3D printed guitar

I finally finished my 3D printer guitar. Or more accurately, a bunch of 3D printed guitar parts assembled into a guitar. It's a total of 12 pieces all super glued together. The top/sides were printed in 3 parts. The 3 back pieces were printed separately. The neck and the fret board were each done in two pieces. All PLA. There is a 1/2" steel tube truss rod embedded in the neck, otherwise, it would curly up like a piece of spaghetti. And unlike the $3000 guitar printed on a 3D Systems machine a couple of years ago, I've posted an audio clip. Not a stellar sounding guitar by any stretch, but not as bad as you might think.

WOW! And it sounds pretty good too! How much plastic did it use?

Beautiful, great job. You inspired me to start working on an electric guitar.
Can you give me some more insight info like thickness used? Did you used a tongue and grove interconnection? Side to top and bottom connection? Etc.
Again, thanks for any help and great job.

Evmanw: All totaled, it's about 1.5kg of filament. Some 50-60 hours of printing.

ggherbaz: An electric guitar would use considerably different construction. But here are some of the design details I used:
- Bolt-on neck. The internal steel truss rod has a right-angle rod welded to it which run through the heel. The bolts thru the body thread into holes in this right-angle piece.
- The top thickness is about 1mm. It's so flexible that it can't transmit vibrations very far, and hence, the extensive snowflake bracing. (If I were to do it again, which I won't, I'd to a thicker, hollow soundboard with hexagonal infill.
- The top and side pieces are printed together, so there is no extra joint. The back piece has a lip inside which gives enough surface area for gluing. However, CA glue works really well on PLA, so you don't really need a lot of extra gluing surface like you would with wood. (I mostly used CA gel glue which fills gaps nicely.)

Mostly, I took a flying guess at the dimensions. I'd definitely make the top stiffer, eliminate the internal fillet between the top & sides to better isolate the top acoustically, and I'd also beef up the headstock-to-neck joint. If anyone is interested in the STL files (or original Solidworks files), I'd be happy to post them. However, the parts are designed to just fit my printer (286x286mm) so they might not be so useful.

I thank you very much for all the info, if you be so kind, I can use the solidworks files. I'm finishing a 300 X 300 printer so I will be able to print the parts. Even though as you said it will be completely different contruction, it will give me some reference point of start.

Thanks again for your help.

I've posted the Solidworks files for the guitar at:

lobocnc.com/3dguitarSW2011.zip

and the STL files at:

lobocnc.com/3dguitarSTL.zip

That's pretty cool !!
Maybe you can share the STL files with our community at www.printeable.com
Enjoy playing it!!
Eric

Thanks for the files. I will be downloaded them tonight.

Lobocnc, you make me want to attempt learning the guitar.

That is indeed very nice..

What did you use as metal bands on the fretboard?

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Ralf
That is indeed very nice..

What did you use as metal bands on the fretboard?

Thanks! With steel strings on the guitar, printed PLA frets would get torn up pretty quickly (especially if you do any string bending). I used standard fret wire which fits into narrow slots. Typically these slots are a pain to cut (in wood), especially if they are blind slots, but printing the slots in place works well.