9 Star Wars Guitars

The music of Star Wars was John Williams' themes from a symphony orchestra, with the exception of that little performance by the alien Cantina Band. But Star Wars and rock ’n’ roll go together like peanut butter and jelly because they are both just plain popular. You can’t argue with that! The enjoyment of all things Star Wars gives us plenty of guitars built around the characters and spaceships of the movies. Here are just a few.

1. C3PO

Marc Potter makes stringed instruments from recycled guitar parts and unusual art objects. One of them is the C3PO guitar available in his Etsy shop -but there’s only one! It’s made from a Star Wars collector’s case and a Behringer maple neck.

2. Han Solo in Carbonite

Travis Stevens built a guitar depicting one of the most recreated images from the Star Wars movies: Han Solo frozen in carbonite! Here you see it modeled by Ben Moody of Evanescence, who now owns the guitar.

3. R2D2

GUITAR2-D2 is the name of the guitar Doug built two years ago. He carved the body from poplar and painted all the details, and used works from an Ibenez guitar. See more pictures here. 

4. Millennium Falcon

Country singer Brian Fisk built his own Millennium Falcon guitar with an R2D2 headstock and even lights and sound effects! Does it work? Why, yes it does! This video contains pictures of the building process.

5, 6, and 7. Spaceships

Tom Bingham makes guitars out of found objects of all kinds. One project was a trio of guitars shaped like various spaceships from the Star Wars saga. Shown here is his Y-wing Fighter guitar from a YouTube video. The others are the B-wing Fighter and Millennium Falcon guitars. Bingham hand-crafts all his guitars, using non-powered tools.

8. Yoda

This Yoda guitar was fashioned for the Phoenix Guitar Gala in 2009. Part of the gala was a charity auction to benefit an after school program. Many celebrities were asked to donate specialty guitars for the auction, and George Lucas provided a customized Gibson Les Paul featuring Yoda to sell. 

9. Darth Vader

There are many Darth Vader guitars, most of them one-of-a-kind projects airbrushed with Vader’s ominous image. The one you are mostly likely to run into is this Fernandes version. Fernandes made 250 limited-edition Darth Vader guitars back in 2001. You can still find one available for sale now and again online, but they will cost you around $1200.

Title photograph by Flickr user JD Hancock.