If you’ve seen Olaf Diegel’s cool guitars made by 3D Printing but wondered how exactly it works, the design engineer who has wowed the music world has just released a video that shows all the steps involved in his process.
The Professor of product development in the engineering college at Lund University in Sweden started making guitars and commercialized them as the ODD Guitar brand, a play on his own name. A fan of additive manufacturing, Olaf uses 3D printing to make guitars that can be customized but also that make totally unique designs with complex geometries that could not be manufactured with any other tools.
Using a Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) process in a 3D Systems 3D Printer, the technology builds the components by spreading a thin layer of nylon powder, that is then fused in the correct locations for that particular slice of the component. Each layer is laid down upon the previous layer to “build up” the part and the process is repeated until the component is finished. The typical layer thickness is 0.1mm.
All hardware used to make ODD guitars is top quality and most can be specified by the customer when ordering. With 3D Printing, of course, some degree of customization is possible for each guitar. There is cost in the design phase, but as people like to say for 3D Printing, complexity is free.
But these are not student or beginner guitars. Costing several thousand dollars, ODD guitars are for the serious guitarist – or the 3D Printing enthusiast! The guitars can be ordered on the ODD website but can also be purchased through Cubify. In addition to guitars, Olaf also makes keyboards and drum sets so that you can have a complete 3D Printed band!
You can watch the video here.