Turning 1600 RadioShack Dollar Coins Into a Lapsteel Guitar

[@DanielWahlig]

Super fun build to watch. Only wish you had inlayed one of the original coins into the end or something - just a tribute to the origin of the idea.

[@bradenstackhouse1335]

He could probably still do that

[@lucianopeixoto]

I just came here to the comments to suggest the exact same thing.

[@N8SAY]

The top and bottom of the coin.

[@seancollins9597]

Yeah. It is simply an aluminum instrument that has absolutely no connection to the original material. Seems like a waste of the coins and time. Why not just carve or melt aluminum if that's the case?

[@loilt5091]

Headstock...Woodstock just tweeted

[@Chicken-1923]

Burl is getting crazier and crazier with his ideas and I am all here for it

[@Supermelo29]

Sameeee!

[@OldStreetDoc]

I watched his coffee bean guitar video today. And I’ve had a phantom sort of coffee aroma in my nose ever since. 🤣 Burl does some incredible work for sure.

[@phillyadam26]

Great playing at the end too - really impressive on all fronts both in terms of building and playing!

[@Gogurtbump]

That red finish gives it a classic and rustic look as if it's a relic from the past, amazing job. Here's an idea that might be cool, but also functionally a pain in the ass to make: making a guitar body out of roman style concrete

[@6funny0_o]

Relic from the past, just like most of the aluminum of the body. Lol

[@Jordan-rb28]

Have you touched real Roman concrete?? Shit is more brittle than a high school relationship. Seriously, it's lighter than than standard concrete (high lime(stone) content?) and partly because of that I think so much easier to break. A 2" piece of concrete you can just barely not break with you fingers world be like a chocolate chip cookie to break if it was made by the ancient Romans. Just sayin

[@Atlas-RH]

This is one of the most scientifically over-engineered guitar constructions I've ever seen, and it is honestly amazing. The fact that you went from making your very first guitar out of just coloured pencils to this, is nothing short of awe-inspiring!

[@tvviewer4500]

how is this over engineered?

[@Sammy86]

@@tvviewer4500 Bro learned a buzzword, was dying to use it. Let him try to sound smart please?

[@123Ir0nman]

It's not even close to being overengineered. It was a very simple design but still a great build. If you want to see over engineered, check out the metal 3d printed guitar build for Ynngwei Malmstien

[@ss_avsmt]

"Scientifically over engineered guitar construction " Wow. That's very good.

[@chrismason4224]

This is the most logically thought-out, trouble-shot, and executed guitar constructions that he's done since the last one.

[@mattytaylor2674]

Radio Shack was the place for all of our electronic needs back in the day… What a cool tribute. Love your videos !!!

[@MobiusBandwidth]

I was hoping he'd mount a couple of the unmelted coins onto this build, showing each side.

[@-Teague-]

@@MobiusBandwidth that would've been so cool

[@CarrotDugTooDeep]

@@MobiusBandwidth He could remove the tuning knobs and TIG weld a coin to each tuner to have one for each string. Then just turn each coin to get the instrument in tune.

[@philm.6113]

This is actually a chemistry/science class using the premise of building a guitar to keep the students interested. Very clever. This is just one more awesome video. Take Me Home Country Roads - excellent musicianship.

[@sirjessy3804]

I'm a simple guy. I see a Burl's Art notification. I click.

[@matchrocket1702]

As you were dumping those coins in the furnace I could hear in my mind the tormented screams of ebay sellers, noooooo.

[@babidavi6910]

😭😭

[@mattsadventureswithart5764]

My thought was that the ebay sellers would be jumping for joy, because this guitar means there are 1600 fewer of the coins that might end up on ebay... I think the screams of "nooooooo" would be buyers realising that those coins are getting rarer

[@molochsorcery4357]

Burl, I know alot of deceased Radio Shack nerds who were all about that store for electronic builds. I never knew about those coins and I highly suspect if my late friends could both see and hear what you did with those old aluminum coins? They'd have a big ol' grin on their faces. Tremendous job, and kudos for picking up the nuances of a new instrument!

[@barfymann362]

Man, you're incredible. Just doing what you love, and doing it on our own terms - it's admirable. Your passion shows through how obsessive you are with every detail, nothing short of legendary. Marvelous.

[@C_money]

That guitar has an absolutely beautiful sound to it, and your practice on lapsteel clearly paid off. Awesome job!

[@trussell70385]

Country Roads sounds amazing on that steel! Awesome job man!

[@tylers9724]

As always, love the video, and love the guitar. I got chills when you started playing what sounded like Take me Home, Country Roads. I just really wish you would've somehow added unmelted Radioshack coins to the build. Doesn't matter, because it's still awesome!

[@cocopuffs13001]

Heard the Country Roads parts and immediately came to the comments. Glad I wasn't the only one who heard it, haha.

