We’ve seen aluminum guitars, we’ve seen 3D printed guitars – but this is the first time we’ve seen (and heard) a 3D printed aluminum guitar. Why? Because it’s the first!
From the folks at Odd Guitars:
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 off 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.
And a special thank you goes to the team at Xilloc for the great job they did in printing the guitar body!
