Lap Steel Guitar, vintage SciFi style. For 200mm and larger printers

thingiverse

This is an exciting instrument project, though it's not for beginners due to its complexity. Print time for all 54 parts clocks in at around 70 hours using 2kg of colored PLA filament. The design was created using 123D Design software; the original file is included so feel free to modify, remix, and adjust as needed. This project requires a 200x200mm printer that needs to be finely tuned and calibrated for optimal results. However, several parts will need to be filed or sanded to fit correctly in place. It's highly recommended to set the infill and layer angle to 0 or 90 degrees, which will significantly improve the top layers' appearance on the assembled lapsteel. I applied this adjustment to all parts except the fingerboard; you can see that it's the only part that doesn't look great. For the four main body sections, I used 1.5kg of filament each. These components have a considerable amount of tension on them, particularly Body4, which requires high infill strength or else the bridge will flex and the instrument won't stay in tune. To achieve maximum layer adhesion on Body4, I printed it at a higher than normal temperature with reduced cooling. The wings can be printed with less infill since they don't bear any load. The fingerboard and splines should be printed at 100% infill for optimal results. Here's what you'll need to get started: * A set of 3x3 tuners * A set of P90 pickups * Two 250k or 500k potentiometers * A three-way Gibson-style switch * A 1/4 mono jack * A 3' 1/4-20 threaded rod * A 1/4-20 nut and washer * 200mm of 1.4 to 2mm music wire or other hardened steel wire for string anchors * A 5mm metal rod for the bridge and nut * A set of lap steel strings * Super Glue * Epoxy Not counting filament costs, the hardware and supplies came out to around $40 after shopping on Amazon for the cheapest options available. Regarding part naming conventions: * Assembly numbering starts with 1 nearest the tuners and increases towards the bridge. Prefix 'B' indicates Bass side (toward player), while 'T' denotes treble side. Please keep this project away from hot temperatures!