Working with Euclay, decorating a guitar!

Today I have started working on the decoration of a guitar.

First step was sanding all the front surface to remove the sealant and varnish coating.

I decided to use flexi type clay because it seems to shrink less and remain slightly plastic.

I prefer to limit the shrinkage so as not introduce any type of stress to the guitar joints.

Obviously this is a decorating project, not expecting the guitar to be used for its normal purpose of playing music, but also prefer to prevent introducing stress that can cause the parts becoming separated.

Because of those above mentioned reasons i have decided to decorate with a minimalist design where I will use a thin layer of Euclay all over the surface.

I will be adding the clay in small amounts to prevent pulling of the clay from its centre.

When you get to know Euclay you will see a rather amazing phenomenon I have not seen before with any materials I have worked with, and it is the formation of filaments between parts that you pull apart!

I think this shows a strong bonding within the clay that would make me anticipate that there would be a tendency of the particles very close together as it dries.

Now when applying small amounts and working on them, the distance from the centre of the amount of clay used and the edge is far smaller and perhaps there will not be much shrinkage. See the small amounts used by paying attention to the different colours of clay areas.

So these are the considerations taken into account before deciding on a design for the front surface.

I am using various colours of Euclay that were obtained by preparing the clay with different eucalyptus leaves.

Have a look a the photo.

I will not publish the finished work because this guitar will be part of our Euclay exhibition at the end of November 2025.

please see the photo on "Euclay Australia" on Facebook and Instagram