Thank you, I enjoyed making mine. It was a bit of a brain teaser sometimes but well worth the effort. Best of luck with your build, I hope you can take away something from my video for your own. A CNC is a great tool to have in the luthiers workshop. Best wishes Nick
Fantastic Nick.... I have the Workbee from Bulkman with the Open Builds controller and there is so much play or slop in the wheels it really is a problem with the z axis.. That being said I cannot justify the cost of the upgrade kit and shipping so I am doing it myself. this is very helpful thanks.... If you do decide to sell a kit I will buy one !!!
Thanks, the lock collars I made myself. I did upgrade it again to ball screws. This made a real difference and is well worth looking into But sadly I never made a video.
Amazing work and thanks a lot for sharing this... Would love to do something similar to mine... a lot of research has to be done before I can pull it off though... Any resources you would recommend?
Thank you very much, I purchased everything from Ebay including the 10mm aluminium plate the rials come on the slow boat from China and took a few weeks! But I took a gamble in the meantime and set to work on all the plate work. Luckily all the planning paid off and it all wet together as planned. I couldn’t be happier. It can machine anything now with ease. It has reduced the machining time of a guitar neck and body by 2/3s it’s a proper beast. best of luck with yours
@@NickRogersNJRCustomGuitars Amazing! Thanks for taking the time to reply... I will look into it deeper for shure Best luck with your guitar making and playing
Hi thanks for your comment, I purchased the stainless box section from a supplier on eBay. It was a meter length, I cut it in two with a cutting disc in 4” angle grinder.
That looks great , I am thinking of buying a workbee myself , I would preferably by the killer bee from ratrig which is europe based and I will not have to pay customs but it has 8 weeks lead time at the moment and I am in a hurry , So the plan is to buy workbee and upgrade later but killer bee upgrade costs about 600 euros more or less depending on the size , on the other hand as you shown here there can be a custom upgrade and especially if you own a cnc and can machine the aluminium parts its kind of easy . May I ask how much all the upgrade costed to you ? Also , I ve been told from the company that the maximum router bit the work could hold is 6 to 8 mm , I would like to ask you if that refers to the tool or to the shank size ? have used bits bigger than 8mm before upgrading and how was is ? Now that you ve done the upgrade can you use bigger tools ? Whats the maximum collet bore this spindle can take ? I also plan to make a shorter spoilboard so I can mount pieces paraller to the z axis to make some horizontal maching . What do you think about that ?
Wow that’s quite a message. Right where do I start. My upgrade cost. The spindle and mount cost me about £300 it’s a 1.5kw air cooled in my opinion absolutely ideal. The biggest shank size or collet size is 8mm so any cutter with an shank up to and including 8mm will fit. My biggest cutter is a facing tool that’s 30mm. The aluminium and linear rails cost me about £350ish that’s an estimate as it was a while back now. I would point out tho I didn’t use the workbee to make the plate work I actually have a small hobby milling machine. The original workbee could possibly make all the plates but aluminium is pushing the workbee to its limit. There may be some flexing issues. Having said that my first upgrade was making taller gantry plates to gain more height on the z. I did make those on the standard bee. They worked well and were on the machine for about a year before I did this current upgrade. I hope that covers most of what you were asking. Thanks Nick
@@NickRogersNJRCustomGuitars yes you did , thank a lot . I ve seen a video of yours cutting some aluminium super clean and I thought you made it on the bee . If i was in the usa i would choose afinity i dont know if you ve seen it but it looks very stiff to me on the other hand its kinda small and more expensive than the bee , i might with the second
@@antoniskaloterakis7996 oh yes that router bracket I made. I forgot about that. Yes that was made on the standard workbee. I have seen the affinity but I don’t know much about it. If I had the money I would go for a Laguna machine but I can’t warrant spending that much for what I use it for. Maybe when I retire I’ll treat myself. For the money tho the workbee has been great. I would recommend one all day long. I make guitars on mine, I probably made something like 8 bodies and necks on the Standard machine with no problems at all. The main reason I want for my upgrades was to speed things up via bigger deeper cuts. The standard machine I would take at most 1.5 depth of cut now I can take 10 mm deep with ease. Good luck with whatever machine you go for 👍
@@NickRogersNJRCustomGuitars thanks , now that you said about depth of cut , at 2008 we bought a homag 5axis cnc , it was cutting 18mm plywood like butter at once, 60meters per minute rapids etc etc , later the crisis came and eventually it has been sold , now workbees and all that will be a huge downgrade but its something at least , i will mostly work with ash and will cut 6mm aluminium that would have been cut with waterjet that has very bad surface finish
Very impressive work on the CNC and guitars. I own a Workbee and have upgraded with linear rails all around and still find the X-axis being quite susceptible to torsional deflections and vibrations. Wondering if you found that the steel reinforcement channel remedied the issue completely or was just an incremental improvement?
