Anyone ever done a paisley finish? Now w/ pix pg. 3!

[mackerelmint]

For years, I've missed my wonderful old MIJ tele. It is still, in a lot of ways, my favorite guitar. In recent months, though, the 15 years I've gone without a tele has really womped me in the feels. I decided a while ago that the time to replace it was fast approaching. Then, not long ago and out of the blue, a very nice and generous anonymous gentleman called Larry asked me if I would be interested in a tele body he had lying around gathering dust. So I said yes! Now, just what I want it to be like has been a fun little mental exercise that I've been thinking about almost since I decided I needed another tele. White with a black pickguard is a combination I've always liked, and if it's good enough for Chrissie Hynde it oughta be good enough for me, right? Well, then I remembered that a couple years back, Fender Japan did some of these:



And that had me rethinking things. Obviously, screen printing something like that requires skill and equipment I don't have. But paisley teles used wallpaper to get their fancy designs. And in a similar vein, Japan has chiyogami, mulberry paper with designs printed on it that comes in all sorts of sizes and is often laquered onto stuff for decoration. A PERFECT SOLUTION! So here are some patterns high in the running:









So I'm wondering: Has anyone here tried a paper finish of any kind? If so, what was your experience? What did you screw up and ruin? How would you avoid doing it again? How tricky is it to paint the edges and get a nice fade? Also, these require clear guards backpainted around the pickup hole to get the full effect. What's the process for doing something like that properly? Am I just inviting catastrophe? Should I just get someone who knows what they're doing to deal with it, or is it something I can get a feel for with a few test scraps of wood?

Any insights are appreciated!

[rank]

Not too keen on the blue one but the others would look good on a guitar.

[empyrean]

There was a thread on here a while back about using adhesive shelf paper for just this purpose. For the life of me I can't find it with the search, but I definitely remember reading it.

[Deed_Poll]

Looks amazing, you have to do it! If it was me I'd probably do binding so you don't have to worry about getting a really spot-on match with the burst fade. If you're using paper with a repeating pattern I also thought it might be a better idea to find a matching bit to glue to the underside of the pickguard so you don't have to burst the bit around the neck pickup either.

I considered this a couple of years ago and thought William Morris wallpaper would be a cool and very British thing to use, but those Japanese prints are stunning.

Good luck!

[Larry Mal]

And I haven't forgotten about sending that out! I actually have the shipping boxes coming this week, I went to get it out and didn't have what I needed. But it's coming!

And paisley would be cool. I love those MIJ paisley jobs.

[sears]

DO IT

[BK Verbs]

Check out Crook Guitars for visual inspiration.
There is a certain Telecaster focused guitar forum with multiple threads including "how-to's" on this very subject.

[mikeyjames56]

Don't care for the traditional paisley pattern, but cherry blossoms would be awesome

[Saturnine10]

Here's 60+ pages of a guy who basically only does Paisley finishes on guitars..

http://www.reranch.com/reranch/viewtopic.php?t=45900" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Shadoweclipse13]

Awesome idea! I think you should do either the 2nd or 4th picture ON a white body with a black pickguard

[BTL]

Marksound is who I would have suggested as well, although I believe he is using 2K urethane these days, not usually an option for a DIY one-off.

Also at reranch, Jai did a bunch of wallpaper and fabric rattle-can finishes back in the day.

His Facebook page is here, and he may be open to a conversation:

https://www.facebook.com/jaiguitars/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Another option if you're looking to do a pro level finish of an original design is to contact Scary Creative and Wilkins:

http://www.scarycreative.com/Scary-Custom-Guitar-Wraps/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mackerelmint]

Looks amazing, you have to do it! If it was me I'd probably do binding so you don't have to worry about getting a really spot-on match with the burst fade. If you're using paper with a repeating pattern I also thought it might be a better idea to find a matching bit to glue to the underside of the pickguard so you don't have to burst the bit around the neck pickup either.

I considered this a couple of years ago and thought William Morris wallpaper would be a cool and very British thing to use, but those Japanese prints are stunning.

Good luck!

I was thinking about binding, actually. It seems like it would be a pretty tough operation to get it on and even without screwing up the edges of the paper, since that would have to go on first. I had the same idea about matching the repeating pattern and gluing it to the underside of the guard, but there would be glue between the paper and the guard. Do you know of one that will definitely be invisible if used that way?

Otherwise I reckon some clever masking and use of angles would do the trick for the edge bursting.

And I haven't forgotten about sending that out! I actually have the shipping boxes coming this week, I went to get it out and didn't have what I needed. But it's coming!

I haven't been worried about that. It'll be a slow burning project, I'm sure. Mine always are. I'm not in a huge hurry.

Here's 60+ pages of a guy who basically only does Paisley finishes on guitars..

Ah! Good link! I've done quite a bit of digging on TDPRI, and what I found mostly was a bunch of references to off site tutorials that had broken links. Some were to reranch, but all those were so old that the threads weren't even available anymore.

Thanks for the love and ideas, folks! I hope that when it's time to apply the stuff and paint it, I don't ruin a perfectly good body!!

[Bothand Nether]

You might find this snippet of "How they made it" film from '63 of interest.
They show how wallpaper was made in Great Britain, back then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ycigOdc7FU

I hope that when it's time to apply the stuff and paint it, I don't ruin a perfectly good body!!

I have seen the only way to ruin a perfectly good MIJ guitar body.
-I took it from the case it had been imprisoned in for 30 years,
& I plan to mod it & play it.

Chiyogami patterns 1 & 3 on a creambound Tele would be simply stunning!

[mackerelmint]

So I looked at Jai's wordpress site. Turns out he's just down the road from where I am now, so if I end up deciding I'm out of my depth, I could always bug him and see if I can trundle down his way. But he has a post on his site that's all about making a paper finish look good. I'd have never thought to put sanding sealer over the paper, but that's what he did and it turned out great. There was also a bit about smoothing the edge with superglue that was interesting.

And I've seen some with regular, non-clear guards that look pretty good, so maybe I'll just sidestep that bit. Gold would look pretty good on the green stuff, no? Gold burst on the sides would be good, too. But maybe I want something pinker, I dunno. The blue one would look better on an offset than a tele, I think.

[BTL]

Yes, sanding sealer is the key to leveling out the texture of the substrate.

My early graphic finishes with nitro followed Jai's process pretty closely.

You may be able to pick up a few ideas from my early builds:

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/index. ... as.478879/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/index. ... 10.758420/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;