The Plastic Rainbow Instrument of Sonic Mayhem. (PRISM) -PART ONE

I bought an acrylic guitar the other week. It was on ebay for cheap and it looked quite beautiful, and I already have an acrylic bass so I bought it, despite knowing that these instruments are of somewhat dubious tonal quality (even though the auctioneer gave assurances that it sounded ALMOST as good as a decent Epiphone Les Paul). I was already planning to "do" something to it, when it arrived and proved to sound not unlike a ukelele squeezed through a baked bean tin microphone, I was decided. I henceforth procured some nice colour changing rainbow LEDs, and stealthily gathered my soldering equipment.

Basically, there are two sections to the process as I did it. I will outline these separately because they are essentially two projects stuck together. The first section involved the mount and wiring of LEDs and pretty much anyone can do it. The second section, fabricating and wiring a guitar effect board is quite advanced by itself not to mention installing it into a tiny guitar control cavity, I would only advise undertaking this if you already know a bit about effects, electronics, or are REALLY determined to learn.

You know the rest- I am not responsible, ever, for anything, blah blah blah so ner.

Step 1 Plastic Rainbow Instrument....... BEGIN!

Materials Required:-

1) Soldering iron and the grey matter associated with wielding it
2) Glue gun, or clear 5 minute epoxy depending on taste.
3) Rainbow LEDs! Or any LEDS for that matter. I Used THESE
4) Drill
5) Wires, solder, resistors, heatshrink.

So. First I spent some time working out what was going where and how to do it etc etc. I wanted mixed LEDs of various colours mounted all round the guitar at first, but I didn't want unsightly wires all over it, on top of that, different spec LEDs can be troublesome when wiring them up with limiting resistors in parallel and all that malarkey... The best solution I considered was to mount very bright LEDS in roughly the four corners, and angle them into the guitar body for impressive refraction effects.

I also made the decision to lose the neck pickup for battery space, this simplifies the wiring in the control cavity greatly.. The guitar sounds nasty anyway, so the FX I chose for Part Two is a real NOISE maker... I doubt I'll miss the neck pickup, and this way it will only cost me once to replace the bridge pickup with something that doesn't sound like a 1950's transistor radio.

This is what it looked like shortly after I started removing strings and knobs and was around the time I started to think 'hmm maybe I should try and make one of those instructabilly things..'

Comments

[pyro13]

That is one amazing looking guitar!!!!!!!!

[Hamb0]

Thanks a lot! I like to think it sounds as good as it looks in the hands of a master... I haven't found one to play it and find out yet though.

[pyro13]

I'd love to play something like that!

[Der Bradly]

5* (now if only i had the money...)

[Hamb0]

Yours for only hmmm.. my monthly cost of drugs and rent boys? mail me :) No, not really. :p

[Imptheshrimp]

LED Zeppelin XD thats terrible. great job, nice guitar, great puns :p

[Hamb0]

Thanks man. I am indeed Atilla the PUN. :D

[geco4ever]

is this a galveston guitar? if so is a good guitar?

[Hamb0]

Its made by a UK company called Wesley. They're fairly pants TBH, but damn cheap.. they don't seem to make acrylics any more unfortch though. :(

[sodadreamer]

excellent stuff. WANT! WANT! WANT!

[saZZaZ]

woww prettyness. just amazing...