Mary Kaye White

[Jumble Jumble]

I just can't tell what this colour is like. I'd quite like to get a transparent white finish. I can see it's not a pure bright white, but what direction does it lean in? I'd like it to go towards cream, but from a lot of pictures, it seems it's actually got a slight pink tinge. Is that accurate?

 

[AutoBat]

The slight pink you're seeing is that it's commonly on swamp ash, which is a light coloured wood. The translucent nature of the of Mary Kayes white with the wood grain below may give the appearance to you that it's slightly tinted.
Personally I think it's the worst of all possible finishes. If you still want it, please use gold hardware & a reverse headstock to complete the trifecta of disdain.

 

[JCizzle]

The slight pink you're seeing is that it's commonly on swamp ash, which is a light coloured wood. The translucent nature of the of Mary Kayes white with the wood grain below may give the appearance to you that it's slightly tinted.
Personally I think it's the worst of all possible finishes. If you still want it, please use gold hardware & a reverse headstock to complete the trifecta of disdain.

LMAO  :laughing7:

 

[Updown]

Stop it Autobat, your killing me with laughter too.  :laughing7:

I'd rather a Alpine White than a Mary Poppins colour  :icon_biggrin:
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=19269.0

What about a Tonar TV White  :dontknow:
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=15742.0

 

[Tonar8352]

The Mary Kaye white is done by taking Olympic White and making it transparent by mixing it heavily with clear lacquer and using it to shade the wood. A lot of what the final look will be is based on the wood but also the kind of clear that is used to blend the white.
If conventional lacquer (honey colored) is used the guitar will eventually yellow up.  If water white lacquer (looks like clear water) is used it will tend to stay closer to the original color that it started as.
On this strat I used water white lacquer to blend with the Oly White.

On this Tele I used the conventional and it started life like all original early 50's Teles did looking white. In the second picture you can see the same guitar and the impact of UV on the conventional lacquer as it yellows.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Hmm, the first picture of the tele looks really good, but the strat really does look pink.

The second picture of the tele is too yellow.

Could something be done to just yellow it slightly, but then keep it at that colour rather than yellowing it over time?

 

[Cagey]

The reason it's called "Mary Kaye" white is because she was the first to have that finish, and she was popular at the time. But, really, it's just translucent (vs. solid or transparent) white, so you could do that with any color using the method Tonar described, including various shades of cream.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Heh. Yeah I found that out quite recently. At first in my research I found there was a brand of makeup called Mary Kay, and I thought, please god, don't let the colour turn out to be inspired by a lipstick or something.

So I guess it's the ash that can give it a pink tinge. Interesting.

To be honest I think I'll probably just go for Vintage White. Cheaper!

 

[Patrick from Davis]

Truthfully, it really only looks like it is pink in pictures.  However, it does make getting the right pick guard something to think about.
Patrick

 

[keeper006]

I believe the name came from naming it after the cosmetics company because it's supposed to be like (and I have seen sometimes referred to as) a "nailpolish" finish, not a particular color, and as Cagey mentioned due to her popularity. Mary Kaye reps do drive hideous pink cars that are awarded to them for reaching sales goals though, or at least they used to.

 

[Cagey]

I believe the name came from naming it after the cosmetics company because it's supposed to be like (and I have seen sometimes referred to as) a "nailpolish" finish, not a particular color, and as Cagey mentioned due to her popularity. Mary Kaye reps do drive hideous pink cars that are awarded to them for reaching sales goals though, or at least they used to.

Different spelling (Mary Kaye, the artist vs. Mary Kay, the cosmetics pyramid scam). Plus, Mary Kay didn't exist until 1963, while Fender first produced the finish by that name in 1954. So, no connection.

You're right about the pink cars, however. One of my aunts had one. She started off with the Tupperware pyramid and did so well they gave her a car, but it was sorta eating her life and the huge volume of overpriced plastic gimcrackery was eating all her house and garage space. So, she switched to Mary Kay cosmetics and was just as successful, but the product was much easier to deal with logistically. Eventually, she figured out that she was working 80 hours a week and nearly everyone she'd ever met was trying to avoid her, so she got out of the pyramid schemes altogether.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

The pickguard would be red tort.

