We’ve seen plenty of cool-looking electric guitars in our time, but none of them captivate as much as this one. Designed by YouTuber and custom guitar builder Burls Art, this Infinity Mirror Guitar has you literally staring into its wonderful void of endless LEDs. Oh, and it sounds pretty funky too, with a delicious reverb that creates the same endless echo to match the guitar’s never-ending optical illusion!
Designer: Burls Art
Custom guitars are one of Burls Art’s areas of expertise, having experimented with designing guitars using everything from LEGO bricks to coffee beans. While his previous experiments have involved encasing objects in resin, this infinity mirror version is a different beast altogether, considering it’s hollow on the inside. That may present its own set of challenges, but nothing’s too big for the USA-based YouTuber, who’s built over 30 guitars on his channel alone.
The infinity mirror is a pretty clever optical illusion that uses two parallel reflective surfaces, with one of them being a two-way mirror. Sandwich a strip of LEDs between them and you have a seemingly endless loop of reflections that gives you the impression of a never-ending void. While most infinity mirrors are either square or circular, Burls Art’s guitar-shaped mirror has a distinctly different charm, with its guitar body shape.
The guitar is shaped somewhat like a double-cut Les Paul, and comes equipped with a humbucking pickup and a simple control panel at the bottom. Burls Art does point out that the LEDs, while they look great, create a bit of electrical feedback that causes a slight humming sound. Insulating tape could have potentially fixed the problem, but the guitar was already assembled at the time. There was also a concern of the guitar being potentially too fragile, but the thick acrylic plate on the front was sturdy enough to make the guitar structurally sound.
Solid wood was used for the guitar’s frame, with wood on the back and acrylic on the front.
The entire guitar, including the back of the fretboard and headstock, comes with a metallic paint job, adding to the steampunk appeal.
A two-way reflective vinyl was applied to the acrylic panel on the front.
The end result is stunning to look at, and even more to actually play with. Burls Art does take his guitar for a spin at the 8:10 minute mark in the video above. Although the guitar isn’t for sale, there are a few popular builds available on the Burls Arts website, including some made entirely from color pencils!
