Although people will often debate the idea of “tonewood”, a 3D-printed electric guitar sounds just like a traditional wood electric guitar because most of the tone comes from the pickups, electronics, grounding, shielding, and amp rather than the body material.

We use high quality pickups (genuine Fender Squier) to ensure great sound quality. Want to hear it for yourself? Check out our sound demo!

The guitar body is split into sections so that it can be printed on a large majority of home 3D printers. The recommended print bed size is 256 x 256mm or greater. This includes popular 3D printers such as the Bambu Lab A1, X1C, P1P, P1S, and many others.

Many 3D printing slicing softwares (including Bambu Studio, Prusa Slicer, Cura) have a ‘cut’ feature (or something similar) that enables you to split parts into smaller sections. Although it is possible, keep in mind that splitting the center core of the guitar will create joints that may be weak/failure points when tension is applied to the strings.

You can also try tilting the parts at an angle which may allow them to fit on your print bed, although this will of course introduce additional support material (and print time).

There are several factors to ensure your 3D printed guitar holds up well over time. Material selection is a major factor. For the center core of the guitar it is important to use a strong/stiff material to ensure it wont flex/creep over time due to the tension of the guitar strings.

The body of the guitar doesn’t see significant loading, but it’s important to create a strong joint when bonding the sections together. Traditional CA glue works well with many 3D printing plastics, but there are also many other adhesive options out there including 3D printing specific bonding agents.

Material selection is important to consider when printing your guitar. For the center core of the guitar it is important to use a strong/stiff material to ensure it wont flex/creep over time due to the tension of the guitar strings. Examples include materials such as PLA+CF, ABS, Nylon, PC, and glass/carbon filled filaments. For the body, you can get away with lower strength filaments.

Keep in mind that standard PLA has a Heat Deflection Temperature of only ~57 degrees C (around 135 deg F). Therefore it’s not recommended to leave your 3D printed guitar in a hot environment such as a car on a warm/hot day as it may compromise the material and cause warping. You should also aim to keep your guitar in a relatively dry environment with low humidity for the same reasons. You can also consider using UV resistant materials such as ASA.

Material selection of the center core is the key factor to ensure the guitar will stay in tune. Using a strong/stiff material will ensure that it wont flex/creep over time due to the loading caused by the string tension.

You can consider using materials such as ABS, Nylon, PC, and glass/carbon filled filaments. And of course, just like a standard wood guitar, proper string setup will ensure the strings themselves dont slip/loosen over time.

The amount of time required to assemble each kit will depend on your assembly skill level. For the Core kits you can budget about 15 - 30 minutes to assemble (and additional time for stringing and setup). You can budget about 10 - 20 minutes for gluing the Body kits (with additional time to allow the glue to fully set, and around 10 - 30 minutes for assembly.

The amount of material required to 3D print a guitar depends on several factors. Increasing infill percentage will generally result in a stronger and heavier guitar, but increases material usage. Printing the guitar in multiple colors will introduce additional “purge” material waste as it swaps between colors.

Also, some guitar bodies are larger than others (ex: Flying V), so that will impact material usage as well. On average, you can expect to use somewhere around ~1.5-2kgs (rolls) of total filament depending on design and slicer settings.

Similar to filament usage, the total print time depends on several factors. Higher infill, more walls, slower print speeds, more material changes (for multi-color), timelapse mode, etc are just some examples of print settings that will all increase print time.

The body shape/size will also of course impact total print time. On average, you can expect a total print time in the range of ~30-50 hours depending on design selection and print settings.

One neat aspect of a 3D printed guitar is that you have control to increase or decrease the body weight by adjusting the print slicer settings. By increasing/decreasing the infill percentage you can modify the overall weight of the guitar.

Depending on guitar body selection and infill percentages you can expect a full 3D printed guitar (including neck, electronics, etc) to fall in the 6-9 lbs range (2.7-4 kgs). Most standard wooden guitars falls in this same range. This gives a nice weight to the guitar that feels nice in the hands without neck dive!

No, a 3D printed enclosure is not required, although an enclosure can help to ensure a successful print.

Enclosing a 3D printer helps regulate temperature, reduce warping, and improve print quality, especially for materials like ABS that are sensitive to temperature fluctuations. It also reduces noise, contains fumes, and provides a safer printing environment by preventing accidental interference with the print.

All customers must adhere to the Creative Commons outlined below.

Creative Commons:

No commercial use, public sharing, distribution, sale, donation or exchange of the digital files or printed guitar parts/bodies