Craftsman Burls Art's idea comes from a cardboard guitar made in a collaboration between Fender and Signal ten years ago.
PaperAge editor's note: The following article was originally published online by designboom.
While the cardboard is strong for its weight, the challenge is to make the guitar strong enough to hold string tension.
Jan. 24, 2026 - Burls Art creates an electric guitar from air and recycled cardboard that still plays and works as a musical instrument. The craftsman's idea comes from a cardboard guitar made in a collaboration between Fender and Signal ten years ago. That guitar used corrugated cardboard as the main material, and the designer thought of upgrading the first version using the same materials but in a different way. He wanted to design a working electric guitar that is very light in weight, around three or four pounds, and since recycled corrugated cardboard is mostly air, it can weigh much less than a normal wooden instrument.
While the cardboard is strong for its weight, the challenge is to make the guitar strong enough to hold string tension. For the current model, Burls Art uses laminated sheets of recycled cardboard without casting the body in resin.
Instead, each layer of cardboard is soaked in resin before stacking to make the paper material stable and strong enough while keeping the hollow flutes inside each sheet. After lamination, the cardboard gives him a thick blank that's easy to cut and shape with woodworking tools. He finishes the process by removing the excess resin and then planing the surface with a router sled.
The body of Burls Art's musical instrument made of recycled cardboard follows the shape of a standard electric guitar. The designer switches from used shipping boxes to new cardboard sheets to avoid dents or folds that could change the final shape, and the laminated body also shows the corrugated openings to create a surface where some parts of the guitar can be seen through from certain angles.
The complete article, along with more pictures and a video of the guitar being built by Burls Art, is available on designboom's website: www.designboom.com/technology/electric-guitar-air-recycled-cardboard-musical-instrument-burls-art-12-08-2025
SOURCE: designboom