Firstly many thanks for your kind comments. The steel reinforcement did indeed remedy the deflection. It will now cut maple (probably the hardest of the timbers I machine) 10mm deep cuts with a 4 mm step-over using an 8 mm end mill with no problem at all. I recently also cut some brass plate work also with no noticeable flexing. I can only compare with the standard machine because the steel was all part of my upgrade idea, so i never tried my machine just with the linear rails and no steel. The difference in the upgrade to the standard bee is night and day. I did intend to next upgrade the lead screws but it’s been a fair while now and the machine has been worked really hard and it’s still as good as the day I rebuilt it. (Famous las words) So I wonder if it’s worth the time and money. Best of luck with with your cnc and I hope you resolve your flex.
@@martinwruss3833 hi thanks for your message. But no sorry not right now. I am thinking of maybe putting something together at a later date to try and sell my design plans or sell kits But right now I haven’t made my mind up. Sorry
@@NickRogersNJRCustomGuitars I understand your decision and appreciate your answer. Of course i hope you will make up your mind and maybe sell the plans at some point.
Tremendous project. Congratulations, I am very excited about the idea of making my own CNC, I am also a Luthier. Greetings from Yucatan!
Thank you, I enjoyed making mine. It was a bit of a brain teaser sometimes but well worth the effort. Best of luck with your build, I hope you can take away something from my video for your own. A CNC is a great tool to have in the luthiers workshop. Best wishes Nick
Fantastic Nick.... I have the Workbee from Bulkman with the Open Builds controller and there is so much play or slop in the wheels it really is a problem with the z axis.. That being said I cannot justify the cost of the upgrade kit and shipping so I am doing it myself. this is very helpful thanks.... If you do decide to sell a kit I will buy one !!!
Thanks for sharing!
Great upgrade, thanks for sharing.
Well done!
Many thanks 👍
Very nice, I am considering upgrading my workbee, where did you get those oversized lock collars for the ball screws
Thanks, the lock collars I made myself. I did upgrade it again to ball screws. This made a real difference and is well worth looking into But sadly I never made a video.
Amazing work and thanks a lot for sharing this... Would love to do something similar to mine... a lot of research has to be done before I can pull it off though... Any resources you would recommend?
Thank you very much, I purchased everything from Ebay including the 10mm aluminium plate
the rials come on the slow boat from China and took a few weeks! But I took a gamble in the meantime and set to work on all the plate work. Luckily all the planning paid off and it all wet together as planned. I couldn’t be happier. It can machine anything now with ease. It has reduced the machining time of a guitar neck and body by 2/3s it’s a proper beast.
best of luck with yours
@@NickRogersNJRCustomGuitars Amazing! Thanks for taking the time to reply... I will look into it deeper for shure
Best luck with your guitar making and playing
Hello, thanks for the video. Great upgrade ! Could you tel where you bought the stainless steel box section ? Thanks
Hi thanks for your comment, I purchased the stainless box section from a supplier on eBay. It was a meter length, I cut it in two with a cutting disc in 4” angle grinder.
@@NickRogersNJRCustomGuitars Ok thanks. So Its a 20mmx40mmx1.5mm section I guess.
No it was 40x40 box slit down the middle 1.5 wall thickness yes 👍
@@NickRogersNJRCustomGuitars Thanks, Last question How did you cut it. With a hand saw?
No I cut it with a 4” angle grinder with a 1mm thick slitting disc.
Looking at your display, do you use raspberry pi as controller along with linuxCNC ?
Hi, no it’s a duet WiFi controller run via pc and windows
That looks great , I am thinking of buying a workbee myself , I would preferably by the killer bee from ratrig which is europe based and I will not have to pay customs but it has 8 weeks lead time at the moment and I am in a hurry , So the plan is to buy workbee and upgrade later but killer bee upgrade costs about 600 euros more or less depending on the size , on the other hand as you shown here there can be a custom upgrade and especially if you own a cnc and can machine the aluminium parts its kind of easy .
