From time to time we all need a project which takes us out of our comfort zone. It’s important that we constantly test the limits of what we can do and try to push them when given the opportunity.

Nothing however prepared me for what I was about to. You see, I like to build stuff, I enjoy doing some woodworking where possible, even though I can’t physically do it properly, as I still live in a student accommodation with very limited space. So that means I don’t really have the space to store many tools or to have a proper workbench. Not to mention the mess that woodworking makes and even noise if one chooses to use any power tools.

But at that point in time I was watching a lot of videos about guitar building. For some reason they inspired me, they were my escape into a different universe. I constantly saw all the guitar builders using highly specialised tools and having nice workshops. This made me wonder, would it even be possible to build my own guitar without using a workshop and only using some basic tools?

The thought stayed in my head, and I was constantly thinking about this, I wanted to see someone take the challenge of building a guitar with very limited tools and materials from things found around the house or at your normal hardware store.

It was also at that time that I was having some thoughts about trying my hand at making some videos and uploading them on YouTube, something like a build series of sorts. But I was never decided upon which subject to tackle. That was until the Great Guitar Build Off came along. GGBO was initially a way for some popular youtube guitar builders to collaborate and create some good content. But then, people started building along with them, so GGBO unofficial started taking over. Hundreds of builders joined the competition (because yes, it turned into a competition). At that point I knew I just had to bite the bullet and go for it. I did not think twice and uploaded a video in which I described my intentions and what the plan was. Looking back at that video is always an uncomfortable experience, that was my first ever video, and you can see how nervous I was back then talking to the camera. But I was determined to go for it and build that guitar, with practically no experience in fine woodworking and guitar building, no tools, no space. I just did not know what I was getting into.

But then it all started falling into place, the craziness was actually working. During the following 2 months, I learned how build a guitar, by building a guitar and I learned how to present, film and edit videos by making these videos. There was a tremendous amount of work, but the results can be seen in this playlist.

Somehow, the entire challenge aspect started catching on to other people as well, the feedback received in the comment section of the videos was great, and it felt like viewers were involved in the build as well. Of course, producing the videos in a “series” form helped a lot. But the aspect which got everyone’s attention was in fact exposing how everything that we take for granted in guitar building is actually working. For instance, one would just buy a guitar pickup and install it, but I decided to make everything myself, so I had to improvise a little in that area too. But in the process of doing so, I explained how a pickup works and viewers felt like they learned something new that day. They understood that a pickup is not just this little magic black box and it suddenly got demystified for a lot of viewers.


Finally, this build got me the 4th place in the GGBO competition in 2020. I am so grateful for the experience and for having the opportunity to experiment with one of my countless crazy ideas and see it come through like this. I can truly say that I’ve learned a lot during this project, on so many levels. At the time, I said I would never do anything like this ever again, but to be honest, I’d do it all over again, over and over. It was such a fun project, and I’m looking forward to the next big build.