Additive manufacturing · Engineering materials
An electric guitar designed in CAD and 3D printed.
AxonID applied freeform surface modeling and FDM manufacturing with engineering materials to build a fully functional electric guitar — with a hybrid PA-CF and PLA body, optimized by load zone, at a production cost that conventional lutherie cannot match.
–80%
Manufacturing cost vs. traditional CNC lutherie
72 h
From CAD file to an assembled, playable guitar
∞
Geometric customization at no additional cost
01Problem
Problem
Conventional solid-body lutherie depends on scarce exotic woods with rising costs, large-format CNC milling and labor-intensive specialized craftsmanship. Geometric customization —asymmetric bodies, non-standard ergonomics, integrated resonant cavities— means reprogramming the CNC and generating waste proportional to the entire wood blank. Access to high-quality instruments becomes prohibitive for independent musicians and emerging luthiers.
02Solution
Solution
AxonID modeled the guitar body in Autodesk® Fusion™ with freeform surfaces and defined the instrument's load zones. The result was a three-piece hybrid architecture: a central core in PA-CF (carbon-fiber-reinforced Nylon 12) for the bridge-to-neck load path, and side wings in high-density PLA. All three pieces are FDM printed, assembled with tongue-and-groove geometric joints and completed with a standard hardware kit.
03Results
Results
A fully functional, playable electric guitar with a body made entirely by additive manufacturing. Production cost reduced by 80% compared with an equivalent CNC-milled wood body. Unlimited geometric customization: changing the outline, adding resonant cavities or changing the ergonomics only requires editing the CAD file.
04Material architecture
The right material in each load zone.
Not every part of the body works the same way — and the material selection reflects exactly that.
Critical load zone · Central core — PA-CF, Nylon 12 + Carbon Fiber. The central block joins the neck pocket to the bridge: the path that carries the 458–672 N of tension the six strings apply continuously. PA-CF combines the toughness of Nylon 12 with the stiffness of short carbon fiber, delivering the highest longitudinal tensile strength available in FDM without structural post-processing.
Secondary structural zone · Side wings — High-density PLA. The side wings are the aesthetic volume of the body: they define the ergonomics, the visual outline and the electronics control cavity, but they are not part of the primary load path. PLA offers excellent surface definition, easy printing with a high-quality finish and a low cost per gram. They are joined to the central core with tongue-and-groove joints tapered 1–2° for a friction fit, with no structural adhesive at the main joints.
- Central core: high XY tensile strength — reinforced engineering filament
- Central core: raster oriented at 0° / parallel to the string-to-neck tension flow
- Central core: 46–60% Gyroid infill — maximum stiffness with controlled weight
- Central core: heat-set brass inserts at every mechanical anchor point
- Side wings: high surface resolution — outline detail and complex curves
- Side wings: low-density Gyroid or Voronoi infill — lower total mass
- Side wings: dovetail joints with reinforcing steel pins
- Side wings: cavities and wiring channels modeled directly in CAD
05Process
From parametric geometry to a vibrating string.
Every design decision — shape, material, print orientation — was defined in the digital model before a single layer was printed.
- 01. Dimensional Capture and Reverse Engineering of the Hardware Kit. Perfect mechanical compatibility with standard hardware (neck pocket, pickup cavities, Telecaster-style bridge, potentiometers and tuners) was ensured from the first step: high-resolution dimensional capture of the kit using a calibrated metric reference and photogrammetric reverse engineering techniques. Critical dimensions — ±0.1 mm tolerances at the neck pocket — were imported as a calibration canvas into Autodesk Fusion to extrude the exact profile of each mounting cavity. (Reverse engineering · Autodesk Fusion · Mounting tolerances ±0.1 mm)
- 02. Freeform Surface Modeling and Modular Body Architecture. The body was modeled in Autodesk Fusion with freeform surface tools (T-Splines), which make it possible to create organic curvature and ergonomic contours that conventional parametric CAD cannot. The architecture was defined in three modules: a central core (sustain block) as a single continuous piece from the neck pocket to the bridge anchor, plus two side wings. Internal wiring channels, the control cavity and the ducts for structural tension rods were modeled directly in CAD — with no drilling afterwards. Dovetail tongue-and-groove joints tapered 1–2° were designed for friction assembly without special tools. (Autodesk Fusion · T-Splines · Design for additive manufacturing (DfAM))
- 03. Slicing and FDM Fabrication with Stiffness-Driven Parameters. The PA-CF core was sliced at a 0.2 mm layer height, with at least 7 outer wall perimeters and 50% Gyroid infill — parameters that maximize Z interlayer strength and torsional stiffness. Extrusion temperature was set at the upper limit for PA-CF to maximize layer adhesion. The PLA wings were printed with low-density Gyroid infill to reduce mass without compromising surface integrity. Holes for the brass inserts were modeled 0.3 mm oversize for subsequent heat-set installation. (FDM · PA-CF · PLA · Gyroid infill · 7 perimeters · Brass inserts)
- 04. Assembly, Electromagnetic Shielding and Hardware Installation. The three pieces were assembled through the tongue-and-groove joints with 6 mm steel pins encapsulated in structural epoxy — passively absorbing the longitudinal component of string tension and isolating the joints from any direct load. The electronics cavities were fully lined with conductive copper foil grounded to the bridge, eliminating the radio-frequency noise inherent to FDM plastics. The prefabricated wood neck, pickups, bridge and standard kit electronics were installed without modification. Result: a fully functional electric guitar, tuned and playable, in 72 hours total. (Mechanical assembly · Copper EMI shielding · Standard hardware kit · 72 h total)
06Process in pictures
From digital model to functional part.
