CNC's Help Custom Guitar Maker Rock the House.

The science of computer numerical control meets old-world craftsmanship and the result is beautiful music for Jon Suhr and Steve Smith of JS Technologies.

JOHN SUHR IS A CRAFTSMAN from the old school, and he makes beautiful guitars. Just ask any of his customers, guys like Peter Frampton, Lou Reed, Scott Henderson or Mark Knopfler. They will tell you he makes a great axe. Formerly a senior master builder at Fender Guitar's custom shop, Suhr established his reputation there as an insightful and innovative designer creating guitars for some of the music industry's best players before branching out on his own.

With talent and a solid client list behind him, Suhr decided that it was time to take his act solo. Two years ago, he left Fender and opened his own shop, JS Technologies, located in Lake Elsinor, CA. Free to pursue his vision of the perfect guitar, Suhr's goal is simply to create the finest guitars from the best materials with the best tools.

"At Suhr Guitars we are convinced that a hand-built guitar can be produced to a higher level of quality using new world technologies," says Suhr. He has an understanding for the instrument and its design, which gives him insight into the actual production of the guitar. Suhr began tweaking and making his own guitars on the Jersey Shore during what he calls his "48th Street bar-band days."

Suhr says his company can produce a guitar to please every style of player using a menu of custom options. But it is his intuitive perception of what makes a guitar right that lends his instruments that special "something" which prompts musicians, collectors and others to pay several thousand dollars apiece for an example of Suhr's masterful work.

Complex Designs

For those familiar with modern electric guitar design, such an instrument represents the perfect merging of form and function. But when it comes to designing for rock's elite, form is everything, and Suhr's CAD-created visions have ranged from the traditional to the absolutely unique, cut and shaped from the finest woods and then finished to perfection.

Suhr knew when he opened his shop that to translate the complex curves and planes of his designs into hardwood was going to take some specialized production tooling. To do it at a capacity high enough to keep pace with demand, along with the flexibility to handle his customer's myriad variations, required more than just a saw and some hand tools. So Suhr looked to CNC technology to keep up with demand and reduce errors and scrap.

"All our bodies and necks are formed with a Reichenbacher router programmed through Siemens CNC controls," says Suhr. "The machine gives us total control and helps us produce custom, one-off guitars at a very high production rate." In fact, says Suhr, with his router, cutting and forming tasks that used to take days to finish now take hours to complete.

Good Partner

Although Suhr is well versed in the capabilities of his centerpiece machine, it is his partner, Steve Smith, who really pushes the CNC unit to its limits. A tool programmer and self-described bean counter who has been involved in production wood-working for more than 20 years, Smith has programmed tools on a variety of CNC equipment. And his work on CNC units, both in a company's production setting and as a free-lance consultant, has allowed Suhr to focus on creating designs that will inspire. According to Smith, there is not a machine or control he cannot set up. As a result, he is a perfect complement to Suhr's artistic mastery of guitar design and building.

Prior to joining forces with Suhr, Smith had a short gig at Rickenbacher Guitar. The guitar manufacturer utilized the same CNC machine, and Smith's familiarity led to his push for its use in JS Technologies' 5,000-square-foot shop. Powering four axes plus one 13.5-hp spindle induction motor, the CNC router's drives provide the speed, some 197 feet per minute feed and 280 feet per minute traverse, that Smith needs to make the fast, multiple planing and cutting passes required to form the guitar's neck and body.

Design information is translated into efficient tool motion by the router control's interpolation and 3-D imagery. Productivity is further aided by the control's programmability and user functions, says Smith.

"Because I can program in every detail, we get a very smooth finish from the router," says Smith. "I like the idea of being able to program with B spines for the outside perimeter cuts because the less sanding you have to do the better."

Smith is unflinchingly proud of his experience and the depth of his knowledge of CNCs and programming. And by using CNC technology and exacting controls, he feels the unit produces the same product that a handcraftsman would create. Smith adds that new features that manufacturers continue to add to CNC technology only make the job easier, even compared to that of a few years ago.

"I like the fact that the control has a hard disk built right in. I can keep all my programs out on the machine, and when I write a new program I can do it in my office then transfer it out there by disk," says Smith. "On older models I could only name a program using four numbers, and even if you had enough memory, which you almost never did, the directory would just be a list of numbers. Right now I can set up a directory by customer name or by part number and keep all the programs I've written inside that directory."

Other aspects of the control's program management features, says Smith, really help him access what he needs when he needs it without much fuss.

"I was able to set up a global directory and store our neck pocket cut program there," continues Smith. "The neck pocket cut is in the same place on every body we make regardless of the type, Classic T, Standard or Classic, which are in different subdirectories. I can store Pocket Cut in the global and then have the identical program run for each body type I select."

He also identified other things that help increase productivity, like being able set more than one base and tool jumps to fit his requirements, and being able to change cutter compensation on the fly.

So far, Smith and Suhr's tooling investment has been money well spent. Besides the router, the shop has a high-end jointer, radial arm saw and small table saw but no belt sander, because the router does its job so well. "We're actually doing a lot more on the router compared to other manufacturers," says Suhr. "We don't have a widebelt sander or a planer, we do that on the machine and can rout a neck on the first pass. We ball cut from surfaces, and between the router and the accuracy of the controls, we get a very quick and smooth surface right from the start."

Smith says they can machine the necks to about 0.015 in. from final sand, something he adds that competing guitarmakers have trouble obtaining with traditional production tooling.

"When they [form a neck] off a copy shaper they're lucky to be around 0.050-in. off," says Smith, "so their people have to do a lot more sanding."

Smith and Suhr both agree that when someone hands off the neck to someone else for sanding it can jeopardize the signature feel of the piece. "We don't want someone to sand away what we consider the 'personality' of John's neck shape," says Smith.

Up-Tempo Production

Currently JS Technologies produces about 30 guitars a month with five employees. With demand strong and getting stronger, Smith says they are shipping guitars around the world, some 200 last year, with about a five-month backlog. "We ship about 10 a month to Japan, another three or four to Asia or Europe and the rest to dealers and others in the U.S.," says Smith.

But with expanding demand and the luxury of filling a niche that not many guitar makers occupy, it is only logical to try to increase the production department's tempo to boost supply.

"Yes, we'd like to go up to 50 to 100 guitars per month," Smith says. "Our machine is capable of doing it, and our shop is capable of doing it, but there are some limitations that are holding us back.

"For one," continues Smith, "it's developing the dealer network to be able to support the sale of a John Suhr custom guitar, and two, of course, is finding, hiring and training people to be guitar builders."

All things considered, says Smith, they are still on the upside of the learning curve and are comfortable with the approximately one-to-two-guitar-per-day production rate. But tooling investment continues, says Smith. "We just purchased a finishing booth and we're looking to add a few more dedicated machines to our line to smooth things along."