He Torched My Guitar Top!!! | Grez Guitars Shou Sugi Ban Grand Tour Build

An inside look at Grez Guitars building the Grand Tour — Barry Grzebik's take on the boutique archtop, and one of the most interesting hollowbodies being built right now. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

Barry Grzebik torches the top of a soon-to-be-finished Grez Guitars Grand Tour using the shou sugi ban technique — the traditional Japanese method of charring wood for both visual character and surface protection.

The Grand Tour is a 15" carved-top hollowbody that blends old-world luthiery with modern resonance engineering — a guitar that feels vintage but plays like a modern boutique instrument. At roughly 5.8 lbs with a shallow 2" body depth, it delivers a surprisingly big, woody voice thanks to Grez's Sprung Mass Tuning — an approach that preserves the low-end resonance many compact archtops lose when they're built thin and light. Carved Sitka spruce top over a one-piece Honduran mahogany body and neck, balancing warmth, clarity, and responsiveness somewhere between a vintage archtop and a modern boutique hollowbody.

Unplugged, this is genuinely the loudest electric guitar to ever come through the studio — louder even than a fully hollow vintage 1960s Gibson ES-330. Barry lives at the intersection of engineering and artistry, and watching the shou sugi ban process applied to an instrument this acoustically alive is a rare thing to see up close.

More on this Grand Tour once it's finished and strung up.

🎸 Grez Guitars: https://www.grezguitars.com

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🎸 Grez Guitars Grand Tour | 15" Carved Sitka Spruce Top | Honduran Mahogany Body + Neck (One-Piece) | ~5.8 lbs | 2" Body Depth | Sprung Mass Tuning | Shou Sugi Ban Finish