Dye thoughts

[smigarc]

Long time lurker, first time poster.  ccasion14:

I'm on my fourth build--a Tele body with a really nice flamed top--and am leaning in the direction of a brown-amber finish. PRS has a couple finishes that are kind of what I'm looking for (I know, I know, it's a PRS finish. I'm using them as inspiration). I've attached a pic below. I'm thinking a medium brown dye, sanded, then amber over it. Does anyone else have any thoughts on colors to use?

Thanks in advance.

David

 

[Patrick from Davis]

That looks to me like it was just brown dye.  If you to the dye sand dye, it will have a lot more contrast to it.  I dyed my first build, it was fun.  However, and this is a big however, I got some pieces of figured maple to test on.  This was a huge help for me to figure out what I needed to do.  I suggest looking on eBay for some, it doesn't have to be excellent, but it will give you all kinds of insight.  Also, the appearance of the dye really changes when you add finish to it.  Again the samples help you get a feel for it, so another reason to go that route.
Patrick

 

[Cagey]

That was dyed black first, sanded back, then dyed with brown. The amber shade is the Maple showing through the brown. It's a tricky finish on a carved top like that, because the high points want to sand back more than the low. Tough to keep it even - you have to go slow. I've got a body exactly like that I'm working on now, and it hasn't been any fun at all. I may end up sending it off to Tonar and letting him fight with it.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

I would very much like to see Warmoth do a blue dye, sand back, and then put the aquamarine dye on.

 

[dmraco]

I agree with Cagey on the black (or really dark brown).  IT looks like it has a slight burst.  It may have been hit with am amber dye (with a touch a brown in it) then bursted on the edges with brown.  It can be done but the carved top does make it more of a tricky process.

IT also really repends on the wood and how the grain accepts the dye...with was just amber with a brown burst on a flamed spalted piece it it achieved a similar color.  No sand back here

it is a carved top tele??

 

[greywolf]

I'll add my 2 cents , and agree and have been successful with the dark dye first to make it pop m then gently sand back and hit with others after ,  I like to do a strong amber then sand back lightly followed by the toner brown.  Quilted is a lot tougher , and patience is worth it as always.

 

[smigarc]

Great thoughts from everyone. Fortunately, it's not a carved top Tele.

I dyed another Tele and had a ton of fun doing it. The biggest challenge I have is just deciding what color I want to go with. I like blues, I like reds, I like ambers...pretty much an excuse to keep buying unfinished bodies.

 

[stubhead]

There's certainly nothing wrong with PRS in the finish department, and Carvin can bang out some beauts and, even, Gibson. They've seemingly dedicated themselves to duplicating every possible variant of how a cherry sunburst can fade & warp. I don't understrand how, but supposedly even a "tobacco burst" started as cherry?!? :icon_scratch: I'm quite sure that if you visited the Warmoth paint shop, you'll find a tidy little stack of O.P.'s catalogs and advertisements. Nothing wrong with it... when I first saw Warmoth's faded blue jean color, it was just like the PRS that John McLaughlin was playing. And until Al DiMeola got his signature (ugly, overblown!) "rainbow" type finish, for a while he was playing a PRS faded "green jeans" color that riffed off of the bluejeans. And the first PRS fades got darker towards the butt end, and so did Warmoth's. Now PRS has got it right, they're getting lighter towards the bottom....

How many fades does paintboy have to squirt, before he is said to be squirt'd?*

For pretty cheap, I bought a really nice guitar-porn book called "Electrified: The Art of the Contemporary Electric Guitar" by Robert Shaw. It's got some in-depth interviews with some hotshots, but it's mostly the pictures - lush, voluptuous babeland deluxe!  :hello2: It's got two of my faves, William Jeffry Jones -



http://divine-jones.com/dragonwing.html

- and Peter Malinoski - him not so much for shapes, as for ideas. Tons of  'em there, if that has any bearing. Book is around $25 or a bit less? Hey, maybe I should lobby Warmoth to sell it in their (often overlooked) book section. For sure, you'd wanna keep it out of the hands of Kuru and the Grape Ape... I hear those divorce bells a-ringing!

*(sung to the tune of "Rocky Mountain Way" - maybe** works better if you're drunk) ccasion14:

**(make that Shirley***.... :toothy12

***(Shirley works better - when she's drunk too! :laughing3

    P.S.  Don't read any of Stubhead's posts.

Best advice I've heard all day...