How "creamy" is the cream binding?

[mwbjr13]

I'm thinking about a vintage white strat but I love bound necks and I'm thinking that white binding might stick out to much and I can't really tell in the show case pictures how creamy the cream binding is. Any input?

 

[Ace Flibble]

It's a stronger colour than vintage white, but as you rightly say, white binding also will not match vintage white either. Vintage white is right in the middle of the two. If you want a perfect match, the best thing would be to go for white and then mask off the area around the binding and spray it with a lightly tinted clear coat. You'd need to be very careful though.

For a distance, nobody would really tell the difference ebwteen white and vintage white or cream and vintage white. But within a couple of feet, the difference is equally obvious either way.

I think it's worth pointing out that all of the parchment, mint, cream and tinted/aged coloured pieces and finishes Warmoth deals in tend to have a stronger colour than those used on Fenders, Gibsons, PRS, etc. For example, the parchment pickguard I have from Warmoth has a considerably stronger colour than the parchement pickguard that one of my Fenders has; the neck with cream binding that I have form Warmoth has a much stronger colour to it than the cream binding on one of my Gibsons; Warmoth's tinted clear neck is a much, much more intensely yellow colour than the subtle brown tint that Fender uses on their necks.
So, you may find that by looking elsewhere, you are able to find a better match.

 

[mwbjr13]

Thanks for the advice

 

[mwbjr13]

Any good suggestions on where to find either a body or neck that would match?

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

The bound necks I've ordered from them before, if you get a vintage tint neck finish, they can spray or tape off to keep from spraying the neck binding.  Also, and this is a leap of faith on your part, a white body (olympic, vintage, cream, etc.) with pearloid binding on the neck and body (both bindings matching each other but still contrasting the body color) are a nice looking, subtle detail.

 

[mwbjr13]

Interesting idea but this is what i was thinking about.

http://www.hi-guitars.com/VG1481.html

 

[Ace Flibble]

Well what you're looking at there is white binding that's had a lot of exposure to sunlight (and likely a fair bit of smoke too). The body finish also would have originally been very bright white, but the clear coat has also yellowed. To match that, rather than use a vintage white finish, what you really need to do is spray the guitar plain white then use a lightly tinted clear coat, then mask and spray the binding with the same clear coat. This will give a much more accurate effect and a perfect match between both the binding and body finish.

 

[Cagey]

If you buy parts from StewMac, they'll include a disclaimer right up front about "creme" parts that basically says "all bets are off". The chances of things matching perfectly are slim to none. They come from too many different places and there's no standard. Saying something is "creme" is like saying something is "brown" or "off-white". Doesn't mean much. It's subject to interpretation. I'm sorta surprised they're so honest, but then again, it's true. Why raise expectations only to have to deal with almost certain disappointment?

According to the Wikipedia...

True color supports 24-bit for three RGB colors. Method of representing and storing graphical image information (especially in computer processing) in an RGB color space such that a very large number of colors, shades, and hues can be displayed in an image, such as in high quality photographic images or complex graphics. Usually, true color is defined to mean at least 256 shades of red, green, and blue, for a total of at least 16,777,216 color variations. The human eye is capable of discriminating among as many as ten million colors.

[Source]

It's no wonder things don't always match. Given the range of our perception, color matching approaches lottery odds.

 

[mwbjr13]

So do you think its worth the gamble then?

 

[Cagey]

For the parts you're talking about, probably. But, that's just me. plus, you don't have a lotta choice.

It really depends on your tolerance for mismatch, and where the mismatch is. On my last build, I used a custom-made brass bridge that I thought would match up with gold parts fairly well. As it turned out, I wasn't happy. The difference was too profound. So, I had some custom brass parts made to replace the gold parts. Again, the difference was too much for me. As it turns out, brass varies in color according to alloy ratios. So, I cursed the gods, as I am wont to do, and did some mixing and matching to get things to appeal to me.

If parts are close together, it's easy to see a mismatch. Farther apart, not so much. For instance, I still used gold tuners, but they're far enough away from everything else that even I don't see the mismatch. Also, there's such a thing as expectations. That is, if you don't expect parts to match, then it doesn't matter if they don't.

If I was going for a creme accent instrument (and I am right now with my L5S), I'd do all creme parts and damn the torpedos. If some things don't match, it's entirely likely I'll be the only one who notices. If by some freak chance anyone else notices and gives me grief about it, then I'll tell them to eat shite and build their own guitar <grin>