"Just as if they were real musical instruments"

[Dave W]

Short video from the Burns factory, 1965, with funny narration.

[amptech]

Very cool! First to use polyester, interesting.. That fretting guy made hammering on frets seem easy enough

[Granny Gremlin]

Interesting: they used mandolin string mount method (not quite a knot, but a bit of a loop back vs normal guitar/bass pure wrap mething)

Shameful:  no grain filler or primer; buffing with all the hardware on and in the way

Not sure:  freehand routing without a jig/template

Then again, none of that it likely to be real production footage.

[Dave W]

Yeah, I had to smile at the buffing after the strings were on, figured it was a final touch-up.

Hard to tell about the finish. There are colored sanding sealers, and some companies use grain filler after sealing. Burns did use grain filler.

[BTL]

It's not freehand, they are using a pin router with the pin and template underneath the clamping jig.

Look closely again at 0:12 through 0:30.

[Alanko]

It looks like there is no sealer on the primed body the chap sprays red. It looks like grain under the pickguard area on the treble side?

The model being buffed at the end almost looks like it is going into a display, given the different models in different finishes in the background in what looks like a purposefully displayed setup. I imagine they would make all the red-burst Marquees on Monday, all the green-burst ones on Tuesday or something like that. The ingrained snobbery and subtle whimsy of the video seems in line with other Pathe reports I've seen from this era; as though they are trying to present the subject as some microcosm or curio with no bearing on the outside world. Quite endearing.

I like the guy driving the fretboard home with a balled fist, having first aligned it by eye. You see the fretboard detach briefly at the nut end from the force.

[Dave W]

I think the narrator may have been spoofing snobbery.

[Basvarken]

Of course. It's British humor!

[Rob]

I like the painter's left hand.