This guitar constructed from 800 pieces of paper is a real, um, shred machine
YouTuber Burls Art takes us step-by-step through the impressive build
YouTuber Burls Art has built electric guitars out of epoxy resin, colored pencils and even an old shovel.
Now, he’s attempted to create a six-string out of 800 pieces of paper.
After first drenching the sheets in epoxy resin, he then stacks together the paper and uses a template and bandsaw to cut the body.
Some technical difficulties abound – in particular with the pickup routing – which leads Burls to determine that he “just concluded my personal worst routing job.”
The fix? More epoxy resin.
Burls Art later on runs into trouble positioning the bridge, but has another fix for the extra screw hole in the body – a red Sharpie.
After cutting and attaching the neck, hammering in frets to the fingerboard, installing the dual humbuckers, wiring up the electronics, applying the finish and doing more sanding – always more sanding – the paper guitar, weighing in at roughly ten pounds, is ready to go.
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“I’m pretty psyched with how it came out,” Burls Art says. “I’ll probably spend a good amount of time over the next few weeks just staring at it.”
To stare at it yourself, and also hear the guitar in action, check out the video above.
And for more from Burls Art, head over to his official YouTube channel.
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Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.