Fender’s, Gibson’s, Gretsch’s and a few of our own. Say a name, a colour, or a RAL number.
It's really the Fender and Gibson colours, or bursts. With translucent colours anything goes, even in bursts, because that's a dye or a stain.
Read the rest
I can get all the Fender and Gibson colours from Nitorlack, my paint supplier. They're almost identical formulas to the original Ford and GM colours Fender, Gretsch, Martin and Gibson used in the early days, they work with the lacquer system I use, and most importantly they work with the way I relic guitars. Better than any other paint I've used.
If I'm ever asked for a colour outside what I usually use, it's possible to get pretty much any RAL colour in nitro. But I can't guarantee the same results in the checking, which never quite shows up in the pictures like it does in reality.
The chip
A number we chose to stand for the paint. Nitrocellulose over wood is not one colour: it is a colour under a clear coat that yellows, over a wood that shows through a translucent, in a light that changes it. The chip is the nearest flat thing.
Your screen
Every screen is set differently, and most phones make everything a touch brighter and bluer than it is. Two people looking at the same chip are not seeing the same colour.
The photograph
Closer, because it is the paint on a guitar. But it is a phone photograph taken in the shed, and a relic changes a colour at every edge it wears through.
The truth
A sprayed sample in your hand, or the guitar in the shed in daylight. Ask for either before you decide, and treat everything above as a way to start the conversation, not to finish it.