How to Make an Electric Guitar… Or Die Trying! (The Hazards of Electricity)




Every once in a while you might want to make something new, Electric Guitar was one of them for me:



Well, later one of my friends who happens to know about musical stuff told me there is no electricity in an electric guitar, just mechanical stuff. It is all the amplifier that makes the electric guitar sound the way it does. Without it, the guitar sound just like a guitar!

In any case, it is very dangerous to touch any power line. You might not notice it, but the grim reaper is always standing by! Don’t worry about me, I know what I am doing! You don’t do it.

Here’s what can happen to you while getting electrocuted:

1) As I also showed before in my video “The Pain of Electricity”, the electrical current can contract muscles. One of the great dangers of touching the electricity is causing the contraction, which could disable your reaction to it. For example your hands may close holding the live wires. A very short instance of electricity my not be lethal, but it will kill if you can’t let go of it. Or like I showed, it can throw you across the room, or out of the window, or down a ladder, etc… which will hurt or kill. They use tasers to disable people after all!



2) Even small amounts of electricity can be lethal. The skin is a great barrier against electricity and limits the electrical current a lot. But if something with electricity pierces through the skin, even small amounts of electricity could generate greater current, and they say around 5mA through the heart can cause a cardiac arrest. Then you will have to shock the heart to bring it back!

3) If the electrical power is huge, like the city power posts, then the death is imminent! DO NOT TOUCH THOSE! It will kill you so fast you won’t have time to say ZAP!

4) The issue with AC is that even if you isolate yourself from ground, you may still feel it depending on the power level. And that may surprise you. If you are above a ladder, that might be enough to startle you and make you fall.

5) DC electricity hurts differently. If it is high enough, it pretty much cook the tissues. Also it will electrolyze the water into oxygen and hydrogen and that can build bubbles in your blood. And off course bubble in blood = death!

So if you really want to work on some electrical stuff:

1) Make sure you understand what you are dealing with

2) Make sure to disconnect the power

3) Make sure to wear isolating gloves if there is a slight chance of power turning on while you are working

4) Understand all the ground paths around you

5) Wear isolating foot wear

6) Stay safe

7) Don’t shove a nail in the power plug!

And finally, here’s a GIF of when the shock can through you around:

When Leg muscles contract due to the shock...

When Leg muscles contract due to the shock…





19 thoughts on “How to Make an Electric Guitar… Or Die Trying! (The Hazards of Electricity)

  1. Pingback: How NOT to Make an Electric Guitar (The Hazards of Electricity) – Money online

  2. Hi Medi;
    I’m an electrical contractor of the last 16 years and been in the trade for 30 with some ideas for your You Tube channel(s) segments. Could you email me a post office box or other email address to correspond with you.

  3. Honestly, I think that it’s called an electric guitar because it uses electromagnetic parts to get the vibrations instead of getting the sound from the inter acoustics of a guitar. Of corse, as with neat any metal string, plucking it will make a sound. Electrifying wires put on a piece of wood won’t do anything for you except what just happened. I would love to see you try your hand at something like this again someday. Just with proper knowledge. I suggest using ash wood for the body and maybe even carving and painting it to look like a real electric guitar

    • I would say that it would be best to try just a one pickup four string. Of corse I wouldn’t expect things like tuning, bridges and saddles but still. If you can get it to work remotely as an electric guitar that would be awesome

  4. I once brushed the guitar strings with the guitar lead that was plugged into the amp. There were sparks and it really startled me. Was that electrifying the strings? If I was touching the stings, would it have shocked me?

  5. Pingback: How NOT to Make an Electric Guitar (The Hazards of Electricity) – mexican

  6. Can you touch any level of DC if you are isolated? like 500 volts? If so, show it in one of your vids. If not, tell me why.

  7. Admiring the hard work you put into your site and in depth information you present.
    It’s nice to come across a blog every once in a
    while that isn’t the same out of date rehashed material. Excellent read!
    I’ve saved your site and I’m including your RSS feeds to my Google account.

  8. Could you possibly answer the hundreds of “this is fake” comments? I can tell some of them are dramatized for humorous purposes. But they can’t ALL be fake. Or are they? I love your videos, I’m just tired of people disclaiming what you do without even trying it themselves.

    • Well, I try to create real sparks and explosions as real as I can, but in a harmless way to me so I can live! Most of the accidents you see in the videos have happened to me in real life, and I try to recreate them in my videos to show people what can go wrong. Many times in my videos I actually repeat the mistakes and get hurt. Those make the best shots!

  9. Next to your bed (the one you land on when shocked) there appears to be a bottle of Vaseline on the table. Do you use this as a lubricant of some kind? Perhaps an electrical or contact lubricant?

  10. I read a lot of interesting posts here. Probably you
    spend a lot of time writing, i know how to save you a lot of work,
    there is an online tool that creates high quality, google friendly posts in minutes, just search in google – laranitas free content source

  11. Hello! I knnow thiss is sort of off-topic however I needed
    to ask. Does managing a well-established website
    like yolurs take a lot oof work? I’m brand new to running a blog however I do write
    in my diary daily. I’d like to start a blog so I can easily share my
    own experience and thoughts online. Please let me know
    if you have any recommendatiohs or tis for new aspiring blog owners.

    Appreciate it!

  12. well i can honestly say im not brave enough to touch mains but what you mean by “I know what I am doing!” do you really touching mains and make it really fast and you are really into electricity and you dont care about its pain anymore or you touch less lethal things with that all arc things ? and by the way i assume those aren’t video effects because they looking very good 🙂

    • Nah! I never touch the mains on purpose! I have done it accidentally before. It is very painful and dangerous. I’m creating powerful sparks in a harmless way. Thanks for liking the video!

Comments are closed.