Concrete Queen of Sustain: A Finnish Guitar Maker and His 28.5 kg Electro-Acoustic
Electric guitars with concrete bodies and traditionally constructed necks have already been featured by some enthusiasts in their videos. However, an electro-acoustic guitar with a fully concrete body is a tougher nut to crack in terms of how it's built. This is demonstrated in the video documenting the production process of a cement behemoth created by Finnish luthier Jukka Sollasvaara and his friend. Sollasvaara admits that the main reason for starting the whole project was simple: “We just thought the idea was really funny,” he says, adding, “Actually, I’m pretty proud of how it turned out. This guitar has a tonne of sustain!”
The instrument is made from a single concrete casting. The body and neck were made using Terrazzo, a blend of yellow crushed stone and concrete, while ebony crushed stone and concrete were used for the fretboard. The rosette around the soundhole is decorated with crushed stone and epoxy. The tuning mechanism consists of hefty nuts and bolts, and the only elements resembling standard guitar components are the oak bridge base, plastic saddle and nut and 18 metal frets.
Smaller holes for the wiring of the integrated piezo pickup were drilled into the lower side and top of the 3.4 cm-thick-walled body. The original casting weighed nearly 36 kg; after detailed shaping of the body and sanding of the neck profile, the final weight was reduced to 28.5 kg. The final part of the accompanying video demonstrates the resulting sound of this one-of-a-kind instrument.
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