Mixer Woodwork

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ruffrecords

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Nov 10, 2006
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Norfolk - UK
Most decent mixers are finished of with some sort of wood trim or enclosure. I am particularly interested in how to interface the often non-flat sides of a mixer with a nice looking piece of wood. As many of you know I am mechanically dyslexic so I find this kind of thing hard to get my head around and implement (I cannot even saw in a straight line).

Cheers

Ian
 
ruffrecords said:
Most decent mixers are finished of with some sort of wood trim or enclosure. I am particularly interested in how to interface the often non-flat sides of a mixer with a nice looking piece of wood. As many of you know I am mechanically dyslexic so I find this kind of thing hard to get my head around and implement (I cannot even saw in a straight line).

Cheers

Ian
Back at Peavey I had the luxury of not only a full wood shop, but a serious guitar quality paint shop. My big $20k consoles had really pretty endbells, but I hard a hard time getting the guitar shop to paint both endbells the exact same color so they would match. The MRPS (manufacturing planning) treated the left and right endbells as different parts so ran them in separate batches, often resulting in subtle color differences. I had a really picky woman working in final QA who routinely rejected endbells that didn't match perfectly. It would have been common sense and simpler to paint them in pairs but nooooo that never happened.

When I started working at Peavey some of the cheap value mixers used wood endbells and cheap wood endbells were rough, by the 90s these were mostly molded plastic. Better quality control and looked better than the cheap wood. 

For onsey-twosey maybe find a local furniture/wood worker and see if they have any interest.

JR
 
JohnRoberts said:
For onsey-twosey maybe find a local furniture/wood worker and see if they have any interest.

JR
To date I have been using studio furniture manufacturers but none of them has CNC facilities. However, I have now found a local company that makes wooden bicycles that also offers CNC woodworking so I will give them a try.

Cheers

Ian
 
I think the "actual" sides are in fact flat; it's the decorative piece that is curved (and possibly carved with the manufacturer name/model)

As to how they're done I guess they're either made using a lathe and sawing the piece in half or a router/plane using a guide, with the carving CNC milled or laser engraved. It could be beneficial to carve it hollow from the inside or drill large holes (ventilation) as it reduces weight but don't take my word for it.

It's a bit trickier if the console is angled from the top which is when a router is pretty much the only option (or a band saw and chamfering/rounding the edges)

Then you'd either wax it or stain it to preserve the wood texture, and add bolts/nuts to attach it to the frame.
 
ruffrecords said:
Most decent mixers are finished of with some sort of wood trim or enclosure. I am particularly interested in how to interface the often non-flat sides of a mixer with a nice looking piece of wood. As many of you know I am mechanically dyslexic so I find this kind of thing hard to get my head around and implement (I cannot even saw in a straight line).

Cheers

Ian

I would approach this by taking the dimensions of your mixer side and then use the CNC machine to effectively creating a relief of it in a piece of wood which would attach to the mixer side

By creating pockets for the metalwork of the mixer, the wooden side panel would then be placed onto the mixer side and could be secured from the inside with bolts, going into threaded inserts on the inside of the wooden side panels. I do this a lot with synth system side panels to avoid having bolts showing on the outside.

The CNC machine can cut pockets of varying depth into the wood to cleanly encase the side of the mixer. The limitation is how much different parts stick of of the side of course. If the variance between the highest and lowest points on the side of the mixer was 15mm for example, a 20mm thick piece of material should work.

I hope this is clear. I can send some examples to illustrate this when I'm on my laptop tomorrow
 
I'm also intrested in best practices for mounting armrests. Keyhole mounts come to mind, or pockets drilled out on underside to fit nut and crescent wrench.
 
Is there ballpark pricing for CNC woodworking?  Something like the price for doing a 4x8 sheet of plywood.  I would assume there is a setup fee and then per unit.

Also is there a standard file format to send to get CNC woodwork? Like a CNC equivalent of a gerber.
 
john12ax7 said:
Is there ballpark pricing for CNC woodworking?  Something like the price for doing a 4x8 sheet of plywood.  I would assume there is a setup fee and then per unit.
I can't answer that. prices are very variable, depending on the shop's particulars. Some are set up for large runs and gonna quote low per price but high set up, others will have a higher per price but lower set up. But you must expect to pay for the program and set up that will be most of the cost for very small runs. I've had quotations for a particular design ranging from €150 for a one-off to €25 for a run of 100.

Also is there a standard file format to send to get CNC woodwork? Like a CNC equivalent of a gerber.
Actually all CNC's use a version of G-code (the G standing for Gerber), but the exchange files are dominantly dxf. There are formats such as stl, cdr, free vector that I'm not familiar with.
Most CNC woodshops will also accept Autocad and Solidworks files.
Actually, it is important to balance the different manufacturing techniques.
Let's say you want to build end cheeks for a mixer (that's the actual subject of this thread, innit?), CNC is almost essential for pocketing, but for the rest, like the external contour, a band saw may be considered, and for rounding the edges a standard router is a much quicker and less costly option than having the CNC doing it.
 
