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Calm before the storm. Here's the ShopBot booth just before doors opened at The NAMM Show 2024.

The NAMM Show is back to its pre-pandemic size and number of days! From January 25-28, 2024, the world’s largest music product showcase in Anaheim, CA was packed with vendors, retailers, musicians, and guests of all ages.

This was our busiest NAMM Show yet with no shortage of folks to talk to. It was great to see familiar faces from West Coast Pedalboards, Wood Violins, and more! We met new and veteran guitar builders, pedal and accessory companies, and guests of manufacturers of all kinds who were curious to learn more about our USA-made CNC machines. And we were lucky enough to have a special guest, Mike Poorman,(a.k.a Woodshop Mike) at our booth. Mike is a trained luthier and content creator and provided the perspective of the everyday ShopBot CNC user.

Woodshop Mike shares his latest in-progress electric guitar build created with the help of his ShopBot PRSalpha ATC. 

We brought our Desktop MAX ATC and Desktop CNC models for booth demos this year. The Desktop MAX ATC showed the tool path for carving an electric guitar neck. The neck samples were designed by luthier Bob Mizek of Roberts Luthiery who now offers a course called “Making an electric guitar neck with CNC”. We displayed wood and pearl inlay samples on our Desktop CNC machine. The sample work on this machine spanned different stages of the inlay process from separate male and female wooden parts to half-radiused fretboards, and some of the finest mother-of-pearl inlay you will ever see on guitar headstock veneer.

Left: Guitar necks set up on the ShopBot Desktop MAX ATC for "air cut" demos. Right: Inlay samples on the ShopBot Desktop CNC machine.

Our guitar bodies and guitar neck sample carvings were created at ShopBot headquarters with blanks from American Specialty Hardwoods.

Guitar body and neck blanks provided by American Specialty Hardwoods. 

Special thanks to Pisgah Banjo Co, Acoustic Box LLC, Wood Violins, Bourbon Banjos, David Mathis, Mike Poorman, and Bill Young for sending us beautiful samples to share at the show.

Samples provided by ShopBot CNC operators: Pisgah Banjo Co, Wood Violins, Bourbon Banjos, Acoustic Box, and Mathis Guitars.

In addition to the usual ShopBot swag, we had fretboard keychains created and inlaid by our special projects manager, Bill Young. And taking this year’s giveaway items to the next level, we created festival-style show posters, designed by Russell Howard of the indie rock band, The Auxiliary as well as an alternate show poster designed by ShopBot’s own, Jen Nix. These posters were produced by creating digital designs in Adobe Illustrator that were then transferred to Vectric VCarve Pro CAD software for final tweaks and tool-pathing. They were then sent through ShopBot SB3 control software for the machine to start cutting. A linoleum block was set up for machining on the ShopBot Desktop MAX ATC at ShopBot Headquarters. Once machining was complete, we then hand-rolled ink on the blocks using a brayer and stamped each poster with block printing baren tools. Each poster turned out a little different, making them all one-of-a-kind and a true limited run as there were less than 100 made. The band names on these posters are fictional and inspired by ShopBot CNC staff and lingo. Have fun decoding those! It was great fun talking to show-goers about the process of making these limited run posters and we hope to see where folks hang them in their homes and shops!

Design by Russell Howard of the indie rock band The Auxiliary

Design by ShopBot Tools Marketing Manager, Jen Nix

We stayed busy talking about our CNC machines at our booth, and on occasion, we’d take turns walking around to see the amazing displays from all sorts of instrument brands. There was no shortage of entertainment at every turn, from mind-boggling guitar solos at the booths to full band shows at the stages set up all over the convention center, inside and out. We’re still going through stacks of business cards, stickers, and handouts. If we scanned your badge, we’ve emailed you already and we’d love to stay in touch. And whether we met you at The NAMM Show or not, give us a call if you have any questions about ShopBot CNC machines for the musical instrument industry or other applications.