The power of prototyping

I finally have some results to report. Using the CAD template by M. de Haan, my colleague Kees has programmed his home made CNC router to create this 0.3 scale model of The War Machine (so I'm actually reporting his results, not mine). This will probably be the template I'll use for the real thing as well. Since the router isn't big enough to cut the entire body (with a staggering width of over 60 cm!), we will use it to create MDF templates. These I will use as routing templates to route the actual body by hand.

As you might have noticed, I'm actually going for the slightly more modern ESP type version of the explorer, for it looks even more like a war machine then the slightly rounded Gibson style. Some choices will have to be made like scale length, type and amount of pickups, number and type of frets, and maybe a different shape for the head, before the actual design for the construction will be finished. Then I will create a final version of the CAD file, which can be translated into machine instructions for Kees' CNC router.