Hello everyone! Today we're going to turn an old guitar into a fashinating ceiling lamp! It was actually my brother's first guitar ever (and it was rotting away, forgotten), so you can just imagine his reaction when he saw it hanging in his bedroom as a birthday present. Needless to say, he loves it (also because the lamp is a lot brigther and less annoying than the one he had before).

Since I wanted to finish this project fast, I made it using only objects that were laying around my house (for example I bent the brackets on my own because I didn't have the right sized ones). Feel free to plan it a little bit better than me, if you have a choice!

Important note: the aim of this instructable is not to teach you how to make solderings or how to connect the lamp to the power line. Some steps of this instructable are pretty dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, so make sure to get someone to help you if needed!

Supplies

An old guitar (electric guitar works best, because it's full inside)
A scrap piece of wood (I used two 20x40cm pieces and joined them together)
A couple of C brackets (I bent two straight brackets to the desiderd shape)
About 3.5 m white LEDs (total length depends on the trip you want the LEDs to do)
220V AC in, 12V DC out, 4A transformer
Some length of wire

You will also need a few tools, like soldering iron, wire cutters and a drill.

Step 1: Plan the LEDs' Path

The lamp will hang from the ceiling showing the front face towards the floor, so the first thing to do is to plan how we're going to use the space on the back of the guitar. You will need the inner most space for the transformer and a certain spot of the guitar for the hanging mechanism. In particular, we will see that the spot from which we will hang the guitar will be the one that makes it more or less balanced, so try to find that spot and keep it free from LEDs!

In the last picture you can see the path I chose for the LEDs. The reason for the strange inclination of the strips on the right side of the picture is that the guitar is not symmetric, and in particular it was not flat in that spot. Remember that if you place the LEDs in a spot that is not flat or that is pointed towards the sides, you may see them when the lamp is hanged, and that's not what we want (we only want light by reflection on the ceiling!).

Step 2: Soldering the LEDs

It's time to make some solderings. The way I approached the problem was by cutting the strips, gluing them on the guitar and finally making the solderings with a certain length of wire. Of course, this approach is pretty risky because if you miss a soldering, you will have to cut a segment of the strip, making it shorter, but luckly I didn't miss any.

One interesting tip I learned was that you don't have to necessarily make the connections on the ends of the LED strips. Instead, you can also connect them in the middle! You can see the result in the pictures above. This solution makes you use a lot less wire, which is a good thing, since you want to hide it as much as possible!

Note: make sure to always respect the polarity of the LEDs (and maybe test them between each soldering).

Step 3: Making the Support

I made the support from a piece of wood I already had. Since I wanted to make it sturdier, I glued two of those pieces together, right after making a groove in the middle (through which the power line wires will pass). Of course, this is just the poor man's solution. If you want, you can use a single piece of wood and make the hole with a drill (I didn't have a tip that was long enough).

The lenght of the support is about 13cm. I painted it black for aesthetic reasons.

I also bent two C brackets out of straight brackets, in order to make them fit on the wooden support. The brackets already had holes on the sides (will be used to screw them to the support), but I had to make a few more holes on the bottom to attach it to the guitar and the ceiling respectively.

Step 4: Connecting the Transformer

It's now time to finally connect the transformer. I used a couple of cable ties and tightened it to the white removable cover of the guitar. You can use glue or other solutions if you want. Then, connect the wires and try to hide them as best as you can. Leave a certain length of color-coded wires for the power line connection.

Step 5: Balancing and Fixing the Bracket

Now that everything is mounted on the lamp, it's time to find the balancing point. Take the wooden support and try to balance the guitar on a flat surface. Once the guitar is balanced, carefully turn it upside down and mark the position of the support. Then, make two small pilot holes (using the bracket holes as reference) and screw the bracket on.

Once the bracket is fixed, use two more screws to fix the wooden support, as shown.

Step 6: Mounting on the Ceiling

Turn the power off. The second bracket is now fixed on the ceiling using a long screw and a fischer wall plug. Right before putting in the side screws, make sure to fit the cables that are hanging from the ceiling inside the support's hole. Then, when everything is fixed, connect the power line cables. Once you're confident with what you've done, turn the power back on. The guitar should be nice and glowing!