[@patrickhale424]

John Denver would approve 👍🏻👍🏻🤘🏼🤘🏼

[@rockinfreakappotomus]

This is awesome. Would have been cool to put 1 of the RS dollars as a headstock emblem somehow, or maybe just somewhere on the side of the body or something? Very cool project. Thanks for sharing, and that Country Roads rendition sounds awesome!

[@alphagt62]

I was thinking he was going to cast the coins in acrylic or something, but he just used them for their aluminum content, he could have used beer cans or anything. It may have been a nice touch to use a coin or two as a neck inlay? Of course his work was excellent, and his finished product was outstanding.

[@realgoodmind]

Gotta say this is one of the cooler builds. Love the open neck. That is something I have never seen or expected to see. Well done

[@lukejones0826]

Over the past week I have totally gone down the lap Steel rabbit hole thanks to this video, never realized how beautiful of an instrument it could be!

[@Tanjerine3830]

me too!!

[@pvdguitars2951]

Fantastic piece of art. What would make just that little bit cooler, would be to make control knobs covered with the original coin.

[@extended_e]

Yeah guitar should include coins in from or other.

[@fuzzbus]

This lap steel tone is so money. Congrats on another creative build! Loved seeing the process for this, as well as the prior build with the melted cans.

[@alphagt62]

Is it a Lap Steel? Or a Lap Aluminum? 😃

[@timvanboening9432]

That was awesome! I am always excited to see your builds. They always blow my mind in ways I did not expect. That lap steel sounds fantastic!!

[@joshvandruff1790]

You some how always manage to make something so awesome every time you build something. Fantastic work! 🤘🏻

[@tylerhunt5578]

Your builds never fail to impress, its great to watch your creations grow and evolve with time. You inspire me to continue making things and I'm sure you inspire others as well. Keep up the good work!! I can't wait to see what's next!!

[@JSListerud]

My great grandmother, Lois (Gripman) Tuttle, started RadioShack. It's fitting to use the coins for a guitar. She was the start of RCA also.

[@DesertDweller1]

According to Wikipedia Radio Shack was founded by Theodore and Milton Deutschmann.

[@ckelly5141]

Really is amazing to throughly enjoy your skill level and passion for these projects. Oh, and I thought your playing was terrific!🎸

[@Zothiqueness]

Radio Shack is still around! That is a very cool creation, good job!

[@oggy.6]

One of the best rarities on youtube - a new Bulr's upload!!!! incredible as always!

[@dieselbreakfast]

What an incredible tone. Did not expect it to sound so warm.. excellent work

[@SochinDachi]

God bless you man. You remind me of a quote I heard repeated by Neil De Grasse Tyson...."be ashamed to die until you have scored one small win for humanity" Mr. Burls Art.... I have tremendous admiration and respect for these videos and your artwork and on behalf of mankind.... Thank you!

[@Phantheman90]

Looks and sounds magical! Your builds are the best.

[@Sarah-po7ik]

Insane that you can already play this instrument at a professional level. Incredible work as always!!

[@MobiusBandwidth]

well he practiced for 40 hours! XD amazing. damn.

[@Sarah-po7ik]

@@MobiusBandwidth I’ve played guitar for 10 years and still sound like shit! XD

[@larrydering1598]

Are you serious? At a professional level of playing, not even close. Playing a few notes on slide or one tune does not make a professional. What he does here is cool but playing will take a lot more practice to get a clean tone and accurate pitch. The building process is amazing.

[@Sarah-po7ik]

@@larrydering1598 professional police!!!!

[@markrico1917]

Absolutely love this build and your demo at the end. What a laid back masterpiece of overall artistry.

[@MarcCoteMusic]

Absolutely incredible build! And I loved the demo, too... Props all around, Burl.

[@the_ff_guy]

Always an instant watch👍🏼👍🏼👌

[@whosashleyg]

The demo is always incredible

[@LenaCourtney]

Enjoyed the video, and what a treat at the end! One of my favorite songs ❤ people like u make me wanna become an engineer

[@dankers12]

It's fascinating and relaxing to watch you work. Great job!

[@mattmatthews3909]

I look forward to your videos and am still always met with awe. Great work!

[@SWAT6809]

I was hoping you'd slot a full coin somewhere in the build

[@dr.diegoestevez8084]

Beautiful music, it transports me to the past, to my grandparents' house in Texas, every day we wake up very early at dawn and my favorite cookies are there on the table, the sweet aroma of grandmother's love of cookies, soft and warm aroma of home, love, how much love that of my grandparents. May God bless you. Thank you brother for bringing back so many beautiful memories of my childhood.

[@toniweak]

Your sound demo was so emotional. Really the best song you could havee picked!

