[3D Printing Application] Entering the Music Industry! 3D Printed Playable Electric Guitars!

【3D Printing Application】Entering the Music World! A Playable 3D Printed Electric Guitar!

For this 3D print, we used the Bambu Lab X1 Carbon 3D Printer! Here are the detailed production steps:

• Simple assembly without dozens of complex parts
• No metal rods for reinforcement or other unnecessary hardware

Straightforward
The biggest concern for people is the force that the strings exert on the guitar body and neck, which is approximately 50 kg, depending on the string gauge (thickness). This 50 kg of weight would break the guitar in half, tear the bridge from the body, and severely bend the neck. Therefore, using a real wooden neck prevents this from happening.

While you might say this guitar is no longer "fully 3D printed," the neck is a critical and fragile part of the guitar, and if I were to print it, the entire project would be compromised (though it is possible). A wooden neck is very smooth and straight, has durable metal frets, and an internal truss rod for adjusting relief (concave or convex bow).

Solving the bridge problem requires more consideration. The bridge of an electric guitar is a small metal part that holds the lower end of the strings. It is usually fixed to the body with a few screws. If we look at the most common guitar designs, one of them might strike you as particularly suitable for a 3D printed guitar. Can you guess which one?

Except for one common guitar design, all other guitar bridges are very small and sometimes fixed with only two screws. However, the Telecaster bridge is different! This large metal plate not only holds the bottom strings but also integrates the bottom pickup and has up to 5 screw holes with wider spacing, which better distributes the leverage from the bridge across the entire metal plate and the underlying printed part.

Hardware Selection
Since we chose to use a Telecaster bridge, we have to acquire all the parts. Generally, there are three ways to approach this:

1. Buy a cheap Telecaster guitar and disassemble it for parts
2. Buy all parts separately
3. Buy a Telecaster hardware kit

Buying a fully functional guitar just to immediately disassemble it seems wrong and wasteful. This is only a good idea if you find a heavily damaged guitar whose hardware and neck are still intact.

Buying all parts separately is definitely a viable option. You would need:

1) Guitar neck with tuners
2) 1 single-coil pickup
3) Bridge with integrated single-coil pickup
4) Telecaster control plate with 3-way switch and two knobs
5) Output jack

The problem is, buying these parts individually can be quite expensive. Even if you choose the cheapest options, it could still cost several hundred dollars. So, in the end, we opted for a T-style electric guitar kit.