YouTuber Burls Art has added a new design to his growing repertoire of wacky electric guitar builds; this time he’s attempted to construct the thinnest guitar he possibly can.
Now, the intrepid luthier has made a name for himself – with a channel boasting 574,000 subscribers at the time of writing – creating out-of-this-world six-strings, including a guitar made from reclaimed ocean plastic and one built entirely of skateboard decks – so it should come as no surprise that he continues to push the envelope.
While most of the world’s luthiers work with wood when building guitars, for Burls Art so far, it’s something of a rarity.
“Maybe this is just an excuse to finally build a guitar out of wood in my shop, but I’ve always been a fan of thinner guitars, and I had some pretty cool wood sitting in my shop, so this sounded like a fun project to try out,” he says.
Opting to use black limba wood – a west African hardwood similar to mahogany – Burls Art sets out creating a guitar that’s less than one inch thick. His final measurement reads 19mm, just under three-quarter inches. For reference, a standard Fender Telecaster is around 1.75 inches thick, while a Gibson Les Paul measures up at about 2 inches.
“There are a few different factors I have to account for when determining how thin I can get this guitar, the largest factor being the electronics, like the pickups and volume and tone pots,” he explains.
As such, he opts for a pair of the most low-profile humbuckers he could find online: Lace Alumitones.
Watch Burls Art build aptly named Limba Blade from start to finish – and demo its surprisingly decent tone – in the video above.
While Burls Art remains king of the wacky guitar building niche, he has some competition, namely from a fellow YouTuber by the name of ArtMayer, who last month lamented the closure of McDonald’s in Russia with a french fries-themed electric guitar.
