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Bung02

$2,495.00

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A custom-built evolution of Bung01 featuring a cantilevered reclaimed-spruce backbone, cello-scroll headstock, and a Harmony PowerPal cabinet housing a powerful NUX 8-watt Bluetooth amplifier.

Out of stock

A custom-built evolution of Bung01 featuring a cantilevered reclaimed-spruce backbone, cello-scroll headstock, and a Harmony PowerPal cabinet housing a powerful NUX 8-watt Bluetooth amplifier.

Bung02 is a commissioned evolution of Bung01, retaining the original concept while introducing a cantilevered spruce structure, a cello-scroll headstock and an upgraded onboard amplifier system.

The cantilevered backbone is made from spruce reclaimed when my brother replaced the stair treads in his house. The neck was modified by removing its original headstock and replacing it with the scroll from a cello, giving Bung02 a distinctly different identity from the instrument it was commissioned to copy.

A vintage Harmony PowerPal amplifier cabinet houses a NUX 8-watt Bluetooth amplifier with three presets. The original Harmony speaker was replaced with the speaker supplied with the NUX, turning the old amplifier enclosure into a compact, powerful onboard system.

Bung02 began as a request for another Bung01, but became an opportunity to refine the construction while preserving the idea that made the original memorable.

Additional information

Instrument Type

Guitar
Approach

Found-Object Build, Front Integrated-Amp Build, Structural Reinterpretation
Construction

Simple
Body

Harmony PowerPal Amp
Beam

Wine Barrel Stave
Neck

Maple
Fingerboard

Maple
Headstock

Cello Scroll
Scale Length

25.5"
Number of Frets

21
Bridge

Stratocaster Tremolo / Whammy Bridge
Tailpiece
Neck Pickup
Middle Pickup
Bridge Pickup

Archtop SoapBar
Pickup Switch
Controls
Knobs
Amplifier

NUX Mighty 8-BT
Power Supply

USB-C (Internal Rechargeable Battery)
Bung02
Rubÿtone Guitar Scorecard
9.69 / 10
349 / 360 points

playing

Fun to Play
10
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
8
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
7
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
10
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
10
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
10
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
10
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
9
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
10
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
10
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
10
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
10
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
9
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
9
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
9
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
10
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
8
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
10
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
10
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
10
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
10
Considers how much meaning comes from the history and previous purpose of the materials themselves.
Transformation
10
Measures how completely the original object has been given a convincing second identity without erasing where it came from.
Boneyard Score
10
Rates how deeply the instrument embodies the practice of building from saved, secondhand, leftover, or previously overlooked materials.
Necessity
10
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
10
Measures the strength of the narrative carried by the guitar’s materials, development, accidents, people, places, and decisions.
Surprise
10
Rates the number and quality of discoveries the instrument offers after the first glance.
Conversation
10
Measures how naturally the guitar makes people curious enough to ask questions.
Cool Factor
10
Captures the difficult-to-measure quality that makes an instrument desirable before every reason can be itemized.
Identity
10
Measures how immediately the guitar feels like itself rather than a variation of something more familiar.
Rubÿtone DNA
10
Rates how clearly the instrument expresses the recurring ideas behind Rubÿtone: reuse, structural invention, functional sculpture, irreverence, and serious playability.

impact

Humor
10
Measures whether the guitar contains genuine wit rather than a joke pasted onto an otherwise ordinary object.
Punchline
10
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
10
Measures the willingness to question inherited rules about what an electric guitar is supposed to look like, contain, or be made from.
Rules
10
Rates how effectively the instrument departs from established guitar-building conventions while remaining musically and structurally convincing.
Copy Potential
10
Considers whether the central idea could inspire a new custom build without requiring an exact duplicate of the original.
Evolution
10
Measures how much useful creative territory remains in the idea after this particular guitar is finished.

THE STORY

He Wanted a Copy of Bung01

Bung02 came about as a custom order, but not in the usual way.

The owner is a photographer, and we agreed on a trade: I would build him an instrument, and he would trade me his photography skills.

The starting point was simple.

He wanted a copy of Bung01.

I kept the basic idea intact, but I used the opportunity to improve the structure.

One thing I changed was the backbone. I made a cantilevered spruce support using wood I had reclaimed when my brother replaced the treads on his staircase. The spruce gave me a strong, lightweight way to support the neck and body while keeping the construction visually spare.

He also got to choose his neck.

Of the necks I had available, he picked one I had already modified, removing the original headstock and replacing it with a cello scroll. That immediately gave Bung02 its own personality even though it began as a copy.

For the amplifier, I used a Harmony PowerPal cabinet, but the original Harmony electronics were not the point.

The cabinet became the housing for a NUX 8-watt Bluetooth amplifier—the same type of amp I later used in CelloBari. It is a surprisingly powerful little amp with three presets, Bluetooth connectivity and enough output to make it a genuinely useful self-contained instrument.

I replaced the old Harmony speaker with the speaker that originally came with the NUX amp.

The combination works remarkably well.

Bung02 sounds marvelous—much bigger and more polished than the old PowerPal cabinet would lead you to expect.

So Bung02 turned out to be more than just a duplicate of Bung01.

That's one of the interesting things about being asked to make a copy of a Rubÿtone. I'm not particularly interested in pretending I haven't learned anything since I built the first one. The original provides the idea, but the next guitar gives me another opportunity to solve the same problems differently—or better.

Bung02 kept the joke that started Bung01, but the structure, neck and amplifier system all moved the idea forward.

And yes, just like Bung01, it still gives you the rare opportunity to play music out of your bunghole.

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