Here on Geeky Gadgets we have featured a wealth of 3D printed projects as well as a couple of 3D printed guitars, but now the very first aluminium 3D printer guitar has been unveiled providing a much more robust and permanent usable musical instrument.
Combining both flowers and barbwire the aluminium 3D printed guitar, aptly named Heavy Metal, has been created by Olaf Diegel based in Sweden. Who created the 3D printer guitar to push the 3D printing technology to its limits to see what could be created using a metal rather than plastic.
Once the guitar had been 3D printed it took Olaf four days to finish the print and prepare it for a final finish of satin paint. As you can see from the image below the detailing is excellent form aluminium 3D print and the finished piece weighs roughly 8lbs.
The Heavy Metal guitar: The world’s first 3D printed aluminium guitar! This guitar was designed to explore what metal additive manufacturing (3D printing) is capable of, and to better understand the intricacies of the whole process, from “design for additive manufacturing”, to the actual printing of the guitar, to the post-processing that is required to go from a printed metal part straight of the machine to a usable masterpiece. The design of the guitar is purposefully complex to really push the limits of metal additive manufacturing.
The guitar, designed by Olaf Diegel, features a diamond tread-plate Telecaster style body, with a front and back made of barbed wire (but with the barbed wire spikes kept well away from the player) and roses inside the body. The guitar was originally nick-named War and Peace, but Heavy Metal seemed a more appropriately literal name.
The entire body was printed, as a single piece, in aluminium using an EOS M400 metal additive manufacturing system. The guitar body was printed by Xilloc in Holland. The guitar features a maple wooden inner core, a Warmoth custom neck, Seymour Duncan pickups, a Schaller bridge, and Gotoh 510 mini locking tuners.
For more details on the 3D printing process which is being used to create the Heavy Metal guitar jump over to the official Odd Guitars website for more details, imagery and statistics.
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