 

[bagman67]

The reason it's called "Mary Kaye" white is because she was the first to have that finish, and she was popular at the time. But, really, it's just translucent (vs. solid or transparent) white, so you could do that with any color using the method Tonar described, including various shades of cream.

I've seen this done to lovely effect with, believe it or not, metallic shades - I played a Fender custom shop Strat at one of my local shops that had a dilute burgundy mist paint job over ash that really looked nice, and I played a Carvin at their factory showroom that had a dilute metallic blue (or a translucent blue with some metallic dust in it, maybe).  I dug 'em both.

 

[keeper006]

I believe the name came from naming it after the cosmetics company because it's supposed to be like (and I have seen sometimes referred to as) a "nailpolish" finish, not a particular color, and as Cagey mentioned due to her popularity. Mary Kaye reps do drive hideous pink cars that are awarded to them for reaching sales goals though, or at least they used to.

Different spelling (Mary Kaye, the artist vs. Mary Kay, the cosmetics pyramid scam). Plus, Mary Kay didn't exist until 1963, while Fender first produced the finish by that name in 1954. So, no connection.

You're right about the pink cars, however. One of my aunts had one. She started off with the Tupperware pyramid and did so well they gave her a car, but it was sorta eating her life and the huge volume of overpriced plastic gimcrackery was eating all her house and garage space. So, she switched to Mary Kay cosmetics and was just as successful, but the product was much easier to deal with logistically. Eventually, she figured out that she was working 80 hours a week and nearly everyone she'd ever met was trying to avoid her, so she got out of the pyramid schemes altogether.

Ah, see there's the truth. I read that somewhere, but your point shows it was bs.

 

[Cagey]

Certainly Mary Kay cosmetics is more widely known now, and the nail polish thing sorta rings true, what with that being a gloss finish, so I can see how that story could circulate without challenge. But, as usual, Google is your friend <grin>

 

[Tipperman]

Damn, Tonar. That second Tele pic has me REALLY wanting a new telecaster.

 

[Patrick from Davis]

Mary Kaye and her band would play all night gigs in Vegas.  They paved the way for the Rat Pack.  I believe she was Hawaiian, and to make her last name easier on the Vegas-ites it was shortened into "K" or Kaye.  There was a reissue made for her not to long ago, and they complied a bunch of the stories about the earlier years in Vegas.  Fun read.
Patrick

 

[Tonar8352]

Mary Kaye ( sometimes called the "First Lady of Rock and Roll", was a guitarist and performer who was active in the 1950s and 1960's. Mary Kaye (born Mary Ka'aihue) descended from Hawaiian royalty in the line of Queen Liliuokalani, Hawaii's last reigning monarch, and was born into a show business family.

She is credited, along with Louis Prima, as being a founder of the Las Vegas "lounge" phenomenon: an all-night party atmosphere where stars and common folk rubbed elbows in a freewheeling environment. Mary was photographed with her combo, the Mary Kaye Trio, in a 1956 Fender promotional advertisement featuring a new Stratocaster electric guitar. This ash blonde guitar with maple neck and gold hardware later became popularly known as "The Mary Kaye Strat".

It is true that any pigmented color can be let down and made a shading color so you can get the see through effect with all kinds of variations on colors.

This to me is what I think of when I hear Mary Kay Strat, transparent white finish, single ply white guard and gold hardware. I did not burst the edge with the more opaque white on this one because this piece of wood was to perfect to cover anything up.

 

[mayfly]

I can't believe you guys have never seen this famous photo:

 

[keeper006]

Damn Tonar, that Strat looks like it's got a candy coated shell-Sweet.  :icon_thumright:

Thanks for the info guys, with the other kajillion things I think of to read about I had never looked that up, but I will go do some research on her now, as soon as I solder in these new pups that just came in the mail. This whole history makes more sense now.  :confused4: