ArtecOrange

$2,295.00

Tags: #StayHome Collection, Boneyard, Complete Amp Cabinet, Copy Available, Found Object, Integrated Speaker, Original Available, Reclaimed Instrument, Self-Standing, Stave

Categories: 15.5" scale, Mini, Short Scale, Six-String Guitar

Part guitar, part sculpture, part Orange amp—and only 15.5″ of scale length. Small enough to be ridiculous. Serious enough to play.

The Mini One of #stayhome

$1,295 for a custom copy*

Leftovers come into focus.

Some things in the Boneyard are waiting for inspiration. Others are waiting for me to finally figure out what the hell they are supposed to be. ArtecOrange belongs to the second category.

I'd started part of this guitar years ago. The project seemed like a good idea at the time, but it eventually failed to hold my attention. So it sat. And sat. And became one more unfinished idea in the Boneyard.

Then #stayhome happened.

When I had time, I started looking at all those unfinished things differently. The Boneyard rule was simple: I could only use what I already had. No trips to the store to find the perfect piece. No ordering something because the original idea required it. The materials already in the apartment were the materials I had to work with.

That restriction turned out to be liberating. Instead of asking what I needed to build, I started asking what I could build from what was already there. And suddenly, the leftovers came into focus.

The Little Orange One

The heart of ArtecOrange was already sitting there: an Artec® amplifier cabinet and a bridge/amp assembly that had been leftover since 2016. Six years is a long time for guitar hardware to sit around. Apparently, it was patient.

I also had some broken pieces of a classical guitar, including a broken neck, and some leftover redwood. Those became the ingredients for the neck and the structure that marries the guitar to the amplifier cabinet. The result is deliberately small. The scale is only 15.5 inches, with 14 frets, making this less of a conventional guitar and more of a musical pocketknife.

And then there is the amplifier. The Orange® Micro CRUSH is built into the instrument, so the amp cabinet isn’t just where the guitar lives—it is the body of the guitar. That makes ArtecOrange a little difficult to categorize. Is it a guitar with an amplifier? An amplifier with a guitar attached? Or a collection of leftovers that finally agreed to cooperate?

I’m going with all three.

The Boneyard Rule

The Stay Home collection emerged from a very specific set of circumstances, but the idea behind it predates the lockdown. I have always saved things. A piece of wood that looks interesting. A broken instrument that might still have something to give. A piece of hardware that is too good to throw away. Something that has no use today but might someday. That collection became my Boneyard.

For these guitars, the rule was that nothing new came into the shop, so the idea worked. I had to build with what was already there. That meant accepting the materials' limitations—and then seeing what those limitations suggested. A broken classical guitar became a neck. Leftover redwood became part of the structure. An old bridge/amp assembly finally found a home after waiting since 2016. A Cherry carpenter’s level became a beam. A piece of spruce stair tread became trim. Violin parts and boat hardware got another chance at a completely different life. None of it was purchased as a matched set. That’s exactly what makes it interesting.

A Failed Project Gets a Second Life

There is something satisfying about finishing a project that you had already abandoned. The first version of this idea couldn’t hold my attention. The second time around, I had a much better collaborator: everything else sitting around waiting to be used.

#stayhome gave me the time to look at the unfinished project, look at the Boneyard, and see a connection that wasn’t obvious the first time. That’s really what these guitars are about. Not starting with a blank sheet of paper. Starting with a pile of stuff. Then waiting long enough for the pile to tell you what it wants to become.

ArtecOrange is the Mini One. Small scale. Small amp. Small footprint. But a surprisingly large amount of history packed into a very small guitar. And, finally, all those leftovers have come into focus.

#stayhome collection

*The Boneyard Rule

These twelve guitars are the surviving record of one very particular moment: March–June 2020, when the outside world stopped, and the Rubytone boneyard became the hardware store.

The listed collection price applies when you purchase the entire twelve-guitar collection together. You can buy individual guitars separately for an additional $1,000 per guitar.

Unless, of course, you would be happier with a copy.

That’s where things get interesting.

A Rubytone copy doesn’t have to be exact. It can be your version of the idea, built around what makes sense to you.

Choose your:

Neck • Beam • Bridge • Tailpiece • Tuners • Pickups • Controls • Colors

The original twelve were made from whatever was lying around in the boneyard.

Your Rubytone can start there—and go somewhere entirely different.

Additional information

Instrument Type	Mini Guitar
Approach	Boneyard Build, Experimental Build, Found-Object Build, Front Integrated-Amp Build, RestoMod, Structural Reinterpretation, Whole Integrated-Amp Build
Construction	Simple
Body	Artec MiniAmp
Beam	Cherry Carpenter Level
Neck	Mahogany, Redwood Tank Stave
Fingerboard	Rosewood
Headstock	Modified Headstock, Repaired Headstock
Scale Length	15.5"
Number of Frets	14
Bridge	Telecaster Hardtail
Tailpiece	Dobro Tailpiece
Neck Pickup
Middle Pickup
Bridge Pickup	Fender Telecaster Bridge Pickup
Pickup Switch
Controls
Knobs
Amplifier	Orange MicroCrush
Power Supply	9V Rechargeable Battery

ArtecOrange

Rubÿtone Guitar Scorecard

9.22 / 10

332 / 360 points

playing

Fun to Play

The first test is whether the guitar makes you want to keep playing it. A high score means the instrument feels inviting, responsive, and rewarding rather than merely interesting to look at. The best examples have enough soul that you forget you are evaluating them and simply keep going.

Playability

Measures how naturally the instrument responds to ordinary playing technique across the neck. Action, fretwork, neck feel, access, and setup should work together without asking the player to compensate for the design. A strong score means the unusual construction never becomes an excuse for compromised playing.

