Harp Ukulele Plans...

I am having a week away from building to rest my spirits and so am feverishly learning the ropes with my CAD programe. I now have my first set of plans available - the harp ukulele and am busily working on a pineapple set...

The process is very interesting for me because I tend to not draw what I am going to make, relying on a set of very old and very workshop worn 'rods' for all of my stuff. As a result the act of drawing has made me examine construction methods and details a lot more intently and is firing me up for translating aspects of the drawings into polycarbonate templates...

Oh the delights of CAD software. You certainly gain a whole new perspective when you look at a familiar object, and try and re-produce it, using a totally different media. I also find myself questioning methods of construction when I approach the problem from a different direction. Rather than slavishly following traditional methods, it can be refreshingly creative to look at the problem, eg. attaching neck to body, and try a different solution based on what skills, tools and technology you have available to you.

I always take the approach that traditional methods need to be questioned and evaluated as to whether they were adopted to produce the best possible product, the cheapest/easiest to produce product, or simply because they were the only way possible to produce something at the time.

Your adventures with CAD could naturally lead on to CAM, in particular CNC routing. Are you ready for this? Over the last two weeks I've spent about twenty hours producing a 3D CAD file for CNC routing the archtop soundboard of a concert pineapple. In the same time, I could have probably carved four or five of them by hand. The wonders of modern technology eh?

It must be the "CAD CAM" time of the year....I've just started building my fourth CNC Router/engraver machine,complete with vacuum table...The first two I built are in daily use at my Sons workshop, making "Electronic drums and Cymbals" http://kit-toys.tripod.com/id1.html ..and the third one was sold to an "Aquarium Equip' manufacturer" to make circuit boards...And this one, is for me it's going to cut out ukulele parts and inlays and that sort of stuff .... also they are very good plotters for making large full scale drawings...the only drawback is finding the space for it.

Timbuck said:

...the only drawback is finding the space for it.

Click to expand...

If it helps, I've cleared out a little corner of the shop...you can keep it here...

Timbuck said:

It must be the "CAD CAM" time of the year....I've just started building my fourth CNC Router/engraver machine,complete with vacuum table...

Click to expand...

I am considering building my own from plans and parts on the web. The only reason I would do so is to build a larger machine than the one I can afford! I'm looking at a Zenbot 2424 (little known company that gets good reviews so far). As the name implies, its X, Y travel is 24" x 24". That's big enough for uke parts, but I will undoubtedly want to do more than that eventually. I've already modeled a series of bridges in Rhino 3D and imported them into the trial version of Vectric's Cut3D and came up with tool paths for the job--trying to get ahead of the curve. The idea being I can drop in a 20 x 2 x .5 piece of cocobollo (or whatever) CNC route it out, and then take it over to the bandsaw and free up the individual bridges. Eight at a time. I've also modeled some uke necks. In fact the uke in my signature was modeled in Rhino 3D and textured/rendered in 3D studio MAX. It's exciting stuff to me.

Hey Pete--talk about a thread getting hijacked! I suppose you started it with your talk of CAD/CAM. I look forward to seeing your plans in your online store. I could take a crack at a harp uke, I think. Enjoy your week "off".

Working on a reso coverplate now... tedeum ad nauseum