Michael Winston Dales Guitars: Laser-Cutting

Fretboard design generator

1 Dec 2017 - cnc routing, dxf, laser-cutting, open source

Generating fretboard layouts is tedious at best. Whilst there are lots of existing fret spacing calculators out there, they still require you enter the measurements into your design tool by hand, and I wanted to automate that process. Hence the existence of this - a simple webpage where you enter the details of the fretboard you want and it'll generate either an SVG or DXF file for you to import into either your design/CAD software or CAM workflow.

A Week in the Shop

30 Jul 2024 - electronics, hästen, laser-cutting, laser-etching, pick-guard

This week Hästen gets close to complete! We take a look at the evolution of a pick-guard design and a look at what makes the electronic circuit in this guitar unusual.

A photo of an electric guitar sat in a case on a workbench in a workshop. The guitar is an offset design, with a pale blue painted body, a black pickguard, with two chrome humbucker pickups on it. The neck is a birds-eye maple.

Workshop weeknotes: Delfinen becomes an instrument at last.

1 Mar 2024 - binding, delfinen, finishing, laser-cutting

Is this a guitar I see before me? Another weeknotes catching up with all that's happened to Delfinen since we last saw it, including it getting strung up for the first time.

A mostly assembled guitar sits on the workbench! It is missing all the electronics, but otherwise looks like a guitar. Importantly it has strings on it! It has a vivid orange-stained wood body with white binding and white pickup mounts, and a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard.

A Week in the Shop

17 Jun 2023 - älgen, carving, hästen, laser-cutting, neck, spraying, verkstaden

The race is on to get Älgen ready for Liverpool Makefest, I dodge a knot as I carve Hästens neck, and I say who needs scissors if you have a laser-cutter?

A view of the 3D-printed lattice-work guitar body in the spray booth ready to be sprayed.

A Week in the Shop

6 Mar 2023 - 3D-printing, älgen, birthday, laser-cutting, telecaster, templates

Rushed weeknotes for a rushed week: I make some progress on älgen, meet the real version of what it's named after, and spend far too long nursing a laser-cutter.

The pub sign for The Duke of Cumberland which shows a painting of a 17 or 18th century duke playing a Fender Telecaster with a jazz ensemble behind him.

A Week Out the Shop

4 Feb 2023 - 3d printing, bhm, blues deluxe, ef1, freecad, generative art, gibson, laser-cutting, sister rosetta tharpe

I have some fun 3D printing a prototype of my new bridge design and fitting it to my daily player for testing, I start learning FreeCAD, and I spent some time listening to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the under-appreciated inventor of rock-and-roll.

The 3D printed bridge mounted on the guitar with strings running over it. In the background you can see the floor and my pedal board, telling you that this is now being used!

A Week in the Shop

22 Jan 2023 - delfinen, fretting, kerf, laser-cutting, neck, palm router, verkstaden

Getting back into the swing of things with making dust in the workshop: a neck gets prepped and fretted, and I try out my new ferrule block technique to learn that it needs improving.

A guitar body sat on the workshop, with a couple of parts laid on top of it to give the impression of how it might look when finished. The top is a nice birds-eye maple, and on one side it is nicely rounded, and on the other side it has a pointy horn to it.

Getting back to the Shop

16 Jan 2023 - älgen, delfinen, jigs, laser-cutting

Getting back into the workshop after a brief hiatus, and starting out with finding a great new way to radius my fretboards.

The rear body of the guitar on a carpet mat on a workbench, showing the copper covered inside of the electronics cavity. To the side you can see a scalpel and bits of tape, and on the body to one side you can see the translucent orange acrylic cover for the cavity that will let the shiny copper inside be visible once the cover is on.

A Week in and out the Shop

19 Sep 2022 - 3d printing, älgen, delfinen, ferrules, fusion 360, jigs, laser-cutting, patching, templates

A week of having more questions than answers as try to push the Delfin build forward.

A week in the shop

15 May 2022 - älgen, delfinen, fusion 360, jigs, laser-cutting, templates

Dealing with 3D print shrinkage; looking at the tiny design details users will never see; how a damaged guitar body leads to a better design; and just what makes a guitar a Michael Dales guitar?

Tags > Laser-Cutting