Contriver Guitars

Contriver Guitars Computational Lutherie
by Brett Bailey
———
play with ingenuity
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Learn | Commission

05/25/2026

Burnt Umber Burst
West System Epoxy Grain Filling.

Reddwood Burl is a tricky material to dye. Approaching it hue by hue, stacking analogues, into the more playful side of colour theory.

After a few days of drying the colour is locked in. I prefer pushing the epoxy “bare handed” before buffing it completely off with Wypall.

The friction between my gloved finger and the material generates a little heat that goes a long way.

The goal is control: absorption, pore collapse, finish shrink-back, uneven reflectivity, and long-term stability.

Highly figured woods aren’t homogeneous materials, so the epoxy becomes part of a larger system for stability and finish consistency.

🥵
05/25/2026

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I’ve been building an Add-In called Contriver Node Atlas.This started as a tool for my own Guitar Design workflow, turn...
05/22/2026

I’ve been building an Add-In called Contriver Node Atlas.

This started as a tool for my own Guitar Design workflow, turning complex parametric designs into a visual dependency map.

Parameters. Sketches. Features. Bodies. Construction References. Design Logic.

Laid out so you can read them as a system.

This is exactly the kind of thing I want students to understand in the Course starting June 13th!

Not just how to model a part, but how to build a workflow that stays readable, editable, and scalable.

Contriver Node Atlas is under Autodesk Marketplace review.

The course is not about pushing buttons in Fusion.

It’s about learning how to think through the structure of a guitar design system.

Contriver Node Atlas
Fret Engine

All part of a much bigger system.

… a little like a needle following tapestry
05/21/2026

… a little like a needle following tapestry

Back to the beginning.Before I understood what I was building. Before the systems had names. Before the language caught ...
05/17/2026

Back to the beginning.

Before I understood what I was building.
Before the systems had names.
Before the language caught up to the work.

There was a repair bench, and a name my father gave me.

Fret Engine.

11 years later, it’s back as the name for the foundational system I’ve built everything from.

Independent of Fusions Parameters.
Eye-pleasing interface.
Named relations.
Universally Independent Offsets.
Rapid Generation.
Production-Proven.

You name it, it’s got it.
Because I’ve needed it, so I built it.

If you are a designer with 100’s of subtle configurations to build, this is for you.

If you’re a builder with a handful, this is the spine to your system you’ve been looking for.

If you just wanna tinker, around, this is the tinkereee..

At the moment I am seeking a small group of Beta Testers.

Thank you.

Not another command.Another kind of awareness.Local and Global.Parent and Child.Dependencies and Relationships.A mosaic ...
05/17/2026

Not another command.
Another kind of awareness.

Local and Global.
Parent and Child.

Dependencies and Relationships.
A mosaic of decisions becoming form.

———

The best tools are the ones you make yourself.

If you are a fusion user, operating on large scale assemblies, feature rich models, and are interested in being a part of the limited Alpha Release of the “Node Atlas”.

Please Contact me Via Email.


…how decisions propagate.The Once-ler teaches what happens when systems scale without feedback.The Lorax teaches what fe...
05/13/2026

…how decisions propagate.

The Once-ler teaches what happens when systems scale without feedback.

The Lorax teaches what feedback sounds like when it has been ignored.

The Seed teaches that every failed system still contains the possibility of a better one.. but only if the next designer understands the whole.

That is the deeper lesson here.

A system is never one thing.

It is a mosaic of subcultures, forces, voices, resources, habits, limits, and consequences.

Good design does not erase that complexity.

It learns to listen to it.

———

This is the heart of systems thinking.

A system is made of parts, but the important thing is not only the parts themselves.

The important thing is how those parts are connected.

In Computational Lutherie, we are learning to see those connections.

Not just the model.
Not just the toolpath.
Not just the instrument.

The relationships between them.

———

Alexander’s work points toward the same idea:

Meaningful form is not imposed from above.

It is grown through relationships, through patterns that help life continue.

And maybe that is why the final object matters so much.

Not as decoration.
Not as branding.
Not as output.

But as Pattern 253: Things From Your Life.

The thing you keep.
The thing that remembers.
The thing that carries the life of the system forward.

———

Join me starting June 13th for a deep dive into Computational Design Methodology.

If you have already signed up, I will have an email out to you this evening, EST.

A vocabulary of small decisions.
05/10/2026

A vocabulary of small decisions.

Everything resolves somewhere.
05/09/2026

Everything resolves somewhere.

Address

Hamilton, ON
L0R, L8E TO L8W, L9A TO L9C, L9G TO L9H, L9K

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 9pm
Tuesday 9am - 9pm
Wednesday 9am - 9pm
Thursday 9am - 9pm
Friday 9am - 9pm
Saturday 9am - 9pm
Sunday 9am - 9pm

Website

https://reverb.com/ca/shop/contriverguitars, https://contriverguitars.com/build-cours

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