Headless Guitar body

thingiverse

I remixed the strandberg style guitar to utilize easily available parts from ebay/Walmart/Ali or other retail places that have cheap prices for parts. This particular remix is modified to utilize the fixed headless bridge that is black with brass parts and has a little crank handle. It also comes with the thing for the top of the Neck. Material shrinkage is a significant concern. I suggest to print a calibration cube and measure to get a baseline and scale the guitar according to the variance to the actual cube dimensions to bring the size up to expected dimensions. As an example (NOTE: these specific measurements will not apply to anyone else): after calibrating my printer and understanding that it moves 100mm when I give it the manual move commands for 100mm for x/y/z axis and calibrating my e-steps, I print a cube with the expected dimensions of 40mm. I measure the printed end product to see how close the cube is to 40mmx40mmx40mm. In my case the X: was 39.68 and the Y: was 39.91. This difference is material shrinkage which is different for every filament. I determined that I need to scale X: 100.8% and Y: 100.225% Math: (YM represents Your Measurement) step 1 scale factor: 100 * ((40-YM) /40) step 2 the final value for cura: 100+[scale factor] This design uses a 25.5" scale neck that requires cutting the head off above the nut to mount the string anchor. Most of the less expensive necks I found have an extra long overhanging fretboard that needs to be trimmed because it over laps the neck pickup. Also modified for direct mount pickups so there are no holes for traditional mounting rings. Print orientation: The guitar was originally designed to be printed with the pickup holes facing up in order to minimize the need for supports in the wiring tunnels. On my first print, I found the support bits on the curve under the neck mount was terrible so I tried printing with the pickups facing down and it worked just fine this way but required much more post processing with cleaning up the support bits in the pickup and neck pockets so it would print best with the pickup holes facing up. I have an expanded printer so it prints for me laying flat. I believe you'll need to orient it more vertically if you have a smaller bed. The original design had some instructions on printing it more vertical, I think. I used 40% infill on the middle body and 20% on the other body parts. Final optional additions: Switch filler: narrows the hole in the original rightH part for mounting a mini switch Jack Hole: narrows the hole for the jack so you don't need a plate to cover the hole NOTE: The micro potentiometers barely fit the cavity as designed. They can be pressed in pre-soldered with the solder tabs pointing away from the middle of the body, but I added Body_rightH_V2 which incorporates a larger cavity for standard potentiometers (and a standard 3 way switch) as well as relocating the switch placement to the same cavity to avoid snaking wires to the less ergonomic forward cavity. Assembly: I used hot glue to attach nuts to the pickup cavity but it was not strong enough, so I used a soldering iron to heat the nut to sink it into the adjuster cavity of the pickup hole and it seems a bit more solid. Had to use shorter M3 screws for the direct mount. The pickup springs allow the pickups to float enough to allow them some stability. To adjust the height, you will need to hold the pickups at the height you want and screw the adjusters until they are snug (no need for brute force) I printed in PETG, so I'm using Gorilla Glue to attach the body parts. There are holes to secure the parts with nuts and bolts but I didn't bother and glued it instead. The 2 pieces to the left of the neck need to be assembled _prior_ to mounting to the middle piece. Clamping the parts helps to keep things aligned while drying. I used a thin pair of attached wires from an old power supply to snake through the body cavity into the switch area (it's a tight run and there's barely enough room to run the wires for the switch plus 2 pickups) . NOTE: The original RightH body will need a miniature 3 way switch and mini volume and tone potentiometers to fit in the space the way it was designed. RightH_V2 uses standard sized parts. Final Thoughts: My original plan to do a headless guitar was to save a few bucks on tuning machines and to have a lighter guitar for lounging around the house. I never planned on using high end parts and the goal was to make it cheap just to see if I could do it. not including filament, parts are running about US$120 sourcing parts from ebay and aliexpress. Bootleg/no name pickups are within my project requirements, but let your desires guide your purchase decisions. updated middle body gives room for wiring runs around the pickup cavity to avoid interference with the pickup moving freely for height adjustment. A quality neck will improve playability as well as improve string action. I purchased a cheap $50 neck and it was pretty good after removing the sharp fret edges. There's some buzzing playing above the 14th fret due to 2 high frets, but I'm ok with it for now. Setting intonation on the bridge is not super accurate since the bridge doesn't allow you any fine control. You basically loosen the saddle and push it some arbitrary amount and hope for the best, repeating until you get it right. I was able to get pretty close without an electronic tuner. I think getting it exact will be much more difficult without fine tuning adjustments, but I like the bridge a lot despite the intonation adjustment. I added an update on the middle piece to provide a little more room for intonation adjustment for the low E string. Look for videos on setting the action using a credit card. It worked well for me. I needed a small shim under the forward portion of the neck pocket (approx .5mm) to allow the bridge to have enough room to set the action. Playing un-amplified, the guitar has a nice ringing tone. It has been a worthwhile project. A word of caution: I printed and built this guitar and made some changes as I was assembling that represent the V2 parts. I have not built the V2 design so things like the switch cover may need to be revised.