Carving my guitar tops with my copy carver. This is a copy carver that I built around 2009. It has slowly evolved into a completely different looking apparatus. After this body is carved, I'll be doing one more big upgrade.
Glad I could help! I'm looking to make some changes to mine in the near future. Some videos will follow. I'd like to see what you come up with. Thanks for watching!
I used linear pillow blocks and rails from www.vbx.com. The X axis rails are 3/4" stainless steel rods attached to mount rails, pillow blocks are open to allow travel on rod without interface with mounts. Y axis is a 3/4" rod and two closed pillow blocks mounted to a block of hardwood. This allows for the Z axis as well. I plan on changing the hardwood for extruded aluminum soon. I just layed out the guitar body to be carved and a surrogate body to copy from, made sure I had enough room to allow the stylus and router bit to travel far enough to reach all edges of bodies. The placement of router and stylus was based on the center line of both body blank and surrogate body. I figured out the base of the machine at that point. I hope this helps and good luck.
Do you think it would have been better to make the machine bit smaller because you seem to be stretching a long way or maybe its just the perspective of the camera
The video angle is a little deceiving. It would be a little better if it were more compact but, all in all it really isn't much of a reach. The main thing is, the top carriage that holds the stylus and router need room to get to both sides of the piece being carved and the surrogate body. Thanks for watching!
The rails are 3/4" SS rods at 40" long mounted on solid aluminum bases and the crossover rail is a 3/4" SS rod at 40" long. I used open pillow block bearings on the bottom rails and closed pillow blocks on the crossover rail. You can find these items at VXB.com. I hope this is helpful!
I actually built it myself. I used a 1" round pipe, mounted it to the top of the assembly with a homemade wooden clamp, drilled a hole in the end of the pipe for a drill bit extender long enough to get down close to the surrogate body. I tapped a hole in the side of the pipe for a set screw to hold the extender in place in the pipe. For the stylus, I drilled a hole in a piece of African Mohagany for a short Philips head screw bit, pressed it into the hole then chucked it up and spun it in my drill press and shaped it with some squared up flat blocks with sandpaper stuck to them. Checked the accuracy with a micrometer along the way. I carefully rounded the stylus to the shape of my 1/2" endmill bit 'till it was just right. Hopefully, I've explained it well enough for you to understand. I'll be upgrading this part of the carver in the future. I'd like it to be a little more robust. A machinist friend is going to make a solid rod for my stylus. Good luck with your carver, hope to see the end result. Thanks for watching!
Nope...no vibe problems with this machine. Very sturdy. I'm in the process of improving on this one overall though in the near future. Thanks for watching!
