Every year since 2012, YouTube has made a music video featuring popular songs, viral videos, trends and YouTube stars that happened that year. If you watch them, you will notice a recurring object of some sorts. As you can guess, that's the:

YouTube Rewind Button

If you haven't watched the videos - the 'YouTube Rewind button' is a giant 'button' of sorts that is a version of YouTube's main logo, but instead of a single forward facing triangle indicating 'play', it instead has 2 backwards facing triangles indicating rewind from the VHS days.

I tried to recreate this button to the best of my ability in this project - of course, in reality, it is very hard to get the same effect as the ones in the official videos are likely made of plastic and are produced exclusively for YouTube. But a convincing replica can be made using plywood, corflute and acrylic paint for under $20.

So if you want to make one of these, head right on through and consider voting in the contest's I have entered in.

(note - the glowing effect is done in post production).

Step 1: Supplies

For this build you will need:

Sheet of Plywood
Red Acrylic Paint
Paint brushes
Corflute sheet
Square wooden pieces (not pictured)

Some essential tools you will need

Jigsaw cutter
Cordless Drill
Belt Sande

Step 2: Planning

First, it must be decided what size button do you want. Do you want a massive human size one or a tiny finger sized one? I chose to go with one that best represented the ones in the video.

It came out to be roughly 270x185x50 (after sanding, you will want it bigger)

To get the shape, download this template I made and cut out the white parts.

Step 3: Cutting the Corflute Cutouts

This is a super duper simple step. Just grab your corflute board and the template and trace over the template to give the outline for the triangles. Then just use a either a hobby knife, rolling blade or some simple scissors to cut the corflute. Be sure to have the rounded corners on the edge though!

Step 4: Plywood Faces

In this step you will make the front and back plywood pieces that you see on the button.

To start off, get the template cut out from the previous step and trace it onto the wood. This will become the front of the button.

Now get the template and trace it again, but this time only trace the outside and not the inside triangles. This will become the back of the button.

After all that tracing is done, go ahead and start cutting away the excess. Quick tip - it is best to cut the triangles from the button faces first before cutting the outside. To cut the triangles - get a cordless drill the thickness of your jigsaw blade and drill a hole anywhere in the triangle (not near the edge like I did!). Then just slot your jigsaw blade into the hole you drilled and cut away until you get the 4 triangles cut out.

But for the other face, you will need to cut a large plate that you can pull out to access the inside of the button (see the last picture).

After that is done - cutting the edges is pretty self explanatory.

Step 5: Some Extra Supports

In this step you will add some support so that your triangles can fit into your button without them falling out or moving, etc..

This can be done by getting 6 small pieces of wood (one for each corner) and then using nails preferably and wood glue - hammer them into the plywood and wait for the glue to dry.

If you try and now put in the corflute triangles you can see that they should fit nicely into your wooden triangles - if not, you may need to cut out the corflute triangles again and use trial and error until they fit.

Step 6: Adding the Sides

The sides are the pieces that will hold the front and back plywood pieces together. To make this, simply get your wood strips and cut them into a rectangle. This rectangle needs to be the right size relative to your front & back piece.

Then just glue on the BACK piece and nail it in. Wait for this to dry and then flip it around. Now remember that hole you cut out the back for access inside the button? Now you need to get some thin wooden strips and cut them to the right length to fit inside there. Make sure to position them so that the cover the edges of where the hole is (see the pictures). These strips will hold the removable back-plate in so that it doesn't fall in or out of the button.

After that is done then do the same with the front panel (this should have the corflute corner supports already on it).

Step 7: Sanding It Down

This part involves you using that jigsaw again - unless you have 4 hours to spare sanding down the excess wood. So grab that jigsaw and cut off the excess corners roughly. You need to be careful of the screws and which also means you may need to drill down the screws a bit more when you cut it.

When cutting with the jigsaw it should only be rough, it will need some sanding afterwards on the sides so don't you worry - you get to join in the fun! and do it yourself.

Then just sand the rest down to a where it actually resembles the original template.

Step 8: Finishing Touches

The finishing touches segment of this instructable involves some simple things you can do to make your rewind button just that little bit better.

The first is to use a nail punch and hit all the nails just below the surface of the wood, and fill in their holes with wood putty or the equivalent. Then let this to dry for a few hours and sand it off. Then you may want to also draw a guide on the removable back-plate to help you position it.

It is also a good idea to use the putty on some of the sides where the front/back wood piece hasn't fully aligned with the middle piece and there are gaps.

Step 9: Paint It!

An easy - but time consuming process. Now you have your nice smooth play button, it is time to paint it bright red. I found that the best way was to have no undercoat and just reapply the red coat multiple times until the wood texture underneath is hidden enough.

That's it! You're done - the only thing now to do is to take a picture and post an "I made it!" comment below and vote for this instructable in the contests.

THANKS FOR READING!

-perfectpixel