belts that you would with a screw. A stronger frame, idler wheels, etc would certainly help a lot, but I'm looking forward to seeing some DIY machines with servos and ballscrews in them. There are definitely hard limits on printing speed / volume with ABS extrusion, but I don't think anyone's going to hit them until we're looking at a servo controlled machine running on screws with a high-pressure extrusion mechanism.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services