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The Bone Guitar

Posted: September 30, 2013
$2,330
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Ladies, who wants to bone a guitar god? Come on now, don't start a stampede. There are plenty of sheep femurs and possum skulls to go around, and room enough on my acoustic slim body for at least a couple hundred of you to take a turn. Just grab a handful and some Elmer's and follow me to my boning lair.

Bone artist Bruce Mahalski, formerly featured for his Bone Pistols, has recently released a steel-stringed dreadnought handmade from spruce and mahogany by Goldbeard, and embellished with the skeletons of at least two dozen different animals. Perhaps drawing inspiration from And Vinyly's Cremation Ash Records, the guitar is his first marriage of music and the remnants of the deceased.

The 6-string's front and sides are covered in layers of textured bone, and the neck trimmed with cow ribs and bird bones. Various crushed animal skulls form the granular surface running up and down the guitar's back. While the Bone Guitar does play with a slide, it isn't intended for everyday use, and produces the sound of a fretless model on account of its having cow parts where its standard guitar parts would normally be.

Mahalski gives thanks to the following animals, whose passing contributed to the making of his Bone Guitar: hedgehog, stoat, weasel, rabbit, rat, magpie, hawk, gull, possum, pukeko (I think that's a make-believe animal), duck, sparrow , thrush, sting-ray, moa (extinct!), cat, dog, sheep, wild pig, cow, wallaby, swan, seal, and snapper.

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