cardboard electric guitar

[solarbird]

This is pretty cool – a cardboard company and Fender Guitars got together to make a one-off cardboard guitar. And sure, it’s promotional video, but it’s an cool looking end product.

"Cardboard Guitar Stratocaster Fender : Cardboard Chaos" (Watch on YouTube)

I love how you can see through so much of it:

They don’t tell you much about engineering for strength, but I have some thoughts, because where you can’t see through it tells you a lot about how they made it work. You can clearly see the truss rod, common to all metal-strung guitars. But there’s also a keel added in back:

And the one through-shot of the head shows how – surprisingly – the tuning knobs may have a backplate, but they do not seem to be attached to the neck bracing. That’s just the cardboard.

I’m more curious about the sudden change in the finish between shots, right after they’ve sanded the body into the shape they want. They put a lot of something into it, and I really doubt that’s just lacquer.

Before

After

Hardeners, maybe? I don’t know. But I don’t see how it keeps the edges of its form across plays without some sort of chemical additive. And I’m really curious about the string bending being done by some of the players – doing that against that texture looks really messy, but they’ve got it going – is it just fret pressure and nothing on the board, or is the top layer filled with something transparent?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m for it. I think it’s Neat, with a capital N. Frankly, I think it’s gorgeous, and I can only imagine how little it weighs. Getting a bass built like that might be amazing, if the cardboard has been made durable enough. I’m just wanting more details on what it took to make it work.

(h/t to George P. Burdell III on Facebook for the link)

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Comments

[alatefeline]

Way cool!

[solarbird]

Yeah, very cool. And I don't even care about guitar, it looks great.

[mdlbear]

I'll go with "impregnated with resin" - it would make it easier to polish the surface (what there is of it), too.

It looks to me as though there's a thin layer of something transparent on the fretboard -- you'd want it to anchor the frets, anyway.

I'm not convinced that the keel isn't the only thing stiffening the neck -- not all steel-strings have a truss rod -- and it wouldn't surprise me if it went all the way under the pick guard to the bridge, though if the body is stiff enough they wouldn't have to. And of course you see the opaque patches distributed along the neck on either side of the keel.

None of that keeps it from being drop-dead gorgeous and a beautiful hack. I want one.

[solarbird]

hee hee hee yeah

I wonder how much it cost? I mean, the custom studio is there for reasons. :D

[angelwolfgeek]

Mind blown. My guess (and google might vaguely confirm it - I found this! http://www.fastcodesign.com/3062225/wanted/a-ceramics-collection-that-captures-californias-gorgeous-light) is that its vacuum resin impregnated. Its essentially a composite and most of the strength is from the resin. Dosen't make it any thing less *cool*, but the strength is probably from the resin rather than the cardboard. The stuff's strong... but in the *other* direction. And from my brother's guitar crazy period, fenders do have truss rods and... damnit, that's a good chunk of my misspent early adulthood *right there*

[solarbird]

You found... a ceramics collection?

I think the wrong link was pasted?

[angelwolfgeek]

.... newfangled web 1.9 garbage changing the url whem I scroll down (and my assuming it was the right link... ) http://www.fastcodesign.com/3049292/a-gnarly-cardboard-skateboard-justifies-its-own-existence THIS. THIIIIISSSSSSS.

brb while I stew in my own shame.