Fully Printed Electric Guitar

The body and neck of this electric guitar were 3d printed on a Flash Forge. The neck is assembled with two carbon fiber tubes set in epoxy in place of a traditional truss rod. The neck was further strengthened by infiltrating the infill areas of the print with epoxy resin. The neck-through body design allows the maker to print the body of their choice without changing the configuration of the core.

The first one printed plays, although not well, so this should be considered a work in progress and maker beware. I designed this as a "could it be done" exercise more than anything. It has several interesting features:

A 3d printed neck with carbon fiber reinforcement.

Epoxy infiltration as a strengthening technique.

A 3d printed fingerboard with printed slots for fretwire. I wrote an openSCAD script to generate fretboards of any scale length.

3d printed inlay on the headstock and fingerboard. These could be done as dual extrusions, but it is easier to print them separately and assemble.

The neck and body section are assembled using 3mm filament stubs for alignment.

After having completed this project I can say that at this point it is fairly pointless to print the neck as far superior stock quitar necks are available for less than the cost of the materials, but that was't the point. The body design requires too much support to be satisfactory when printed on an FDM machine.

We talked about this thing and a whole lot more about 3d printing on the 3D Printing Today podcast available on iTunes, Stitcher radio or direct from the source at http://threedprintingtoday.libsyn.com/

3/16/15 Update. Swapped out new peghead veneer file.