07Technology stack
The tools that make digital lutherie possible.
- Design and modeling · Autodesk Fusion: an integrated platform for parametric modeling and freeform surfaces (T-Splines) in a single environment. It takes the body's organic outline straight to print-ready parts without format conversions or loss of geometric information.
- Fabrication · FDM — Fused Deposition Modeling 3D printing: a layer-by-layer additive manufacturing process on high-performance desktop platforms. Precise control of the raster angle (+45° to maximize high-frequency response), the Gyroid infill pattern and the number of perimeters directly determines the part's mechanical and acoustic behavior — without changing its external geometry.
- Critical material · PA-CF — Nylon 12 + Carbon Fiber: a Nylon 12 composite filament reinforced with short carbon fiber, offering the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio available in FDM without sacrificing nylon's toughness under impact and cyclic fatigue. Used only in the central core, where string tension demands maximum continuous strength.
- Secondary material · PLA — High Surface Resolution: a low-cost bio-based thermoplastic with high surface definition and easy processing. Ideal for the side wings: they work below 15% of their ultimate strength, so the selection criteria are surface quality, dimensional accuracy and cost — where PLA beats any engineering alternative.
- Mechanical joints · Brass inserts + steel pins: every anchor point with relevant mechanical loads (neck, bridge, strap) uses threaded brass inserts heat-set into holes pre-modeled in CAD. The 6 mm steel pins encapsulated in structural epoxy at the tongue-and-groove joints passively absorb the strings' longitudinal tension, isolating the plastic-to-plastic joint from any direct load.
08Why digital lutherie
What changes when the instrument is born in CAD.
- Manufacturing cost (–80%): a CNC-milled exotic wood guitar body requires certified logs of shrinking availability, large-format mills and days of manual finishing. FDM eliminates tooling, uses widely available engineering filament and produces almost no waste — an additive versus a subtractive process. The cost difference is structural, not circumstantial.
- Geometric customization (∞): changing the body outline, adding an integrated Helmholtz resonant cavity, adapting the ergonomics to the musician's anatomy, embossing a logo or creating a completely original shape all require exactly the same thing: editing the CAD file. No CNC reprogramming. No new tooling. No additional setup cost. Customization is no longer a privilege of high-end handcrafted lutherie.
- Development time (72 h): exotic wood requires months of seasoning before machining. Conventional lutherie finishes need repeated coats, drying and sanding over several days. FDM delivers a structurally finished part straight from the printer: 72 hours from CAD file to a fully assembled instrument, tuned and ready to play — with no waiting for material or curing time.
Technical sheet
Technical specifications
- Design and modeling · Software: Autodesk Fusion — T-Spline surfaces
- Design and modeling · Modeling technique: freeform surfaces with continuous curvature control
- Design and modeling · Architecture: 3 modules (core + 2 wings) + tongue-and-groove joints
- Design and modeling · Mounting tolerances: ±0.1 mm at the neck pocket and bridge
- Design and modeling · Internal wiring channels modeled in CAD — no drilling afterwards
- FDM fabrication · Process: FDM — Fused Deposition Modeling
- FDM fabrication · Critical zone material: PA-CF (Nylon 12 + carbon fiber)
- FDM fabrication · Secondary zone material: high-density PLA
- FDM fabrication · Core layer height: 0.2 mm — 7+ wall perimeters
- FDM fabrication · Infill: 46–60% Gyroid (core) / low Gyroid (wings)
- FDM fabrication · Raster angle: +45° — maximizes high-frequency response (+11%)
- Assembly and hardware · Joints: dovetail tapered 1–2° + Ø6 mm steel pins
- Assembly and hardware · Anchors: heat-set threaded brass inserts
- Assembly and hardware · Shielding: conductive copper foil in the electronics cavities
- Assembly and hardware · Hardware: prefabricated neck, pickups, Telecaster-style bridge, standard electronics
- Assembly and hardware · Total process time: 72 hours (CAD to functional guitar)
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