[@sinformant]

My guess for why the one spot didn't anodize would be a trapped air bubble that kept it from contacting the anodizing dye. Also if you want to strip the anodizing. Oven cleaner will remove it

[@SBkid112]

Those imperfections from the anodising 100% make it look even better!! Amazing build as always!

[@Mizzelphug]

Would have been nice to see you machine out a recess in the body or head to press in one of the original coins as an homage to what it's made from. Still a really nice build.

[@gothridercreations]

Dude you are my guitar building guru!!!! What an insane build, about $4000 in raw materials plus the time and effort, full credit man, love it 😊

[@BigBobbyBoLo]

I love that you leave the mistakes in the vids, it helps with understanding the process better

[@sube1988]

its been a long time cheers from country georgia 🇬🇪🎸👍🏻good job!!!!

[@UGeneral23]

Guitar making and science! I love your videos so much!

[@albertdiehl1298]

This brings back so much nostalgia with my memories of going to RadioShack. One of the coolest guitar builds I’ve seen yet! 🎸

[@Jeffmetal42]

You're a madman in the best possible way. Great work as usual! 🤘

[@andrewbootsdekemper3410]

Great build i think the open fret board was a really cool touch.

[@MakeSomething]

what a fun process. it sounds and looks beautiful.

[@Blueshirt38]

Amazing build, man. I have always had a soft spot for lapsteel guitar, which oddly I think came from watching Spongebob and Ed, Edd, & Eddy growing up and having it in the background before I even knew what it was.

[@jaydiarae]

That was so cool to watch. In part because I had never heard of a lapsteel guitar. Here's to learning something new, and hearing some sweet music at the end.

[@PaceBreaker]

It's always entertaining to watch you work. Nice to see you learning from the previous aluminum build and applying it even though this is a different style of guitar.

[@evilscientistrecords]

The anodizing process was partiularly interesting, thanks for sharing your project!! And explaining the various steps.

[@Scottuz]

Well done Mate, Great job with the Lap Steel, and a Lovely sound to boot

[@AudioAtmos]

That was beautiful playing. The Lap Steel looks and sounds great!!

[@AngelDaniel1977]

The whole process itself, your skills on the matter and the final performance of Take me home, country roads were very well done, thanks for the video. Greetings from Honduras!

[@dominusanuli3595]

That was a beautiful cover of Country Roads. Please please PLEASE let there be a tab, that genuinely brought tears to my eyes. You have so much talent.

[@David-jb6ev]

Fabulous video. I play lap steel and was also an apprentice in a casting factory (Paxman Diesels UK) l really appreciate all the work you put into this project, and thank you for sharing. I enjoyed it immensely . Brilliant effort.

[@GranTruismo4head]

Awesome work Burls! I love each time you make a video! These always make my day each time I see them. Please whatever you do, don’t stop unless your health becomes a problem.. until that day please don’t stop making these awesome videos

[@SpyderArachnid]

This was really well done. I thought it would of been nice to have a small indentation in the body somewhere where you could embed one of the coins. A bit of nostalgia immortalized in the guitar it was turned into. Leaves a nice little story behind how it was made and all. But yeah otherwise, really nice work. Always like seeing what you make. :)

[@guitardadsinc]

Burl you are a mad genius bro me and my wife love watching you bring these ideas to life and its also awesome you keep all the mess ups and problems in the video so people can learn

[@easytvlogs]

Great video! Will you make a guitar with the leftover coins that display the actual coins? Or really any art piece that can show off those coins. That's a pretty cool piece of history that a lot of people will appreciate when they look at a piece that boasts the actual radio shack dollar coins

[@silentepsilon888]

so if a Lapsteel guitar is made out of aluminum, shouldn't it be a Lapaluminum Guitar?

[@kianr2200]

Been following for years, the guitars never fail to amaze me. Thank you for showing the whole process, kinks and all. I hope to build a guitar one day. edit: absolutely beautiful demo

[@JasonBrolsma]

that solo at the end was just wicked to hear, keep up the good work

[@StoneAndersonStudio]

Ok wow, amazing build, fantastic playing at the end too. Always love seeing what you make.

[@6scar911]

Great playing at the end there! Beautiful guitar as well, great job!

[@danbumgarner1057]

I know nothing about metal casting or playing a guitar, but I found this absolutely fascinating. I’ve always loved sound of a steel guitar and the rendition of “Country Roads” was beautiful. You are a really talented person. Thanks.

[@The_Nonchalant_Shallot]

Oh this hurts my heart. As someone who recently lost their radioshack, I am in great pain seeing this video.

