New toy in the Oil City workshop

OilCityPickups

We took the decision that the cost of importing flatwork for our single coils from the US was getting silly ... plus the suppliers were constantly out of stock of important parts ... and withdrawing others without notice. So we have taken the plunge and have invested in a mahoosive Co2 gas laser. This will not only enable us to cut Strat, Tele, etc etc flatwork, bit also produce custom designs of our own. 

I am going to do a series here for those interested in CNC laser cutting ... and what it can do

steamabacus

OilCityPickups

Yep it's a bit like that ... photos to follow soon

chrispy108

Awesomes!

Sporky

This is well aligned with my interests.

Rowby1

Can you do laser etching with it too? Could see some possibilities there....laser etched covers, pick guards etc.

Sassafras

Is it the same as this?

FelineGuitars

Rowby1 said:

Can you do laser etching with it too? Could see some possibilities there....laser etched covers, pick guards etc.

Proper metal etching needs a Fibre laser rather than a CO2, although you can use a spray on colour (cermark) that the laser etches to the surface like in this video 

Nomad

TheGuitarWeasel said:

This will not only enable us to cut Strat, Tele, etc etc flatwork, bit also produce custom designs of our own. 

I am going to do a series here for those interested in CNC laser cutting ... and what it can do

I'm interested. If this will include the supply of small batches of standard and custom flatwork, then I'm even more interested. (Thinking of an 8-pole Tele bridge style for a possible future lap steel, and something special for a top secret project that shall remain nameless.)

OilCityPickups

Nomad said:

TheGuitarWeasel said:

This will not only enable us to cut Strat, Tele, etc etc flatwork, bit also produce custom designs of our own. 

I am going to do a series here for those interested in CNC laser cutting ... and what it can do

I'm interested. If this will include the supply of small batches of standard and custom flatwork, then I'm even more interested. (Thinking of an 8-pole Tele bridge style for a possible future lap steel, and something special for a top secret project that shall remain nameless.)

Was intending the machine to be fully occupied, so that sort of job will be perfect :-)

The stage I am at at the moment is I have test fired the laser and all is working well ... have yet to run some programs ... and do the major workshop turn around that will be needed to house the brute! 

Nomad

TheGuitarWeasel said:

Was intending the machine to be fully occupied, so that sort of job will be perfect :-)

The stage I am at at the moment is I have test fired the laser and all is working well ... have yet to run some programs ... and do the major workshop turn around that will be needed to house the brute! 

Sounds good to me.

No rush - I'm fully occupied with building the 6-string lap steel, making tooling to help with that, and planning a workshop reorg.

What file formats can it import? DXF should be pretty common for CNC. Can it take DWG?

OilCityPickups

DWG, DXF and a whole string of others. 

My machine is the same as this ... Chinese built to actually a quite high standard (not my pic)

Delivered it was a smidge under £1300. I have researched these machines pretty thoroughly and while their build quality is good the ancillaries supplied with it are poor. The outboard air assist pump is totally rubbish and blows like an asthmatic vole, so the machine will be connected to its own dedicated compressor ... got to order that :-)

Likewise the fume extraction pipe is thin, uselessly short and a bit crap ... so £56 got me 6m of proper, reinforced 150mm extraction pipe. I built a distilled water reservoir and used their supplied pump ... that works well.

Also built a trolley for moving about its 68 kilo bulk! 

Oh and a honeycomb cutting table is on order ... all in all this will put things up to about £2000, but thats still half the price of a comparable European made machine ... and with a big 500x300mm cutting space

Sporky

Nice - your experience matches what I'd read about these machines; basically decent, but a few tweaks needed. That's nearly an A2 cutting space, right?

Nomad

It's a bit over A3 - 297x420mm.

You could get a shitload of flatwork out of that.

OilCityPickups

Sporky said:

Nice - your experience matches what I'd read about these machines; basically decent, but a few tweaks needed. That's nearly an A2 cutting space, right?

Damn near A2 yes! Big enough to do scratch plates as well ... or get a good quantity of flatwork on one sheet. The smaller machines wouldn't make economic sense, as I'd be forever cutting up sheets of fibre to feed it! already test fired it on a 2mm sheet of flat work 'forbon' and it blasts through it easily on 20% power.

It has a USB stick port so it doesn't even need a dedicated computer.

 

Richardj

68Kg, into the Oil City workshop, that must have been fun.....

The tech nerd in me really wants to see this thing working.

ICBM

TheGuitarWeasel said:

The stage I am at at the moment is I have test fired the laser and all is working well ...

Good… good…

ThorpyFX

sounds like an Awesome bit of kit..... Now id love to see Oil city offer the same sort of square but open bobbins as PRS. My OCD has begun to dislike the gaps standard bobbins offer.

OilCityPickups

ThorpyFX said:

sounds like an Awesome bit of kit..... Now id love to see Oil city offer the same sort of square but open bobbins as PRS. My OCD has begun to dislike the gaps standard bobbins offer.<script type="text/javascript" src="safari-extension://com.ebay.safari.myebaymanager-QYHMMGCMJR/24620cfe/background/helpers/prefilterHelper.js"></script>

That can be done :-)

FelineGuitars

ThorpyFX said:

sounds like an Awesome bit of kit..... Now id love to see Oil city offer the same sort of square but open bobbins as PRS. My OCD has begun to dislike the gaps standard bobbins offer.<script type="text/javascript" src="safari-extension://com.ebay.safari.myebaymanager-QYHMMGCMJR/24620cfe/background/helpers/prefilterHelper.js"></script>

Oh yes - nice application for it

Lots of opportunities for making stuff to fit a vacant pickup position on an unusual guitar

Sporky

Marvellous. If you do start a bureau service I will have a goodly number of things to be cut, and I'm fairly used to formatting for laser.