Trying New Instrument Shapes

[Hemisaurus]

Don't know if anyone on here plays with instrument building from scratch.

If you have a new body shape, any good ways of trying it out for comfort? I'm thinking of cutting the shape out on either thin plywood, or a piece of thick cardboard, and string it over my shoulder to see if anything is in the way, or feels wrong, and then do the same sitting down. This won't help atall with knowing whether it will balance or not.

Any better methods out there?

No rush, Dave is still digging the trench to run power to the new workshop

[blackkrosses]

Start with cardboard. You can trim it to your liking. But you'll want to make a plywood template afterward, no?

Post a picture when you get a good idea of what you want, I'm interested to see what you come up with. My problem with off-brand guitars is that they're always copying other designs and I rarely see new shapes that appeal to me. I suppose they're catering to a market though.

[bitter]

You can mock up bodies with certain types of foam board; kind of like how they make surf boards. The super fine stuff, you can shape it with a band saw and shave it down smooth + shape all the body contours. The benefit being its more 3 dimensional than say a cardboard template, that way you can adjust thickness.

[Hemisaurus]

Hmm, I do have some foam insulation board left over from the man-cave / practice room, but it's only 1/2" thick or so.

[jibberish]

so ya, as per usual, in thinking outside the box on this...i think i would:
a) score a real neck to help with my body modelling.

b) i would then choose a core shape that would be a subset and fit inside every other possible shape i was going to try. like the body end of a stick bass. you need a place for a bridge/string anchor of some sort. possibly some electronics.
anyway, the boilerplate shit along with the neck as the bare minimum of material you could have as a guitar.

c) i would then craft shapes from an easily modified 3-d material. maybe a stack of particle board on the bandsaw, maybe carved foam board, idk.

d) play legos and attach your shapes to the base unit, see what you come with for general shapes. you can try many iterations with many fails at this point without really re-doing too much work.  engineering economy, saving labor/material thing..ok

e) once you get a general shape you like and wish to refine it or explor(er heh) it a little further, now i'd start getting fancier. waste more time and effort per iteration

f)people like prince have shown me, you pretty much can go nuts in so many directions.
i still like the guitar that dude from Nile played the one time i saw them. big long fucker, looked like a spear. i'm still in awe of how well that guy plays, and how ham fingers that dude was. like how do they all even fit

g)i'm kind of thinking i stole this idea from the car designers in detroit

[bitter]

I used large, thick sheets (2"+) of that insulation board a couple Halloweens ago to make large tombstones for the yard. They were like 8' tall sheets from lowe's. Doesn't shave as well I had hoped but was workable, and still way better than Styrofoam. I remember an episode of Dirty Jobs where they visited a surf board manufacturer and that stuff was beyond fine. That were able to plane that material.

[Hemisaurus]

Well I'm part way there with you, I do have the neck, that's why I'm making the body (and looking for machine heads)

I was going to go with a straight Ric bass copy, but now I'm thinking I want to stray from that.

[jibberish]

ya, you cant use styrofoam..that is a bunch of beads smashed together..heh you are doomed from the start.

foam products are actually "solid" hahaha 8D foam....solid as in all of it is contiguous material. you have a chance at shaping that. i would assume there are many grades and chemical variations across the foam product spectrum, some of which have been specifically engineered for modelling. if you model with insulation foam, maybe that was designed with a grain or extra large bubbles or w/e, so would be a compromise..  then again special model foam might be retarded expensive and totally out of the question for casual modelling projects

google is your friend as always...i never looked

i also think i would design the kneee rest part first. like have a stick with a block under it, like a baby gene simmons axe bass shape ..

yes i have smoked the good herb today..i have a mountain of logs to move..soon..finally dry enough to do it.

ps..i may grab a blackheart ant amp to dissect heh.. i found some mods that are like the next chapter in d dub's tube book. just a mickey mouse 12ax 2 tuber.  then re-tuber with those couple different tubes on power end. has fixed tone stack and gain between pre-power stages. perfect place to start. is built with thee smallest components...perfect arena for passive component sub stitution and testing..and most importantly, if i let the smoke out, im out <$200 heh

[jibberish]

wonder if you could somehow copy shapes and injection mold them with that spray can foam insulation stuff heh. that shit is cosmic.