May I ask how much all the upgrade costed to you ?
Also , I ve been told from the company that the maximum router bit the work could hold is 6 to 8 mm , I would like to ask you if that refers to the tool or to the shank size ? have used bits bigger than 8mm before upgrading and how was is ?
Now that you ve done the upgrade can you use bigger tools ? Whats the maximum collet bore this spindle can take ?
I also plan to make a shorter spoilboard so I can mount pieces paraller to the z axis to make some horizontal maching . What do you think about that ?
Wow that’s quite a message. Right where do I start. My upgrade cost. The spindle and mount cost me about £300 it’s a 1.5kw air cooled in my opinion absolutely ideal. The biggest shank size or collet size is 8mm so any cutter with an shank up to and including 8mm will fit. My biggest cutter is a facing tool that’s 30mm. The aluminium and linear rails cost me about £350ish that’s an estimate as it was a while back now. I would point out tho I didn’t use the workbee to make the plate work I actually have a small hobby milling machine. The original workbee could possibly make all the plates but aluminium is pushing the workbee to its limit. There may be some flexing issues. Having said that my first upgrade was making taller gantry plates to gain more height on the z. I did make those on the standard bee. They worked well and were on the machine for about a year before I did this current upgrade. I hope that covers most of what you were asking. Thanks
Nick
@@NickRogersNJRCustomGuitars yes you did , thank a lot .
I ve seen a video of yours cutting some aluminium super clean and I thought you made it on the bee . If i was in the usa i would choose afinity i dont know if you ve seen it but it looks very stiff to me on the other hand its kinda small and more expensive than the bee , i might with the second
@@antoniskaloterakis7996 oh yes that router bracket I made. I forgot about that. Yes that was made on the standard workbee. I have seen the affinity but I don’t know much about it. If I had the money I would go for a Laguna machine but I can’t warrant spending that much for what I use it for. Maybe when I retire I’ll treat myself. For the money tho the workbee has been great. I would recommend one all day long. I make guitars on mine, I probably made something like 8 bodies and necks on the Standard machine with no problems at all. The main reason I want for my upgrades was to speed things up via bigger deeper cuts. The standard machine I would take at most 1.5 depth of cut now I can take 10 mm deep with ease.
Good luck with whatever machine you go for 👍
@@NickRogersNJRCustomGuitars thanks , now that you said about depth of cut , at 2008 we bought a homag 5axis cnc , it was cutting 18mm plywood like butter at once, 60meters per minute rapids etc etc , later the crisis came and eventually it has been sold , now workbees and all that will be a huge downgrade but its something at least , i will mostly work with ash and will cut 6mm aluminium that would have been cut with waterjet that has very bad surface finish
Very impressive work on the CNC and guitars. I own a Workbee and have upgraded with linear rails all around and still find the X-axis being quite susceptible to torsional deflections and vibrations. Wondering if you found that the steel reinforcement channel remedied the issue completely or was just an incremental improvement?
Firstly many thanks for your kind comments. The steel reinforcement did indeed remedy the deflection. It will now cut maple (probably the hardest of the timbers I machine) 10mm deep cuts with a 4 mm step-over using an 8 mm end mill with no problem at all. I recently also cut some brass plate work also with no noticeable flexing. I can only compare with the standard machine because the steel was all part of my upgrade idea, so i never tried my machine just with the linear rails and no steel. The difference in the upgrade to the standard bee is night and day. I did intend to next upgrade the lead screws but it’s been a fair while now and the machine has been worked really hard and it’s still as good as the day I rebuilt it. (Famous las words) So I wonder if it’s worth the time and money. Best of luck with with your cnc and I hope you resolve your flex.
Looks really good!
Did u use your original SIde-Plates or did you buy new ones?
Maybe you could post a link.
Thanks for the great video!
Thanks for your kind comments no I made new gantry plates.
Any possibility that you share your cad files? Maybe from the whole Machine Setup like we see in the Video?
@@martinwruss3833 hi thanks for your message. But no sorry not right now. I am thinking of maybe putting something together at a later date to try and sell my design plans or sell kits But right now I haven’t made my mind up. Sorry
@@NickRogersNJRCustomGuitars I understand your decision and appreciate your answer.
Of course i hope you will make up your mind and maybe sell the plans at some point.