Exact sizing and distance for drawing

[donnercruz]

I am new to designer, and have both the Mac and iOS versions. I build guitars and am looking at buying a cnc router that uses svg code. 
 

when drawing parts, for instance the fingerboard, each fret slot is cut at a specific distance from the end of the fingerboard and it has a specific taper along its length, so I need to be able to draw the fingerboard with the correct taper and draw accurate fretslots down its length. What process should I use to accomplish this? Below is an example of the distances for the fret slots. 

 

Edited July 2, 2021 by donnercruz

[Old Bruce]

21 minutes ago, donnercruz said:

each fret slot is cut at a specific distance from the end of the fingerboard

For this kind of work I would strongly recommend the use of an actual CAD/CAM application. 

I am not familiar with that website but I don't think you want a 54 foot long guitar.

This is what I have for my guitar

[donnercruz]

Forgot to change the scale to mm. Replaced the image. 
 

[Old Bruce]

Edit: Having had a bit more of thinking about this.... Will the milling be having to take into consideration the curve of the fretboard? Designer doesn't do 3D and neither does an SVG file.

Anyways continuing on ...

The distances in the From Nut column is the distance from the nut's flat surface to the centre line (which your CNC machine will mill) for the fret. So draw a line for the fret and position it 1.347 inches from the nut.

I see you say your are new to designer so I assume you have a copy of it , here is a file with the first two frets. Just use the transform panel to enter the numbers for each fret. Being lines they will be centred at that distance.

In the included file, the Ruler's Origin is changed to be at the nut. You change the origin by click dragging with the move cursor at the intersection of the rulers (View > Show Rulers) The file's origin should be fine. Just add more frets by copy then paste and move with the transform panel.

guitar.afdesign

Again I would suggest an actual CAD program if you are planning on doing a lot of guitars, it will talk to the CNC machine nicer. Hopefully some one with experience with using Designer generated SVGs for CNC machines will chime in with how to set the colours for the milling machine to read. My experience with CNC is all from (a tweaked for our machines) Autocad generated files. No SVGs allowed simply because they couldn't read them, they had 30 kilobytes of memory and had generated 30,000 kilos of pressure.

[donnercruz]

Thanks for the updated reply.
 

I’m looking at the Shaper Origin for a cnc. It isn’t a 3D cnc and wouldn’t be used to radius the fingerboard. it’s a handheld cnc router. It only uses svg files. Im considering it for cutting finger boards and doing inlay work. 

Edited July 2, 2021 by donnercruz

[Old Bruce]

I am only aware of that Shaper Origin from some video I stumbled across. Do not use if for Fretboards the frets' placement  will be all [expletives deleted] from a musical point of view. I believe it is simply not accurate enough for that sort of work. Could be wrong but...  If it was me thinking about getting one for that work I would surf the web looking for critical videos and reviews. Pay attention to what actual luthiers have to say if there are any using it.

Inlay would maybe be okay, Designer could work with that for making SVGs.

Frets are on the order of thousandths of an inch +/- for placement.

But I have to also say that I love the idea of not having to have a huge hulking piece of equipment taking up space.

[donnercruz]

I’ve seen two videos on using it for guitars. I currently do fretboards on the table saw, which isn’t a big deal. it just seems like a great tool for improving some workflow. I build mostly acoustic guitars but this tool could replace router templates for a lot of building. 
 

Here are the two videos I saw. 
 

 

 

 

[Old Bruce]

32 minutes ago, donnercruz said:

I’ve seen two videos on using it for guitars. I currently do fretboards on the table saw, which isn’t a big deal. it just seems like a great tool for improving some workflow. I build mostly acoustic guitars but this tool could replace router templates for a lot of building. 
 

I watched the videos and even though they are produced by the company to sell machines I am impressed, the only worry I have is whether the SVGs would be exported in a 'readable' form for it.

And that is your original question. I am going to do some searching on the web for a bit but I would say the Machinery is not giving me any worries about making guitars. I remove my don't do fretboards comment. I would think that acoustic guitars would be no problem and the inlay work would be a piece of cake (what the hell is the inlay around the edge called? The bit done for strength...).

[Old Bruce]

Well, that was quick. Here are the suggested settings for Designer from the Shaper website

https://support.shapertools.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043415214-Affinity-SVG-save-settings

 

[donnercruz]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

I watched the videos and even though they are produced by the company to sell machines I am impressed, the only worry I have is whether the SVGs would be exported in a 'readable' form for it.

And that is your original question. I am going to do some searching on the web for a bit but I would say the Machinery is not giving me any worries about making guitars. I remove my don't do fretboards comment. I would think that acoustic guitars would be no problem and the inlay work would be a piece of cake (what the hell is the inlay around the edge called? The bit done for strength...).

For acoustics I would probably use it for making the fretboard and decorative inlay. The binding and purfling is done on another jig I have already. The Origin wouldn’t work for that part anyway. Though most acoustics are called flat top, both the top and back have a radius built into them for rigidity and strength, which would make the flat bottom of the router raise slightly, creating an edge that is not perpendicular to the top or back. 

[Old Bruce]

7 minutes ago, donnercruz said:

purfling

That's the word.

8 minutes ago, donnercruz said:

Though most acoustics are called flat top...

It amazes me the amount of actual carving a luthier has to do.

Best of luck.