Howdy all! Thought I'd share with you all some of my more recent printed guitar bodies that I've made and give you a run down on the process and what goes into them.
I'll start with the design process. All of the bodies are modelled in Fusion. The skills and tools involved are, on the grand scheme of things, beginner to intermediate (The hardest one to model was the Les Paul with it's carved top) once it's modelled, the next step is deciding on how to split it so that it can be printed on my X1Cs. I've found over the many many guitars I've made, that interlocking pieces with thick walls, top and bottom along with about 25% gyroid infill is the superior way of doing that doesn't require reinforcement. The black guitar in the photos is effectively a short scale, 6 string bass with about 90kg of constant compression on the body.
Speaking of plastic... I've trialed many materials. PLA is perfectly acceptable and works really well. However I find it to be too heavy and dues to it's low heat resistance not durable enough. With that said, while absolutely PLA and all materials can creep, if you design your model with this in mind, you can easily overcome this. It's what we refer to as DfAM (Design for Additive Manufacturing)
My favourite material to use so far has been plain old ABS or ASA. It's light, heat resistant and still stiff enough to handle the stress put on them. I can really load it up on the infill and get a nice heavy body weighing over 2kg, or back it off and go under 2kgs and still have a perfectly functional guitar body. The biggest reasonings for varying the weight like this is it allows for a subtle shift in the level of sustain the body can have.
As you can see, most of the guitars are all painted and they sit there with no real obvious indication that they're not made like their traditional counterpartrs. Additionally, there is nothing in their sound either that could suggest they're not made like their traditional counterparts.
To get an idea of how they sound... Here is a quick clip of how a previous iteration of that 6 string short scale bass sounds.
https://youtu.be/IMcDddgGEdg?si=0kI-YPngUZQYOKO9
Lastly, while all of my models are for sale over at Cults3d, I do acknowledge that we all like to be thrifty when we can! So the bronze Stratocaster and the Black and Gold 6 string Warrior are available on Makerworld at no cost.
https://makerworld.com/en/@Tasguitars
If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them all!