Sandvik's "Unbreakable Guitar," Which Yngwie Malmsteen Tried and Failed to Smash, is Up for Auction at Reverb.com

We recently reported on Sandvik Group’s “unbreakable guitar,” a 3D-printed instrument that was put through its paces by Yngwie Malmsteen who—at a Florida club—attempted to smash it against amps, the stage floor and anything else in sight, only to have it emerge unscathed.

Now, that same instrument is up for auction at Reverb.com, with all proceeds from the sale benefiting Engineers Without Borders in Sweden.

 You can check it out here.

In order to produce the guitar, Sandvik reported that it gathered experts from across the company to demonstrate how sustainable, cutting-edge techniques could be used to make something both highly precise and amazingly durable.

"We had to design a guitar that is unsmashable in all the different ways you can smash a guitar," said Henrik Loikkanen, machining process developer at Sandvik Coromant. "The engineering challenge was that critical joint between the neck and the body that usually cracks on a guitar."

Sandvik engineers eliminated the joint between the neck and body, instead milling the guitar's neck and fretboard in one machine from solid bars of recycled stainless steel. Both the neck and fretboard extended into a rectangular "hub" that travels into the guitar's body.

Meanwhile, Sandvik created the guitar’s body via 3D printing. According to the company, “lasers traced a design in beds of fine titanium powder, fusing layers of material one on top of the other. The layers, each thinner than a human hair, built up into the body of the guitar.”

"Additive manufacturing lets us create lighter, stronger and more flexible components with internal structures that would be impossible to mill traditionally," said Amelie Norrby, an additive manufacturing engineer who participated in the guitar project. "And it's more sustainable because you only use the material you need for the component, minimizing waste."

Additional components included an Isotropic Lightweight Structure made from hyper-duplex steel sandwiched between the guitar’s neck and fretboard that is “stiffer and lighter than anything we've seen before," said Tomas Forsman, a research and development specialist at Sandvik.

To bid on the Unbreakable Guitar, which has been signed by Malmsteen (and also features his trademark scalloped fretboard) head here. 

You can check out the instrument in action in the video below.