Ergonomics

Considers how comfortably the instrument sits against the body, hangs from a strap, and positions the hands. Weight distribution matters as much as total weight, especially when found objects or onboard amplification shift the center of gravity. The most artful solutions make an unconventional shape feel surprisingly natural.

Tone Quality

Judges the character, clarity, richness, and usefulness of the instrument’s core sound. The goal is not one supposedly perfect tone, but a voice with musical identity and enough detail to reward attentive playing. The highest scores go to guitars whose sound has real soul rather than merely acceptable frequency response.

Tonal Versatility

Measures how many genuinely useful sounds the instrument can produce rather than simply counting switches and settings. Different pickup combinations and controls should create musically distinct choices that a player would actually use. A clever circuit scores higher when its versatility feels purposeful instead of complicated for its own sake.

Amplification

Evaluates how convincingly the guitar performs through its intended amplification system, whether external or built in. Output, clarity, noise, feedback behavior, and usable volume all matter. For self-amplified Rubÿtones, a high score means the amplifier feels integrated into the instrument rather than attached as an afterthought.

build

Fit & Finish

Evaluates the precision and care visible in joints, edges, fretwork, hardware installation, surfaces, wiring, and final setup. Handmade character is welcome; carelessness is not the same thing as character. A strong score shows experienced workmanship while allowing the object to retain the marks and soul of its previous life.

Portability

Measures whether the instrument’s mass and dimensions make sense for the way it is meant to be used. A guitar with an onboard amp may reasonably weigh more, but every added ounce should earn its place. High scores reward designs that are easy to carry, hold, busk with, or live with without sacrificing the idea.

Reliability

Rates the likelihood that the guitar will keep working properly through normal playing, transport, and repeated use. Structural joints, wiring, controls, hardware, and power systems should feel dependable rather than experimental in the risky sense. A high score means the wit of the design is backed by experienced engineering.

Repairability

Considers how sensibly the instrument can be serviced when something eventually wears out or fails. Standard parts, accessible wiring, replaceable components, and understandable construction all help. The strongest designs are inventive without turning a future repair into an archaeological excavation.

Solutions

Scores the quality of the solutions used when unconventional materials create unconventional problems. Beam placement, neck angle, pickup clearance, feedback, balance, and internal packaging are all opportunities to demonstrate experience. High scores go to solutions that are technically sound and artful enough to look inevitable afterward.

Integration

Measures how successfully all the unrelated parts become one coherent working instrument. Neck, beam, body, hardware, electronics, amplifier, and found objects should cooperate mechanically and visually. The best integrations have a kind of soul: the parts stop looking assembled and start looking as though they found each other.

design

Innovation

Measures whether the guitar introduces a genuinely fresh idea, solution, relationship, or way of thinking about an instrument. Novelty alone is not enough; the innovation should improve the object, deepen the concept, or open a useful new possibility.

Shouldn’t Work

Rewards designs that appear improbable but succeed because the underlying engineering is sound. The wit comes from the gap between what your eyes expect and what your hands and ears discover.

Beauty

Judges visual appeal without assuming that beauty must mean polished, conventional, or expensive. Proportion, material, color, age, texture, and restraint can all create beauty in very different ways.

Sculpture

Considers the guitar as a three-dimensional object even when nobody is playing it. Silhouette, negative space, depth, structure, and the relationship between functional parts should reward viewing from more than one angle.

Coherence

Measures whether the many materials, colors, shapes, and components read as one intentional composition. A Rubÿtone can be busy, strange, or witty without looking accidental.

Relic

Rates the visual and emotional value of genuine age, wear, patina, scars, repairs, and evidence of earlier use. Authentic history carries more weight than artificially manufactured distress.

concept

Stage Presence

Measures how strongly the instrument communicates from across a room or under performance conditions. Silhouette, scale, color, movement, and unusual construction can all contribute before a note is heard.

Stands Alone

Judges whether the instrument feels complete and compelling without requiring a long explanation of why it matters. The story may deepen the experience, but the object should already make a persuasive case visually and musically.

Material Story

Considers how much meaning comes from the history and previous purpose of the materials themselves.

Transformation

Measures how completely the original object has been given a convincing second identity without erasing where it came from.

Boneyard Score

Rates how deeply the instrument embodies the practice of building from saved, secondhand, leftover, or previously overlooked materials.

Necessity

Asks whether each major component has a reason to be there. Extra hardware, controls, decorative pieces, and technology should contribute to function, story, balance, or visual composition.

personality

Story

Measures the strength of the narrative carried by the guitar’s materials, development, accidents, people, places, and decisions.

Surprise

Rates the number and quality of discoveries the instrument offers after the first glance.

Conversation

Measures how naturally the guitar makes people curious enough to ask questions.

Cool Factor

Captures the difficult-to-measure quality that makes an instrument desirable before every reason can be itemized.

Identity

Measures how immediately the guitar feels like itself rather than a variation of something more familiar.

Rubÿtone DNA

Rates how clearly the instrument expresses the recurring ideas behind Rubÿtone: reuse, structural invention, functional sculpture, irreverence, and serious playability.

impact

Humor

Measures whether the guitar contains genuine wit rather than a joke pasted onto an otherwise ordinary object.

Punchline

Judges whether the concept resolves into a satisfying final idea—the moment when the viewer suddenly understands why a particular object, material, or decision is there.

Disdain

Measures the willingness to question inherited rules about what an electric guitar is supposed to look like, contain, or be made from.

Rules

Rates how effectively the instrument departs from established guitar-building conventions while remaining musically and structurally convincing.

Copy Potential

Considers whether the central idea could inspire a new custom build without requiring an exact duplicate of the original.

Evolution

Measures how much useful creative territory remains in the idea after this particular guitar is finished.