Luthiers using FreeCAD

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mnesarco
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Luthiers using FreeCAD

Post by mnesarco »

Hi Friends,

I wonder if is there a Luthiers community using FreeCAD for their designs. Many Luthiers uses F360 and Rhino, it is not easy to model guitars in FreeCAD, it requires a lot of calculations and surface modeling. But the good news is that i am close to release a version 2.0 of the Marz Workbench for guitar design. It would be great to know how big is the potential community.

So if you are a Luthier and a FreeCAD user, and you want to be up to date with Marz Development and want to discuss anything related to Guitar design in FreeCAD, we can use this thread to talk and share files.

Cheers,

Frank.
drmacro
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Re: Luthiers using FreeCAD

Post by drmacro »

I don't know. Looks pretty easy when JOKO Engineering makes guitars with FreeCAD.
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Re: Luthiers using FreeCAD

Post by openBrain »

If I'm correct, @Chris_G who created and maintains CurvesWB is one.
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mnesarco
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Re: Luthiers using FreeCAD

Post by mnesarco »

drmacro wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:08 pm I don't know. Looks pretty easy when JOKO Engineering makes guitars with FreeCAD.
Can you create this kind of neck+fretboard from scratch in FreeCAD Manually in 5 seconds?

screenshot_6.png
screenshot_6.png (28.14 KiB) Viewed 6789 times


MarzDesigner takes all the parameters and generates all in 5 seconds. But anyway, If you see no value here, you can just ignore this thread.

- Multiscale
- Asymmetric neck profiles
- Custom heel shape
- Custom headstock shape
- Custom Neck break angle
- Custom Headstok angle / flat
- Custom thruss rod channel
- Custom Headstock inlays and tunner holes
- Custom Fret sizes / specs
- Zero Fret support
- Custom fretboard margins
- Compound fretboard radius

if anyone is interested I am open to constructive discussions.
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Re: Luthiers using FreeCAD

Post by drmacro »

you took me wrong.

I think the workbench is a great tool.

I meant JOKO makes it look easy to do, but it is not. And, of course he is just winging it with dimensions and shapes.
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mnesarco
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Re: Luthiers using FreeCAD

Post by mnesarco »

drmacro wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 10:25 pm you took me wrong.

I think the workbench is a great tool.

I meant JOKO makes it look easy to do, but it is not. And, of course he is just winging it with dimensions and shapes.
Oh I'm sorry. Thank you. I was a little frustrated today. My fault.
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Kunda1
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Re: Luthiers using FreeCAD

Post by Kunda1 »

This is so cool, mnesarco!

I've seen several folks post over the years post about guitars and such. It would be awesome to hear other speak up
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Chris_G
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Re: Luthiers using FreeCAD

Post by Chris_G »

Hello,
I am a luthier too.
I got a CNC mill around 2010.
Since I already had the habit to design my guitars with Inkscape, I still mainly stick to Inkscape's GCodeTools extension for 2D G-Code generation.
For 3D, I used Blender (and BlenderCam G-Code addon).
I discovered FreeCAD in 2012 or 2013.
Sadly, it had limited smooth surface modeling capabilities, that we need sometimes for guitar modeling.
I ask a few questions here, about Bezier and BSpline curves and surfaces ... Fatal Error.
8 years later, I am still learning the maths and the coding of these things, and I love it :lol:
But since I still don't really need full 3D models for my lutherie workflow, I don't do that much guitar design in FreeCAD.
In fact, with CurvesWB, I more into creating tools that help guitar design, while not being lutherie-specific.
I already tried Marz Workbench. I think it is great and will be very useful for many builders.
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mnesarco
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Re: Luthiers using FreeCAD

Post by mnesarco »

Chris_G wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 2:32 pm Hello,
I am a luthier too.
I got a CNC mill around 2010.
Since I already had the habit to design my guitars with Inkscape, I still mainly stick to Inkscape's GCodeTools extension for 2D G-Code generation.
For 3D, I used Blender (and BlenderCam G-Code addon).
I discovered FreeCAD in 2012 or 2013.
Sadly, it had limited smooth surface modeling capabilities, that we need sometimes for guitar modeling.
I ask a few questions here, about Bezier and BSpline curves and surfaces ... Fatal Error.
8 years later, I am still learning the maths and the coding of these things, and I love it :lol:
But since I still don't really need full 3D models for my lutherie workflow, I don't do that much guitar design in FreeCAD.
In fact, with CurvesWB, I more into creating tools that help guitar design, while not being lutherie-specific.
I already tried Marz Workbench. I think it is great and will be very useful for many builders.
Hi Chris, It is great to know that you are a Luthier!!!

Please look at this example file generated with my current c++ version and give me your opinion about the transition surfaces.
Attachments
GraemeReay-Neck.zip
(248.79 KiB) Downloaded 111 times
example-generated-neck.zip
(347.25 KiB) Downloaded 125 times
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Chris_G
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Re: Luthiers using FreeCAD

Post by Chris_G »

Nice job !
It proves how your workbench is already very capable.
If I had to give some constructive critics :
- I am not very fond on the multi-face shape of the neck. Ending up with some fewer, larger surfaces would look better.
- the transition surfaces, under the nut, are not C1-continuous with the neck. Although I admit that's a purely theoretical need, and that we always end-up with a bit of hand sanding that fixes this.
- maybe this is only a personal opinion, but I don't think the straight part of the neck should go up to the nut location. I usually stop it under the 1st fret, and start the transition surfaces from there. That's less true on Fender-like necks, like your examples, but on angled-headstock necks, like Gibson's, it would allow better neck-to-headstock transitions.
That's already an impressive work!
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