I Built A Guitar Using Bent Laminated Skateboard Veneers

This is my entry into the "Rockler Bent Wood Challenge"

This project was a TON of work! It seemed that everything that could go wrong did, from tools breaking to shipping delays and even a surprise heat wave. It was all worth it in the end and I am super happy with the final result. I'm not gonna lie, it's not perfect, but as a prototype/proof of concept I think it's pretty great.

This entire project was an experiment to see if I could get smooth consistent bends without building an entire outer form. Traditionally you would use an inner and outer form when bending wood. The outer form would compress the layers of wood onto the inner form to create a smooth consistent bend for gluing. I wanted to see if I could get away with not having an outer form, and I'm happy to report that it worked perfectly! I used small pieces of soft pine so that the clamps didn't mar the surface of the maple veneers.

A few things I want to mention. The 2K finish I ordered was delayed in shipping and wouldn't get to me in time for me to make the deadline, so instead of finishing the guitar with something else and removing it when the 2K arrived I opted to not apply finish for the time being.

I'm not thrilled with the audio quality of the sound clips as I recorded them with my camera's built in microphone. I seriously considered removing the clips from the video altogether, but the video felt incomplete when I did that during the edit. I have no way of recording this guitar on my own so I am working on getting some time in an actual studio to do this guitar justice. Stay tuned for details on that.

I had originally planned on smoothing out the "stair steps" of where the rim meets the body core near the neck joint, but the longer I looked at it the more I liked it the way it was. It has an almost "Art Deco" feel to it and it tells the story of how this guitar was constructed. I also bought some paper thin veneer that I was going to apply around the entire rim to cover the exposed plywood edges, but the guys from the Modern Maker Podcast have really gotten me to like and embrace the look of exposed plywood edges.


Overall I am very happy with this guitar.

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