Fire Dye Tele

Patrick from Davis

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Well, after a very long time, I have a sort of completed guitar.  The finish still needs work, but I have conceded that it would be best to wait until the weather is a bit more cooperative.  The basic facts are:

Strat Warmoth Pro neck
Macassar Ebony neck and board
SS6105 frets
LSR Nut
Planet Wave tuners
MOP dots

Korina Tele body with a Quilt Laminate
Bill Lawrence (the Man) 500L pickups, XL in the bridge and R in the Neck, Unshielded
Concentric Pots for Vol and Tone wired like a Les Paul

Quilt Maple was dyed three times using Reranch alcohol dyes, Black, Red, Yellow.
The body was sanded back after the black and the red dye jobs.
The black around the very edge was made darker with a q tip and dye
The dyes were blended with acetone on paper towels to get the finished effect

The Korina body was dyed with Reranch Amber Alcohol based dye.  It turned nuclear carrot, so I removed as much dye as I could with alcohol on paper towel washes.

The finish is Deft Semi Gloss Lacquer

And of course pictures...
01-Small-Front_of_Tele.jpg

02-Small-Back_of_Tele.jpg


If you want larger pictures (1.1M and 1.4M) the front is here and the back is here.

The sound is loud and obnoxious, but that is what I was going for.  I really have just finished getting the thing intonated, and it will take a while to settle in, but it is a bright guitar, but not thin at all.  The Korina and Ebony work well for me sound wise.  If you are wondering why it has a LSR nut and locking tuners, that is easy.  I wanted a neck with them.  It has to do with several decades ago and my guitar teacher having one of the early American Standards that had those things (Wilkinson at the time.)  The Warmoth bug caught and I have purchased other stuff as well, but this was the first order.  Off I go to plunk away on it...
Patrick



 
I'm REALLY starting to like the dyed top/clearcoat back concept. Beautiful guitar.
 
Well, I do not want to try fix ups with Lacquer when it is foggy here.  It has been bad for a while and it won't be better til march.  I originally got the pieces on March 6th so I was a bit antsy to play it.  I figured that I don't play live and I don't beat on a guitar unless I have that live adrenalin going so I'd just put the hardware on and wait.  I'll take it apart next spring and redo the lacquer then.

Wow!  That looks AMAZING!

It does look very nice, but it is a bear to take a picture of.  I really have to give the folks at Warmoth credit for the job that they do in their photos.  I have some awful photos of this thing, just doesn't even look like the same guitar.

Thanks all for the compliments.
Patrick

 
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!  :eek:

That's incredible cool!!!!!  :icon_thumright:
Top notch, really dig the finish!
 
Wow Patrick!  I mean really, holy crap.  I realize that you have some issues with the finish, and that may be bothering you, but the dye on the front looks absolutely killer.  Nice job, man.  I love that neck as well.  I know you just said it was hard to get good photos of this guitar, but I bet I'm not the only one who would love to see a sort of half side profile shot.  Anyway, Nice work!
 
Wow. Super impressive. Love the idea of the all-macassar ebony neck. Just beautiful all round.
 
guitlouie said:
I bet I'm not the only one who would love to see a sort of half side profile shot.

OK, here goes. 
Smal-Angle_View-Fire_Dye_Tele.jpg


I made a discovery for taking better pictures, more light
Small-Light_for_picts.jpg


I will try to put together a page that has the general progress in pictures of the build.  I just have to get the time to do it, well to the point that I think is reasonable.  Thanks again for the compliments.
Patrick

 
Hope you don't mind, I saved a copy of the picture of your guitar and probably will build a guitar with that finish someday!  :laughing7:
 
I hope you don't mind the amateur photography.  I have found that when I use the extra light the image stabilization drops considerably, making the images blurry.  Ya win some, ya lose some.

The dyeing of the quilt was not nearly as hard as I thought it would be.  The test pieces of quilt I picked up on eBay made all the difference in the world experience wise.  The problem with the pieces I got on eBay was that they were not fully dried yet, so they did not stay flat.  Makes sanding a bit annoying.  But the experience of dyeing, blending, waiting, finishing, having the look change considerably when finished...  All of that made the dyeing of the guitar much easier.  I would definitely suggest getting some test pieces to anyone interested in dyeing their project.
Patrick
 
Thanks Patrick for the extra pic, it was just what I meant.  I really wanted to get a good look at the line between the dyed top vs. the clear back.  It looks KILLER!!!!!!!
 
Great job on that finish.  I wish I had the time and the patience to finish a guitar on my own.  Maybe someday..
 
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