Originally Posted by
Jim Becker
Michael, I think you'll enjoy adding CNC to your arsenal. I will tell you this, however, relative to your question: you will not be doing yourself any favors by avoiding the initial learning curve. Why? Even if you get some help or find some pre-made designs, you are going to have to make adjustments in order to leverage your specific machine effectively and correct errors, restart "in the middle" somewhere, etc. The complexity of what you want to design and cut is also going to determine what software you'll want/need to use. If I'm not mistaken, Shapeoko's base software is relatively easy to learn but I know from some of the videos I've been watching for my own training purposes, folks will sometimes embrace substantially more capable and flexible CAD/CAM software, such as Fusion 360 to get more complex designs and tool-paths created. There is a forum member here who's involved with the software that comes with Shapeoko, so hopefully he'll clarify it's capabilities further...and it looks like he's already commented. :)
BTW, your guitars are truly beautiful.