Copperhead v Tiger's eye
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:dontknow:
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Be careful comparing photos. Could be the photographer. Could be who prepared the images in Photoshop. It could even be the differences between two pieces of wood, and how they took the finish.
I'll try and get a definitive answer today.
I'll try and get a definitive answer today.
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OK...I have a definitive answer. I went over and talked with the guy who does the dyes, and in a nutshell he told me this:
Copperhead = brown dye
Tiger's Eye = brown dye, then yellow
The final results will vary based on the individual piece of maple that is being dyed, and there is enough range with each finish that they can end up looking very similar.
Copperhead = brown dye
Tiger's Eye = brown dye, then yellow
The final results will vary based on the individual piece of maple that is being dyed, and there is enough range with each finish that they can end up looking very similar.
Thanks for that Double A. I'm just playing with ideas at the moment. Both look awesome but difficult to tell them apart really in a photo. The trouble is that I change my mind every week. Last week I was all aque marine, this week I'm wondering how one of these 2 would look with roasted maple and gold frets.
Jet-Jaguar
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So, what's the difference between brown dye finish and copperhead? Is a lighter brown dye applied? Or is it like blue wash/black wash?double A said:
S
swarfrat
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Normally I'm a sucker for the high contrast dyed 3D quilts. But I am really really liking that copperhead. But it needs an arrow headstock. Forget rattlesnake skin.. the more mundane poisonous reptile rocks.
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Jet-Jaguar said:
If my back were against the wall, I would guess that Brown Dye is dyed, them sprayed with a transparent brown topcoat, whereas Copperhead is dyed, then sprayed with a different color topcoat...clear, or amber, or something. Again...that is just a guess.
I don't know the recipes for all the various Warmoth finishes. As far as I'm concerned, they are practicing black magic over in the finishing department. I'm afraid that if I keep going over there and bothering them they will turn me into a newt.
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We're all gonna dye man. We're all gonna DYE!!!
musicispeace
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Cagey said:double A said:
We should get away from the paint department, cuz they mostly paint guitars there. Mostly.
I just very nearly fell out of my chair at work laughing. :laughing7:
Ace Flibble
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Having done many 'tiger'-style finishes before, my guess would be that copperhead is dyed brown, then sanded back and either left as-is, with the lighter colour coming from just the slightest hint of brown dye left in the wood, or dyed with a very diluted brown dye or brown-yellow mix, possibly sanded back again. The low contrast suggests each dye stage is evened out and sanded relatively softly. I would expect to do a finish like that in 2-3 passes, perhaps 4 if the figuring of the wood is particularly well-defined.
Tiger's eye is a classic Gibson finish (though they typically go much lighter on the burst) and is done by first dying black or dark brown, sanding all the way back so the dye only remains in the absolute deepest grain, then dying with a much brighter yellow or orange dye. The high contrast suggests each dye stage is done very strongly and also sanded back very severely. It takes me 5-6 passes to get a finish like that.
A plain brown dye finish shouldn't be sanded back more than once. That is how I expect Warmoth does it, since a flat dye finish with more passes gives a much more 3D look than Warmoth's flat dye finishes typically produce. I doubt they shoot transparent brown over the top of it, because that would hide the grain far more and rather defeat the purpose of dying the wood. They undoubtably do use transparent brown for those burst edges on the copperhead and tiger's eye finishes, though. You can burst with dyes, but it's very time-consuming.
As for judging photos, it's a tricky one because any good product photographer should be using a colour reference and a light meter calibrated to their camera, so their exposure, white balance, colour rendering and contrast should be absolutely print-perfect. However, having recieved four Warmoth bodies before in which the finish was a very different shade to the photographs, I find Warmoth's photographer is leaning towards a much cooler white balance or cast than is actually accurate, which also can give the impression of more clarity or contrast. They may be doing this intentionally to suggest more defined wood grain, or it may be accidental if they are not using a properly calibrated monitor and are over-correcting for their own screen. As such, I do find it hard to judge anything based on Warmoth's photos. I would expect the copperhead finish, in person, to be duller and both the copperhead and tiger's eye to be more orange/brown than those images suggest. It won't be a huge difference, though, since colours closer to amber don't shift appearance as much. Colours such as purple and turqoise, however, shift much more; Warmoth's photos of any purple-finished guitar are incredibly different to the product in person. (Unless you also have a monitor wrongly calibrated in the opposite direction to Warmoth, in which case you may have blindly lucked into seeing their photos in a more true-to-life fashion.)
Tiger's eye is a classic Gibson finish (though they typically go much lighter on the burst) and is done by first dying black or dark brown, sanding all the way back so the dye only remains in the absolute deepest grain, then dying with a much brighter yellow or orange dye. The high contrast suggests each dye stage is done very strongly and also sanded back very severely. It takes me 5-6 passes to get a finish like that.
A plain brown dye finish shouldn't be sanded back more than once. That is how I expect Warmoth does it, since a flat dye finish with more passes gives a much more 3D look than Warmoth's flat dye finishes typically produce. I doubt they shoot transparent brown over the top of it, because that would hide the grain far more and rather defeat the purpose of dying the wood. They undoubtably do use transparent brown for those burst edges on the copperhead and tiger's eye finishes, though. You can burst with dyes, but it's very time-consuming.
As for judging photos, it's a tricky one because any good product photographer should be using a colour reference and a light meter calibrated to their camera, so their exposure, white balance, colour rendering and contrast should be absolutely print-perfect. However, having recieved four Warmoth bodies before in which the finish was a very different shade to the photographs, I find Warmoth's photographer is leaning towards a much cooler white balance or cast than is actually accurate, which also can give the impression of more clarity or contrast. They may be doing this intentionally to suggest more defined wood grain, or it may be accidental if they are not using a properly calibrated monitor and are over-correcting for their own screen. As such, I do find it hard to judge anything based on Warmoth's photos. I would expect the copperhead finish, in person, to be duller and both the copperhead and tiger's eye to be more orange/brown than those images suggest. It won't be a huge difference, though, since colours closer to amber don't shift appearance as much. Colours such as purple and turqoise, however, shift much more; Warmoth's photos of any purple-finished guitar are incredibly different to the product in person. (Unless you also have a monitor wrongly calibrated in the opposite direction to Warmoth, in which case you may have blindly lucked into seeing their photos in a more true-to-life fashion.)
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Schneidas said:
Comparing the three images in the previous post is a fruitless labor. They were taken at different times, under different lighting conditions, with different cameras, prepared for the web by different people, etc, etc, etc. Not to mention that one of the pictures is only "supposedly Copperhead". It is anything but a controlled comparison.
Also, it can't be overstated that the same transparent finish is going look slightly different from guitar to guitar because it is being applied over different pieces of wood.
Trying to accurately portray color on computer screens is one of my biggest nightmares. There are so many variables involved, and many of them I have no control over. I can check and triple-check my image on a dozen monitors, and it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters it what it ends up looking like on your monitor, and I can't be there to check that.
Wolff05
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Another Example: :icon_thumright:
http://www.warmoth.com/Showcase/ShowcaseItem.aspx?i=PT5040&Body=2&Path=Body#.VmcDbb-s62k
I would add to double A's answer that it would depend on the top being dyed (maple varies from white to brown), the figuring, how much it was sanded back, the person dyeing it etc...
ccasion14:
http://www.warmoth.com/Showcase/ShowcaseItem.aspx?i=PT5040&Body=2&Path=Body#.VmcDbb-s62k
I would add to double A's answer that it would depend on the top being dyed (maple varies from white to brown), the figuring, how much it was sanded back, the person dyeing it etc...
ccasion14:
