When you combine a Professor of Additive Manufacturing with a Mimaki full-colour 3DUJ-553 3D printer and a love of guitars what do you get? Answer- Fireworks! Swedish Olaf Diegel, now Prof of additive manufacturing at Uni of Auckland has re-imagined the iconic Fender Telecaster to create a fire-breathing LED-festooned masterpiece. Jimi Hendrix would have loved it - and saved the lighter fuel.
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| The Telecaster 'Fire' body was 3D printed using a Mimaki 3DUJ-553, with the neck, electrics and strings then added |
Where there’s smoke, there’s a Fire guitar… Here’s a sneak preview of Olaf Diegel's Fire 3D printed guitar, a homage to the Fender Telecaster, one of the hottest guitars of all time. The guitar’s body is 3D printed in full-colour translucent acrylic with a flame texture. And, of course, it has LEDs that flicker like fire on the inside for added effects!
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| Diegel with another 3D printed guitar |
For guitar tragics (like WFOL's publisher Andy McCourt), Diegel's guitar is fitted with Seymour Duncan hot-rodded humbucker pick-ups, Schaller bridge and strap-locks, D'Addario Planet Waves Auto-Trim Locking Tuning Machines, PRS-style 5 position pickup Megaswitch (for humbucker and single-coil combinations), a Warmoth maple neck with a Graphtec nut, and maple core inside the Mimaki 3D printed body. Great balls of fire!
So you can see what an ordinary Telecaster, like Andy's, looks like, it looks like this>>>>>
The guitar was printed on a Mimaki 3DUJ-553 full-colour 3D printer and designed using a combination of Solidworks and nTopology. This work is part of the University of Auckland Creative Design and Additive Manufacturing Lab’s work aimed at showing just what is possible good design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) practices.
Formerly a professor at Lund University in Sweden, Diegel is now in charge of the Creative Design and Additive Manufacturing Lab at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, as well as a professor of additive manufacturing and product development. He is also a DfAM expert (Design for Additive Manufacturing), and loves completing creative 3D printed projects. He also runs an online business, ODD, creating and selling custom 3D printer guitars.
Olaf has made over 80 3D-printed guitars using sintering and now MImaki's fully colour managed, photo-realistic 3D machine at the University of Auckland. He is now working on designing an acrylic 3D-printed guitar body with the theme 'Water.'
In December 2022 we reported on Auckland Uni's 3D printing of anatomical models - as well as guitars.
Mimaki's 3DUJ-553 3D full colour printer is pictured below. www.mimakiaus.com.au
