Guitar practice fingerboard

Made on a Glowforge
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My parents were visiting for a few days and my father was (as usual) looking for things to do.
He has recently decided to learn to play the classical guitar, and he wanted to practice, but he was unable to bring his instrument with him,

So he asked me if I would make a fake finger board for him on the glowforge, and (apparently not having learned anything in the last 50 some years) I said yes. My father is a life long engineer, and does nothing halfway. So, he proceeded to spend 2 days researching and drawing a very detailed sketch of what he wanted. The design and engrave/cut only took a little while, but of course the first version required significant modification and more design work before I could try again.

In the end he was really happy with the outcome, and it was fun to sit around yakking about his inevitable product ideas.

Here is the drawing and final fingerboard. and some additional strips I cut for him so he can stack them up and get to the final thickness before carving a facsimile of the neck.

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816Ă—612 101 KB

48 Likes
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That is incredibly neat! I’m glad you haven’t learned better in those 50
years, and that you’re still making things with your Dad!

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That does seem like a cool product idea, actually.

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I think your father and my father would get along nicely. :-P. I still remember the summer he taught me how to solder. He gave me a coil of copper wire and challenged me to unroll it, flatten the wire (by rolling it on the workbench table with a scrap of wood), file a miter on it, then solder pieces into a cube.

Or, roll the clock back a few years more, when he sat me at the kitchen table with a noodle bowl full of marbles and a second, empty bowl and handed me a pair of chopsticks… “For practice”.

:smiley:

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Not to be a thief or anything… but this would make an awesome present for my dad!

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Looks like a good design for the Design Catalog.

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I just love how engineers approach problems. Thanks for sharing.

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Its really cool seeing this go from sketch to physical object. I really need to start digging through some of my old sketch books to find old projects that i couldn’t pull off at the time. I’m sure i can find a few that would be perfect for the GF.

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Chopsticks and marbles?! Wow! What did you do to anger him so? :no_mouth:
“Now do it with your left hand - looking in a mirror…” :disappointed_relieved:

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Such a truly unique project! I cant wait to get my own Glowforge so i can create one-of-a-kind solutions to real life too.

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One thing to consider would be adding a bridge and rudimentary tuning pegs. it wouldn’t be loud, but it would allow him to have strings to work on finger strength and callouses. :slight_smile:

of course, that might make adding real frets necessary, too. but it could keep your father busy for a while working out the engineering drawings for all of that.