“It looks sweet, sounds sweet, and the music that comes out of it should be sweet too”: Russian luthier builds Les Paul out of donuts (sort of)

A Russian luthier has made a guitar out of *checks notes* glazed donuts because…well, why not?

Artem Mayer (known as ArtMayer on YouTube) has crafted the guitar in the style of a Gibson Les Paul, with its body mushing together over 20 donuts for the sweetest six-string in town. Readers may recognise the mad genius from his McDonald's French Fries guitar from a few years ago, but now it's time for dessert.

First, Mayer cut the body shape out of an unspecified wood before applying a thin top and sculpting its neck and headstock, which is all very normal so far. As for the donuts, well, unfortunately, they aren't real, quashing any hopes of a mid-solo snack. Instead, it's the result of some very intricate stencilling, drilling, and carving work.

The basic donut holes were drilled out before being carefully chiselled into more realistic, donut-like, sloping curves, with a similar approach applied to their edges. The attention to detail is painstaking, and he must have been starving during the exhaustive process.

After giving the donut a doughy base layer of paint, Mayer hand-painted the glazing and some exacting details onto the guitar while – rejoice! – the sprinkles are real.

There's also a nod to perhaps the world's most famous donut fanatic, Homer Simpson. His hand can be seen reaching for a pink, sprinkles-coated donut as part of a unique 12th fret inlay, while what looks to be a P-90 pickup and its volume knob have been given an equally glutinous treatment to blend into the scene.

I Built the Donut Guitar / Я сделал гитару из пончиков - YouTube

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The white neck and fretboard are interesting choices, and we hugely admire the jam filling oozing out of one of the donuts on the side of the electric guitar’s body. It also looks like it has locking tuners, which is a plus.

Taking the guitar for a much-needed spin, Mayer proves that this guitar has plenty of, ahem, bite, during a demo that sees him hurtling through thrash metal riffs. And, of course, there’s a guitar solo and some neat tapping licks to savour, too.

It's clear Mayer had way too much fun making this one-of-a-kind instrument.

At the end of the video, with sweat beading on his brow, Mayer says (translated by ChatGPT): “Well, in short, it’s awesome. It looks sweet, sounds sweet, and the music that comes out of it should be sweet too, so that all of you have a sweet life.”

Last year, another of YouTube's most madcap luthiers, Burls Art, produced what he claims is the heaviest guitar in the world, a copper Telecaster weighing in at a back-destroying 50lbs.

He then followed that up by making a working aquarium guitar, because many guitar builders have always thought that offset guitars would benefit from more goldfish in their bodies. It helps with the tone.