This semester, 15 honor students at SAU took creativity and craftsmanship to the next level, designing and building custom electric guitars from blocks of wood. Starting with blank DIY kits, they shaped, sanded, assembled, and painted each instrument by hand.
Now, they’re ready to share their work.
If you’re in or around Magnolia, Arkansas, we’d love for you to attend the Electric Guitar Exhibit on Monday, May 5th, at the Brinson Fine Art Gallery for a special one-day showcase. The exhibit will feature all student-built guitars, along with a live band performance using the very instruments created in class.
It’s a celebration of hands-on learning, artistic expression, and serious musical talent. Don’t miss it!
📍 Location: Brinson Fine Art Gallery, SAU
📅 Date: Monday, May 5th
🎸 Live Music: Featuring guitars made in the class
Not local? Stay tuned, we’ll be sharing some of the completed DIY guitars on our social media accounts.
Christoph and his son Fionn wanted a deep even black on an open-grained mahogany body with the figure still showing through, and the pores kept drying lighter than the surface. Follow the build from the bare kit to the finished bass, and see how they diagnosed it and what you can copy from their approach.
An acoustic-style bridge glues to the top and its position is permanent. Here is what the part is, the three ways it anchors strings, and how to fit each one on a kit build.
Bill Antonitis had never carved wood when he bought a chisel set from Home Depot, printed a stencil, and cut a rune into the top of his first guitar kit. He also turned spent shotgun shells into control knobs, dropped magnet-mounted LEDs into the f-holes, and found out mid-build that a semi-hollow has no control cavity.