Uri Tuchman builds objects on YouTube. The videos are long. The objects are small. He has built a wooden typewriter that types. A working telegraph carved from walnut. A barbershop pole that runs on a hand-cranked mechanism. The objects look like they fell out of a Wes Anderson film.
In November 2024, he posted a video that ran 47 minutes. The object was a fully functional electric guitar with a perfectly square body. Seventeen inches by seventeen inches, no curves, no contours, no offset. Just a wooden square with strings on it.
Seven months later, the guitar he built in that video is in our current draw. This article is about why we accepted it.
The internet-craft economy
A guitar built quietly on YouTube becomes a $5,000 collectible because of an economy that didn't exist twenty years ago. The build is documented, frame by frame, by the maker himself. The provenance is unimpeachable. The audience has watched the instrument come into being. By the time the build video ends, the guitar already has more documentation than most production instruments accumulate in their lifetimes.
This isn't a marginal phenomenon. The intersection of internet documentation and object craft is producing some of the most interesting collectibles being made today. Tuchman's square guitar is one of them.
Why a square shouldn't work
The reasons are mechanical. A guitar body's curves are not aesthetic — they are structural. The cutaway provides upper-fret access. The bottom contour rests on the player's leg. The rear contour accommodates the ribcage. Take all of that away and you're holding something that should fight you constantly.
Tuchman acknowledged all of this in the video. His thesis was that the constraints could be solved through internal geometry rather than external shape. He routed the body asymmetrically inside, weighted the lower edge with brass to create a balance point the body shape doesn't provide, and angled the strap buttons to compensate for the missing balance points. The neck heel is internally lengthened so upper-fret access works through a kind of inverted cutaway hidden inside the square outline.
Whether it actually plays
It does. We were skeptical until we played it.
Sitting with the guitar resting on your right leg, the brass-weighted edge does what Tuchman's calculations suggested — the body sits balanced, doesn't tilt, stays in playing position without strap tension. Standing with a strap, the headstock dives slightly more than a standard guitar but less than a Flying V. Upper-fret access is real. The neck pickup is bright and quick — Tuchman wound the pickups himself — and the bridge unit has the clarity of a vintage Tele single-coil with more output than you'd expect.
It isn't what we'd recommend for a working musician. It absolutely is what a serious collector would want hanging on a wall and pulled down for special occasions.
What makes this collectible
Three artifacts move a one-off curio into real collectible territory. Tuchman has only built one of these, and he has stated publicly he doesn't intend to build another. The instrument arrives with a signed certificate, the maker's own notebook with measurements and adjustments, and the YouTube video that documents every step of the build.
For a working player, none of that matters. For a collector, those three artifacts are what separate the square guitar from a curiosity.
Why this draw is different
We don't typically run draws on instruments this experimental. The Tuchman square guitar is an exception because the build is documented end-to-end, the maker is willing to authenticate the instrument personally, and the playability is real enough that it isn't just a wall piece.
If you have followed Tuchman's work, you already know what this guitar is. If you haven't, the build video is worth the 47 minutes.
The active draw
The Uri Tuchman square guitar is currently featured in an active Great Guitar Giveaway draw. Entry mechanics, current pool size, and close date are listed on the draw page. No-purchase-necessary entry is available on every draw.