[Hemisaurus]

The big cost in any amp is the transformers, chassis and case. Use an old amp and you got the three big costs out the way already.

[Chovie D]

yes we use the dense foam here.  mock up car bodies, and a human powered submarine...all sorts of shit.
you can sand it and everything. too bad your not local we got a ton of that stuff just lying around always.
I dont know where we get it, but we get it by the pallette load. I havent used the stuff in years but i recall that an electric carving knife purchased at the goodwill for $1 was an excellent tool to use with it.

its probably overkill tho if this is a one time endeavor, you could probably rough out a cardboard 3D body shape, with that water tape and that would be free more or less.

if your heart is set on it tho, you can score dense foam I think at the local hardware store?
Id nab a sheet with the same body thickness your after and just ...whammy!..cut out the shape, sand/carve a few contours

[VOLVO)))]

You can use spokeshaves and planes on that surfboard foam, it's amazing shit.

[Hemisaurus]

contour, schmontour, this is going to be a slab body (unless it really digs me in the ribs)  

not to demean your suggestions, just I plan this to be an excercise in simplicity. i may add on at later stages.

[justinhedrick]

after i get my super 2x12 and 2x15 cab built, i want to build a slab bodied guitar based on this harmony model:



it will have a 1 piece maple body, no pick guard, 1 pickup and 1 volume knob. strat neck.

[Chovie D]

contour, schmontour, this is going to be a slab body (unless it really digs me in the ribs)  

not to demean your suggestions, just I plan this to be an excercise in simplicity. i may add on at later stages.

telecaster has no contours and is a very comfortable guitar, they arent required. If your not shaping the body in any way but the outline...a cardboard mockup would be perfectly suitable for what you want (presuumably a rough idea if your body shape is unweildly or rib cage gouging)

I recently picked up two telecaster bodies at a "musicians garage sale". $5 each. ONe of em was in a fire and looks awesome..ihave the neck from that one too..its burnt and looks cool as fuck. probably pretty warped and unplayable but i ve wanted to throw it back together and have a burntcaster thing going, something to fuck with and experiment on. i should do that.

[justinhedrick]

contour, schmontour, this is going to be a slab body (unless it really digs me in the ribs)  

not to demean your suggestions, just I plan this to be an excercise in simplicity. i may add on at later stages.

telecaster has no conours and is a very comfortable guitar, they are required. If your not sahoing the body in any way but the outline...a cardboard mockup would be perfectly suitable for what you want (presuumably a rough idea if your body shape is unweildly or rib cage gouging)

I recently picked up two telecaster bodies at a "musicians garage sale". $5 each. ONe of em was in a fire and looks awesome..ihave the neck from that one too..its burnt and looks cool as fuck. probably pretty warped and unplayable but i ve wanted to throw it back together and have a burntcaster thing going, something to fuck with and experiment on. i should do that.

when i have my tele refinished (if you can call the hack job he did on it refinishing), i had a body cut and slight arm contour put on it. it's pretty awesome now.

[El Zombre]

Layers and layers of cardboard on top of each other?
If there's a makerspace/hackerspace in the area - see if they have a laser cutter that has a cutting area big enough to do all those layers of cardboard for you. Membership for those places can be had on a per day basis. Just do up your shape in a vector graphics file, hop in and blast away.

With foam, I've made my own hotwire cutter. with nickel chromium wire, 3V transformer, pyrex beads from the bead store as insulation, and springs keeping the wire taut. Even the globular foam can be shaped with a hot wire cutter at the right temperature.