Building a Guitar Out of 2000 Colored Pencils

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] it's been two years since the last colored pencil guitar so i figured it was about time to revisit the idea and try doing something new with it you'll notice that the mold for this one is shaped kind of funny and that's because i've included the neck in the mold so the body and neck will all be one continuous piece otherwise known as a neck through guitar [Music] the template i made is based off of a prs body shape but whereas a prs has a carved top this is going to have a flat top i decided to use a piece of bird's eye maple for the fretboard instead of using colored pencils because i thought that might look a bit too busy the maple kind of adds a nice contrast to the design and will also provide some strength to the colored pencil neck the piece of maple i use for the fretboard is pretty thick it's about a half inch a typical fretboard is about a quarter inch at its thickest point i did this because i'm going to add a flood coat of epoxy on top of the entire face of the body and once i get that flood coat on the fretboard will be the correct height above the body once i had the truss rod and fretboard installed i did a bit of scraping and sealing then got to the flood coat on the body [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] for the fret dot markers i used colored pencils as i've done in the past but this time i inlaid them roughly a sixteenth of an inch below the surface of the fretboard and then i sealed them with some super glue and filled in the rest of the hole with epoxy and i did this so that the colored leads of the pencils aren't exposed on the top of the fretboard if they were i would get streaks of colors on the fretboard while sanding the radius also you might get that colored lead on your fingers while playing doing them this way completely seals them up here's a little trick that i found while building these colored pencil guitars when sanding this material you'll smear the colors all over the place and the wood and the colored pencils will turn brown or gray especially with a palm sander so the wood's all smeared at this point but if i go in with a razor blade and lightly scrape the surface i can get that original color back and clean it up a bit after i got the headstock all cleaned up i poured a flood coat of epoxy on it to seal it up for this guitar i decided to go with single coil pickups same setup as a strat so there's three of them to route and a lot of my builds i've used humbuckers mainly because i think they look better in general but with the type of music i play i actually prefer the sound of single coil pickups the pickups i'm using in this are fender vintage 5762 single coils cutting out the tuner holes and then it's just a bunch of carving which really brings the guitar into shape [Music] [Applause] one thing you'll probably notice is that i didn't plane down the back side of the guitar to the leads the reason i did this is so that the neck joint and belly carve really stand out on the back side as they are the only areas with the colored lead exposed once i was happy with the shape of the guitar i went through the sanding and razor scraping process on everything and then i started applying a few coats of epoxy this helps seal the wood before the clear coat as well as allows me to fill any holes or gaps in the material with epoxy all right so now we've got the entire thing clear coated and it's looking nice and shiny i did not clear coat the top face of the guitar because it's all epoxy so i can wet sand and buff it to get a nice shiny finish the top of the fretboard i did clear coat and you can see it's got some orange peel on it so i've got a wet sand and buff it out as well before applying the fret after pressing the frets i'll file and bevel them this will also end up sanding off the clear coat on the edge of the neck so i have to go back and spray a few more coats of clear on the edge of the neck as well as over the headstock decal to bury it i find this to be the fastest method for me in terms of fretting and finishing the neck finally it's just some wet sanding and buffing along with some final fret work and installation of the hardware and electronics [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] hmm [Music] you

Channel: Burls Art

Views: 7,894,160

Keywords:

Id: 5zPKDb_jHrk

Length: 8min 49sec (529 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 27 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/BassAntelope]

This is dope as hell, kudos

[u/TheCowboyChameleon]

Duuuuude. That's so gnarly.

[u/felixunderhill]

Fuckin' sweet!

[u/butsuon]

Oh I thought it was an acoustic guitar at first. I came here and was gonna post some shit like "lolw what a joke i bet the acoustics are garbage", but it's fine.

I do wonder if it's lighter or heavier though, given it's only about half actual wood.

[u/u_alright_m8]

Quickest 9 minute video I've ever watched!

[u/DLun203]

This is pretty awesome. I was wondering how the pencils and epoxy would hold up with the tension after the strings were installed but he obviously thought ahead and put a thicker fretboard on there for that reason.

I built a telecaster during the lockdown and have a whole new appreciation for luthiers. Every little piece matters and even the slightest mistake can make the guitar sound like a buzzing mess. This sounds so clean at the end of the video

[u/syntax_erorr]

The neck seems really thick. Too much for my liking.

[u/come_on_do_better]

How did the resin get in between the layers of pencils? Feels like you skipped a step there. It makes me angry.