Seafoam Green Mooncaster

[T89Rex]

Thought I'd share the nice surprise I got in the mail from Cagey this morning. It's a black korina Mooncaster in satin seafoam green. Pickups are TV Jones Classics.  :turtle:

Photo's a little dark as it's pretty rainy in Sydney today. Will add some better photos once the neck arrives.

 

[Axkoa]

Damn that's nice! Love the cream. That will be a nice and mellow sound.

 

[Cagey]

It's a small world, isn't it? :laughing7:

If anybody ever thought they might like a satin finish, I can attest that whatever Warmoth's using now is fantastic stuff. Doesn't take fingerprints, smudges or get shiny streaks just from brushing the back of a fingernail across it. It's a very durable and attractive finish that I'm sure will satisfy for a long time.

 

[T89Rex]

I'll second that. I'm not sure what exactly what my expectations were, but this has exceeded them. It reminds me of marzipan icing.

 

[mayfly]

That looks fantastic!  Loving the satin finish!

 

[rgand]

Really cool body. Everything comes together nicely. Can't wait to see it with the neck.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Mighty fine!

 

[zebra]

Oh God yes.

 

[Logrinn]

That looks stunning.
I too can attest to the greatness of the satin finish. My second body, the 7/8 Tele is a Dakota Red in satin.

 

[bagman67]

I dig it.  The strat-style knobs really set off the binding.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Very Yes!!!

 

[aarontunes]

100% awesome.

 

[Fat Pete]

100% awesome.

Only 90% awesome, 10% cool as fudge.

 

[BigSteve22]

Nice! The traditional side of me says I would have gone with Gretsch style TV Jones rings, but that's just my personal thing. You got one slam'n look there Brother!

:icon_thumright:

 

[Cagey]

We had the traditional Gretsch-style rings in cream to match the binding/knobs, but they were much too tall for this neck/body/bridge geometry. In order to get the pickups down low enough to keep the strings from hitting them, the top of the pickup was nearly flush with the mounting ring. Between that and the rounded edges of those covers, it just looked terrible.

I don't have a pic with the cream rings installed, but here's an edge-on view with the metal rings. You can see there isn't much room for anything taller that would still look acceptable.

 

[T89Rex]

Here's a photo with the cream rings just sitting on top.

Like Cagey said, that was the original plan. Now that I see it though, something about the way the cream rings clash with the chrome of the bridge and stop doesn't really do it for me. If I were starting from scratch today I'd probably get the pickups in the cream P-90 size TV Jones offers, but I ordered this before the glut of new routing Warmoth added to the Mooncaster. In any case, I'm really chuffed with how it's turned out. Probably be happier still when it's got a neck and some strings on it.

 

[BigSteve22]

Wow, those rings do look kind of tall. I picked up a set of the TVJones RNG-EM2SV rings for a project a while back, similar to what you find on a 6000 series Gretsch. Just checked, they measure about .150" tall.

 

[vetteman]

I also built a tele with TV Jones pickups (Supertrons) and found that they do want to sit fairly high to avoid 'falling' into the pickguard (or pickup ring) opening.  The rounded edges at the upper corners do allow some misalignment if set too low.  I actually had to shim the neck up a bit with a flat shim to get the pickup height right.  Not a big deal but it was unexpected.

 

[rgand]

By far the chrome rings look best. The cream draws too much of your attention.

 

[T89Rex]

This was the final 'option', though these are the same make as the cream ones that were too tall, so not really an option:

I quite like how the black rings here set off the 'black' of the F-holes, but similar to the cream ones, they're just a bit too large and clash with the chrome hardware and all the cream elsewhere. If I'd gone black for the binding and knobs/switches I think this could look pretty good (the black rear rout cover actually looks pretty nice in isolation), but I think the seafoam/cream combo works better to achieve the soft pastel, warm, vintagey colour scheme I was shooting for. Which is all just a very long way of saying that I think:

By far the chrome rings look best.

Which is handy, since it's what I've got.