We all know by now how awesome 3D printers are, not to mention some of the spectacular objects that have been printed by these incredible machines. We have seen such things as shoes, robots, cars and even artificial limbs so with every new prototype that’s released, people’s awareness of this revolutionary technology will continue to grow in the next few years.
The latest prototype to hit the news has been created by Scott Summit, who is known for his designs of custom body parts and prosthetics, but whilst he was on holiday he decided to design his ideal guitar. Once he finished creating the design, he sent it over to 3D Systems (DDD), who used their 3D printers to transform the design model into an acoustic guitar that could be played.
Summit is the one of the world’s leading 3D printing design experts but his latest project has got to be one personal best as he describes it as “rich, full and has great tone” plus, Summit tried to make his own guitar when he was a child, out of wood and other various parts but to his own admission it didn’t sound too good. The materials used this time round and of course the fact that it was created by a 3D printer, meant he had a better finished produced but despite the outcome, Summit thought it would still have some serious short comings when he was designing it, like the stringing process and if the 3d printed guitar would handle the 200 pounds of pressure. Despite his concerns Summit went on to create this fantastic 3D model and thankfully the guitar not only handled the pressure but sounded better than expected.
Earlier this year 3D Systems (DDD) acquired Summit’s body part printing start-up and since then he has shown off his 3D acoustic guitar to the guys behind in the scenes, who are seemingly interested in the model and are thinking of new ways to advance the prototype.
Summit then went on to tell Businessweek.com that the prototype was not only a rough draft but that he wants to start experimenting with more radical designs and test how it changes the sound of the guitar.
Since this is the early stages, just think of the possibilities of how guitars could look in the future plus the different types of instruments that can be printed.
I would love to design my own shoes, very excited about this 🙂 x