Guitar Neck

The last few days of school were hectic. I managed to secure the time I needed in the shop and pumped out the aluminum part of the neck. I also was able to pack all the junk in my dorm room back into my car. The poor thing was probably past its maximum cargo capacity especially with all the material I accumulated over the semester.

Profile machining the neck took alot less time that I had thought it would. I didn't want to switch the CNC to 3-axis mode, so I did everything by manually adjusting the Z axis. It was a little slower than running full in CNC, but it kept me from scrapping the part with a stupid code error. I think there were 8 or 9 passes per side. It was machined with a 3/8" ball end mill. It has a really cool machined texture. Its much better than a perfectly smooth curve.

I realized my camera was at home, so I used my wonderful cell phone camera. I'll work on increasing the picture quality in the future.

I don't think I need to polish the neck either. The machine left a nearly perfect finish on all of the parts. The dimensions were all within 0.001". I love it when a part comes out perfect. I still need to break all the sharp edges or I'll lose a finger when I slide my hand across the fret board.