Make your own guitar with a 3D printer
Check out this dude - jammin' on a guitar he designed using 3D modelling software. This is the Zoybar Tor, created by a musician called Bård S D, using the open-source 3D modelling software Blender. Bård then had the body parts printed by Shapeways on a 3D printer for $175. The body parts are designed by Zoybar, which …
ASA
I thought the ASA now control internet advertising regulation in the UK? I believe a requirement is to disclose paid ads like this.
Don't be stupid
You've made a bit of a dick of yourself ehere. The article's in the RegHardware part of the site, under the section called Gadgets. What d'you expect to see in that section of the site, apart from articles about unusual new products which companies make? A C++ tutorial?
If you don't want to read about gadgets, don't read the section called "Gadgets"
Evidence
Any evidence that this is a paid ad, or are you going for libel of the year?
Didn't read like a paid ad to me, very similar to all the other reviews or similar on the site.
The big question
To some extent, you're paying for bragging rights.
There are places which sell guitar kits: if you put the effort into the finishing, you would certainly have something unique which you could be confident of sounding good. It depends what you think your time is worth, but there is that personal feeling about making it. It becomes a little more special.
Interesting tech-geekery: there are solid-state circuits out there which emulate valves, so that you can make a working "valve" amplifier which doesn't need obsolete batteries or spares.
Seems like a great idea ...
... if you want a guitar that sounds like the flip-top bin in the kitchen. The material and shape of a guitar body, and the way it attaches to the neck, affect its harmonics and sustain, and while odd shapes and materials can be good for some purposes, like making them easily portable or just for stage gimmicks, I don't think you're going to get a great guitar this way.
I agree
have an up vote to compensate for the negative response from a commenter whom I can only presume has never played a guitar.
I'll stick to my wooden ones thanks. Although I will state that when such a guitar as this is played through an effects rack the result may sound good. However when played through an old Vox AC30 or a Marshall without a rack of effects I think it will sound awful.
well, sort of....
The most important factor in the sonic qualities of a solid body electric guitar is the rigidity and resonance (or lack thereof) of the whole. In fact, a more dense and rigid, less resonant guitar will tend to have more sustain because of the knock on effect of not absorbing too much of the string's energy, and not trasnmitting any of the vibration to the pickups, where such vibration would compromise the electromagnetic process of picking up the strings note.
This is why carbon fibre, through neck guitars such as the tiny cricket bat shaped Steinberger guitars tend to sound closer to a big chunky Les Paul, for example. And why big body semis actually have quite a boxy, reedy sound by comparison.
If the construction techniques and rigidity of the materials in this guitar are suitable, the actual size and shape of the thing doesn't mean a damn.
I for one am more than a litle curious.
You have just launched a great idea!
The ACME Concrete Guitar Company Ltd. Not as portable, but almost resonance-free.
Concrete guitar
You mean like http://www.wku.edu/news/releases06/september/guitar.html...?
re: Concrete Guitar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFyQXy74xz4
Or indeed this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppusLiJYKd4
In this video, and the one previously posted, the guitars actually sound rather good amped up.
And witg that, m'lud, I rest my case.
gaming dice
I modeled a full set of gaming dice (d4, d6, d8, 2-d10, d12 and d20). The numbers are modeled in based on probability distribution, so for example, the d6 adds up to 7 through any axis (1 and 6, 2 and 5, 3 and 4) also, hemispheres have the same value. Anyway, I printed several sets on a 3D printer (laser sintering type) and they turned out great. The solid nylon gives a nice bounce, and they are porous enough to dye any color you want. Dice may not be as cool as a guitar, but these dice get much cred with the gaming crowd!
Wot? No neck?
The tricky bit of making a guitar is the neck.
He didn't make the neck on a 3D printer.
getting much more mainstream
whole feature on this in the economist last week - some very cool materials and print jobs can be done and they recon its likely to become fairly mainstream in the next few years.
They talk about some cool features such as printing tungsten hip implants with a honeycomb type effect near the edge (rather than solid like a machined version) so that bone can grow into the implant to improve bonding.
Best pic in their article is a chainmail gauntlet that was printed fully assembled!
Guitar certainly looks cool and may or may not sound good - but as a fabrication technique its looking like this is certainly coming.
Until...
I can print a working Ferrari on a 3D printer I am this: not interested.
@AC and adnim
Depends whether you both think classic electric guitars like the Parker Fly or Dan Armstrong plexiglass are also going to sound like flip-top bins. (Hint: they don't. ;-) And then there's lap-steels, where any wood is mostly for decoration. How you make it engineering-wise has a *lot* more to do with the sound than what you make it out of.
Nice Sound
That's a surprisingly nice sound from an object that was rapid prototyped. Perhaps the person could 3d print a whole orchestra in 1 day? Now that would be a challenge.
