[turmite]

Hey guys and or gals, I need a little hlep here. I have a guitar I am modeling and I need to know which tool to use to blend the neck and the headstock. I have tried trim, extend surface then trim and or split, and I have tried merge in the surface edit tools. Any help will be appreciated.

Mike

[turmite]

I though I may as well show the complete guitar. I hope to carve the body next week and will post in the guitar forum the progress.
Mike

[duluthboat]

Sometimes you cam make a surface that joins the two by using the sweep 2 rails in the surface pull down. I did it here with a cylinder and a box.

Gary

[duluthboat]

This worked even when the objects were skewed.

Gary

[turmite]

Gary did your cylinder and cube meet or did it have gaps like the neck and head does on my pic?

Mike

[anoel]

The "BLENDSRF" command might work well for you...

I don't know if your curves will allow for what you want...

[anoel]

closer

[turmite]

anoel that is a good looking head stock. I tried the sweep two rails like Gary suggested but it was too abrupt. I am back to drawing it in wire right now but may try the blend surf. How to do it is another question...hmmm?

Mike

[turmite]

Nathan I just tried the blendsurf and it is still going to be too abrupt. I'll work on it a little more tonight then to bed I go!
Mike

[anoel]

You may need to make some adjustments in your source curves to make the flow... Or even add some curves. Check out the "Surface > From Curve Network" command

I just made a quick example to illustrate the BlendSrf command. I'm working on some guitar parts myself and While I've got the technique down pretty good for a Les Paul / PRS style symetrical headstock I'm having a "BEAR" of a time modelling a Strat/Tele style neck... I've tried avry technique that I can think of to do it smoothly but still nothing quite makes it.

[jwatkins]

Geez, there are a lot of people here from the MIMF! The best way I've found for doing this is with "surface from network curves". I create three rails; the sides of the fingerboard and the center of the back of the neck. I run them from stem to stern and well beyond. I then create perpendicular profiles all along the length to manipulate the shape. Extend everything way past what it needed so that the surface has room to average out. That's why all those creases exist in the above examples; from making the surface stop right at the edge. Better to trim them later.

[jwatkins]

Here's an example;

[ddgman2001]

Nicely done!

How are you at carved tops?

Any tips there?

The simple Les Paul Style doesn't seem too hard, but the really sculpted Warrior style is pretty tricky.

[jwatkins]

Ok, I guess. Could be better. I do them with a loft. The trick I found to avoid a "plateau" on the top-center of the dome was to do curve offsets toward the center, raise them vertically in a side viewport and then use a point for the center curve of the loft. Does that make sense?

[turmite]

j is this the kind of guitars you build? My brother has already requested the first one and I don't have a clue on how one of these beauties is constructed. I am assuming the construction of the guitar is a combo of acoustic and solid ???

Mike

[turmite]

jwatkins since you're here we might as well put you to work! The screen shot shows my neck as it is now after doing a bit or reconstruction to it. The orange is the head stock and brown the neck. I can blend the sides ok but I want to get the bottom done first. The Les Paul plans I have (Stew/Mac) shows a slight radius when looking at the side view but the bottom view almost looks as if the neck is trimmed into the headstock leaving a small triangluar shaped flat on the bottom of the neck. Any ideas?

Mike

[jwatkins]

Yes, it is. They are built just like an acoustic guitar (basically), with two exceptions. The top and back are carved, not radiused and the fingerboard extension is vaulted above the face of the guitar instead of sitting right on it the soundboard. There are guitars that have a solid block that goes down the center for mounting hardware, etc., but mine are the totally hollow variety. I'm partnered with Bill Moll. I build a couple of models for him and I make all the hardware for his other models.

[jwatkins]

Mike, maybe this'll help. Start with the face of the headstock and the shaft of the neck. Your neck can be as thin as the height of the truss rod plus 1/8". Then make two lines that start at the first points of the headstock (next to the low E and high E tuners) and extend perpendicularly to the face of the headstock. Their length is the thickness of your headstock (1/2" or so).

Next, create a line that connects the ends of those two lines. Everything "North" of that line will be flat surface that makes up the back of the headstock. You now have two profiles to blend together; the edge of the neck shaft and the opposing edge of the headstock.

Now make three curves. Two that naturally transition the face of the headstock to the top corners of the neck shaft (you may already have these curves) and one that goes right down the center in the back (from the mid-point of the line you drew across the back of the headstock to the mid-point of the edge of your neck shaft). Split those two curves at the centerline. Use Surface>Patch to create surfaces in the voids that are surrounded by these curves.

If it doesn't work, you'll need to zoom waaaay in and figure out which curves aren't coming together. Use Join to isolate the problem, but leave it exploded when you create the surfaces.

[turmite]

J that is almost what I have done so far. I have not put the middle curve in so I am on to that now. Thanks for the help. Now I gotta go look Bill Moll guitars.

Mike

[RandMan]

I found the volute was too complex to try to blend the headstock to the neck shaft without distortions so I made it a separate part and then combined solids. Many of the join/blend functions reduced the amount of material at the volute when we really need more there for strength. By making it a separate part with its own wireframe that joins exactly to the same points on the neck shaft and headstock you can add material as you want for strength. You could also do a Martin or McNaught style diamond or whatever.

This is an example of OneCNC XR's curvature display mode where you can see that the back of the headstock is flat and undistorted at the join with the volute.