[@babidavi6910]

This hurts my heart as a collector of random little items. I've never shopped at a RadioShack in ernest, but just the coins alone were pretty cool. If I had those coins, I'd get a little treasure chest and just rub my hands through them every now and again, feeling pretty rich. 😐

[@-Teague-]

​@@babidavi6910 he did save some of them

[@babidavi6910]

@@-Teague- some (⁠눈⁠‸⁠눈⁠)

[@-Teague-]

@@babidavi6910 everything turns back to dust eventually might as well use them for something cool while they're here instead of just keeping them to look at

[@babidavi6910]

@@-Teague- I guess. I just thought he'd cast them in resin like he did the newspaper. The guitar is epic, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't pay homage to the coins much. A coin welded onto it somewhere would've been cool. Idk. Just feels a bit of a waste in general. Metals can be found literally anywhere. Hopefully they were fake and we don't need to be mourning the loss of actual valuable relics.

[@kiiometric]

Wasn’t expecting chemistry in this channel haha, beautiful process and result❤

[@milesdakin3540]

Dude - this is insane! Nice work! By far the best out to demo too so fair play for sticking it out I really want a lap steel now 🤘🤘

[@shayes.x]

Ridiculously cool project. Your demo of the final product was very nice as well!

[@jihwoanahn]

Not only the build, but that performance at the end was really good.

[@tylerjass5804]

Beautiful playing. Outstanding build. Love your videos.

[@jmccarty480]

Simply incredible. This truly feels like a heritage piece you can hand down. Absolutely extraordinary craftsmanship. You are so damn talented. I've got three final words for ya...Mississippi Delta Blues. 🎶🎵

[@theawesomer]

Very cool build! I was hoping that you left a spot to pour some resin and load it up with some of the remaining coins though.

[@ErnieHeyek]

Absolutely love watching you build these guitars! So cool, my kid learned a little science on this one!!

[@LYLEWOLD]

That melancholy tone from the laptop would have worked so well with the fishing videos from way back where I was always hoping that this was gonna be the trip where he caught a fish. Nice guitar. That weld difference makes sense. I remember an article about gun refinishing, and that there was a company near LA that could make custom rods based on the metallurgy of the gun you were trying to repair. That way the whole piece took the finish the same, and the repairs were invisible.

[@notfeedynotlazy]

10:26 Well said. For the comment section: the reason you add acid to water and not water to the acid is that the reaction generates enough heat that if you have just a bit of water (say, the very first drops) in a lot of acid, that bit of water BOILS instantly, the steam sending concentrated acid everywhere - while the first drops of acid falling on a lot of water won't boil all of it at once. (Bit of science trivia because safety first, last and always, and I don't care being called pedantic if that means saving someone form a nasty burn - and I mean the real burns, not the internet ones!)

[@spappy2k6]

Your ingenuity and creativity never cease to amaze!

[@canadam1983]

I love lapsteel guitars, it was really interesting to see one being built. I also really liked the rendition of Country Home at the end. One of the coolest videos I've seen in quite a while 😊

[@trickybeatle2189]

As a WV Native, I love hearing Country Roads!

[@brandonheston8608]

Same here. ❤ wv

[@kevhead1525]

Hollywood is full of people who don't have a tenth of talent and creativity this man has. That's only one of the reasons why I choose youtube over tv.

[@MrFixiit]

Fantastic build and love your rendition of take me home, country roads

[@JayRope83]

I don't know how the algorithm got me here, but I really enjoyed your video and the playing at the end!

[@davemanton5774]

Well done, you, great look, and a great sound. Nice to watch the faults ad apposed to a perfect edited piece.

[@LessonsWithTroy]

Man!!! I’m so impressed. Great job!!! It really sounds nice too.

[@gun10ck]

I recently discovered your channel and have binged most of your builds now, love your work! Idea for a build: Mosou black paint and ultra white paint combo. Maybe black body and head so all you see is the fret board?

[@gun10ck]

Or the inverse so it looks like the head and body are floating…

[@mattfleming2287]

Love the build! Bravo, sir! You killed it! Great rendition.

[@madelinegrudens]

Chemistry would have been fun if you were my teacher! I was hoping you were gonna make a pick out of one of the coins. You're incredible 🤩 and this build is fantastic 😍

[@richardaston6361]

Great build, and the sound! 👍

[@nop3noperson]

I can listen to this type of strumming for hours man. Great job!

[@DanielFerrellMusic]

Wonderful build. I’m from West VA so I got excited when you demoed it using our anthem 😂

[@jcoulter43]

You are a true artist in every sense of the word! Beautiful work and an incredible song the cap it off at the end. Love it! God bless and rock on 🎸😎👍

[@DesingitTime]

i love how you actively learn during your videos, things aren't perfect the first go around and you learn from these errors to do better it's not like those "making a guitar from solid gold!" where everything turns out just right and you have a whole team of 40 people measuring and re-measuring everything

[@picksalot1]

Interest build and great results. The tone of the guitar is truly wonderful. Congrats!

[@peter15walsh]

Got the chills when country roads was played. Awesome as always!

[@Barbosa9066]

It only missed a coin fixed on the body but was just fantastic ! Congrats