Those CNC prices are rather reasonable. What I've done thus far is use a local woodworker who does things by hand. The mechanical design aspect is minimal as he just builds / adapts  to the metal work I drop off. It's a good viable option if you need low volume or one offs.
 
(Edited for intent) For anyone reading this thread who’s interested in DIYing something like this by hand, here’s a basic overview of the process. Maybe it’ll help tip your descision one way or the other.

As far as attaching cheeks or similar projects go, if you have some experience with woodworking (particularly, knowing how to SAFELY use a router and a band or jig saw) and access to a router/accessories, a bandsaw or a jigsaw, the basic process is within reach of an intermediate hobbyist.

In short, you trace out the contours of the mixer profile on a large sheet of paper, then transfer that to a piece of MDF, 1/4” plywood, acrylic sheet (my preference) or phenolic. For some projects, you can skip the paper step and place the template material against the side of the mixer and follow the mixer contour with a pencil or scribe tool directly on the template material. Use a bandsaw or jigsaw (depending on the size of the panels and the size of your bandsaw table) to cut the material along the transferred lines. No need to worry about channel width or bit depth at this point. This just becomes your router template.

Tape the template onto your side panel material using double sided tape. Use a router with the appropriately sized bit(s) (bit(s) would be the width of the channel required to attach the side panel to the mixer) and a roller guide to follow the template to rout the shape of the console profile into the side panel. If you have varying areas of relief on the mixer sides, adjust the bit depth and go back and deepen those areas of the channel to the depth needed. Assembly is then as Rob describes above.

this is the rough process. There are important details of course, but it gives you an idea of the level of effort and skills needed.

Tip: when routing the channel, either use a compression bit or spiral downcut bit to eliminate chipping the wood around the channel. Alternatively, put masking tape over the area to be routed out.

There are probably many videos on Youtube that show the process of creating a routing template for similar applications. Do a Youtube search for something like, “making and using a router template”, and there are probably many instructional videos. If you have some woodworking skills and access to the tools and you have the desire to take those skills up a level, this sort of project would be a good challenge. And the skills will come in handy for many other projects.
 
I am particularly interested in how to interface the often non-flat sides of a mixer with a nice looking piece of wood
Other than some sort of adhesive or wood plugs for countersunk bolts, perhaps the side panel's outward face could have an inset or cavity routed-out that follows the endcap edge contour, making it look like a frame. This inset would then be filled so to cover up the T-nuts that secure the encap to the metal sides.
 
boji said:
Other than some sort of adhesive or wood plugs for countersunk bolts, perhaps the side panel's outward face could have an inset or cavity routed-out that follows the endcap edge contour, making it look like a frame. This inset would then be filled so to cover up the T-nuts that secure the encap to the metal sides.

OK, I think I understood most of that but what are T-nuts.

Cheers

Ian
 
rackmonkey said:
In short, you trace out the contours of the mixer profile on a large sheet of paper, then transfer that to a piece of MDF, 1/4” plywood, acrylic sheet (my preference) or phenolic. For some projects, you can skip the paper step and place the template material against the side of the mixer and follow the mixer contour with a pencil or scribe tool directly on the template material. Use a bandsaw or jigsaw (depending on the size of the panels and the size of your bandsaw table) to cut the material along the transferred lines. No need to worry about channel width or bit depth at this point. This just becomes your router template.
Unless I missed something, I think there is one important step lacking.
Actually, the pocket would be offset by the diameter of the router bit, which would leave a gap between the metal work and the cheek.
An intermediate step is either to offset the template by about the diameter of the router bit (a little less as to leave a small gap) with a marking gauge, or making a negative template, offset by the diameter of a small router bit, and routing a second intermediate template from this negative template with a router bit twice the size.
Then you end up with a new positive template that's offset by the small router bit diameter. Seems quite a complicated procedure, but it's how it was done before CNC, and still done for pickguards.
 
A lot of great information here. I like woodworking and taking a second look at Abbey's stuff I really respect the builds. Very precise cuts and edging. This is a really professional job man. Cheers
 
abbey road d enfer said:
But there are much better options.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwH5ie_7n-s

Yes - this is what I meant in my earlier post.

Holes for these can be placed with absolute accuracy and repeatability with CNC.

Here are the threaded inserts in something I made recently
 

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And here's the same case with the customer's modular synth system mounted inside. No bolts or other fixings on the outside 👍
 

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Mixtable.com is an absolute genius at this. Does it in solid walnut from Czech Rep. cheaper than U.K. in laminate
 
Mixtable.com is an absolute genius at this. Does it in solid walnut from Czech Rep. cheaper than U.K. in laminate
That URL comes up as some kind of super app for a phone. Nothing to do with wood. Can you check if for me please?

Edit: Don't worry, I found it. It is Mixingtable.com

Cheers

Ian
 

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