Pencil guitar luthier Burls Art is at it again and this time the YouTube craftsman has taken a lightweight approach, building a Telecaster from styrofoam.

Pencil guitar luthier and YouTube craftsman Burls Art has gone lightweight, this time building a Telecaster from styrofoam.

The build started by cutting two layers of Styrofoam insulation into the shape of a Telecaster, before delicately cutting holes for the guitar’s hardware. A layer of paint and epoxy resin was used to seal the deal, and the end result actually looks pretty legit.

Burls Art claims that the final build weighs in at just 3.5lbs, or just over 1.5kg, about half the weight of a normal Tele. After he compares the foam Telecaster’s sound side to side with his wooden and pencil varieties, you can hear it doesn’t quite have the ‘sold body’ sound, but it still makes a usable Tele twang.

There also seemed to be some issues getting the neck stable in such a malleable body, leading to some accidental vibrato when fretting chords. Fender probably won’t add it to their Custom Shop line up, but it’s still a damn impressive experiment.

Burl Art also stated that this guitar was just a quick build while he works on something a bit more time-consuming. Rumour has it, it’s a bass built entirely from rubber bands…

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