The Making of a Guitar Cake

Hi everyone! Okay, so this is my most challenging cake to date. I've always wanted to make one of these guitars but I thought it might be a little too mathematical for my taste. I had to make sure I was super accurate in my measurements...especially with the neck of the guitar. I found precision was key. I also had to pace myself.

First, I started with a super detailed sketch of everything that the guitar entailed. (I used a real guitar for this.) Then I drew out the guitar to size and made sure it was as perfect as possible. From there, stencils were made. I used balsa wood to construct the neck and head and was sure to make the angle and connection between the two pieces as strong as possible....bits of dowel were used where the two pieces met.

 The next day I made all of the attachements out of gum paste. I mistakingly tried to cut each fret line out of the gum paste but found out later that royal icing looked much better. I don't even want to start with the trouble I had making the gum paste look metal. To shorten the story: I found some edible silver spray. The nosel didn't work...so I went back and tried to buy another. Of course they were sold out. I finally rigged a way to use the spray but eventually wound up painting it by hand and then using luster dust in silver to make it really shine.

Then there was the baking. This was a chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. I made the cake a few days in advance and then froze it, that way when it was time to carve it wouldn't crumb easily. For some reason steps such as making sure that I'm using the stencil correctly is hard for me! I had to be certain that after the cake was cut, the right side was up. Does that make sense? It all turned out well. Then there was the whole contemplation of how much of the neck support would need to go through the cake. If the neck is too heavy, it would collapse. So I had to account for that and make sure there was enough support running through the cake. I cut out the bit where the neck attached then re-iced, attached the neck and then put on the fondant. I've also included below what I did to the back of the neck. I figure no one would see it, but I didn't want any structure exposed. 

And finally....paint. I'm not a fan of airbrushing unless absolutely necessary. I'm a painter at heart and am just unable to use one of those sprayers when actual brush strokes could be used to convey the same thing. It's more of a personal thing for me than anything else. After I painted the guitar, I attached all of the pieces. By the way, the tuners turn, as well as the knobs :)