Chris Jenkins and his son, Jeremy, run custom guitar shop Lame Horse Instruments from their respective workshops in Austin and Mansfield, Texas. Lame Horse Instruments designs, builds, and restores banjos, ukuleles, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and double neck thin line hollow body electric guitars.
“We use BobCAD to design and machine guitar parts,” stated Chris. “It is especially useful for the more complex parts such as necks and bridges.”
Lame Horse Instruments is a dedicated project for the father and son duo. Jeremy is a full time luthier, and enjoys playing with his Austin-based band as a hobby. Chris is a veterinarian at the Creature Comfort Animal Clinic and works on the instruments in his free time after work. They collaborate on projects daily, sending the parts that need work back and forth between their workshops.
“We are a small shop, 2 people, and BobCAD gives us a 3rd hardworking employee – our trusty cnc machine,” explained Chris.
The Lame Horse Instruments shop uses BobCAD-CAM V25 CAD, Mill, Nesting, and BobArt.
“I have been using CNC only for about 1 year, and it has been a steep learning curve. I attended a BobCAD-CAM training class in Dallas last summer which helped me a lot. I am a better designer than I am a craftsman. Therefore, designing with a CAD program which makes it easier for me to create the things I can imagine, has been a huge step forward for the instruments that my son, Jeremy, and I build together.
“We build a small guitar called the Saddle Pal. It has always been a great sounding guitar. However, since we introduced CAD into our process, we have been able to take it to a new level visually.
“This has attracted many new admirers for the Saddle Pal. This month Acoustic Guitar Magazine named it one of 8 custom guitars “to die for,” and in fact choose it for the cover of the March issue which featured the article… The rosette (area around the soundholes on the top of the guitar) on this guitar was one of the first we created and cut with the help of computer aided design.
“We are looking forward to using BobCAD in the future to create many things that we were only able to imagine in the past.”
Chris Jenkins
Owner
Lame Horse Instruments
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