LTD Viper... What color?

[LVC]

This is not a project, at least not until I complete others with a much higher priority. More of a musing for now...

I've just got a LTD Viper-10. I had sworn I wouldn't buy another guitar this year but this one was so obscenely cheap that I couldn't resist. Besides I've always had a thing for the offset SG shape (although OSG purists would no doubt argue that the Viper is actually not that offset).

The plan is to use it as a guinea pig for a number of mods I intend to do to my other guitars. For instance, I haven't dared to use my router yet... Well adding a JM trem would make this guitar much more interesting to play. And the black finish is a little boring, so it would be a perfect opportunity to try my hand at refinishing, with the considerable advantage that if I screw up, well it was only a €50 guitar anyway.

I'm looking for suggestions of finish colors for this guitar. Here are a few ideas I'm considering:


LPB with racing stripes — love this!


Sonic Grey


Sage Green Metallic

Should you want to toy with it, the following pic is a crude .png with the guitar's body altered to be transparent, so with very basic Photoshop skills all you have to do is lay it over a colored background layer.

[Flurko]

I hadn't seen this thread, I really like the Viper body shape.
Racing stripes are always cool, go for them ! I feel like the plain colors with the black uncovered humbuckers look a bit, well, plain.

[Steadyriot.]

Racing stripes!

[Veitchy]

Sonic grey looks great on that body. Very tool-like.

[Embenny]

I briefly had a viper, it was probably the best bang for the buck I ever spent on a used guitar. Mine had horrible neck dive, though, and I almost only ever play standing up, so I moved it on.

My thoughts would be to do something with stripes or to cut a pickguard for it. I find that they look kind of incomplete if they're just a solid colour. The ones with bursts, figured tops, or pickguards look the best, so I'd do something other than a homogenous colour personally.

[LVC]

Quite funny to see interest in this thread take off almost exactly a year after I bought the guitar

I had almost forgotten about it to be honest. As mentioned in the OT this was, and still is a pretty low priority project for me, as I've got an ever-growing list of more pressing mods for my other guitars, not that much free time, and a robust propensity for laziness The original excuse for buying the Viper was to have a dirt cheap base to experiment/practise with tools and techniques I'm not entirely confident in yet, and hopefully end up with a fun and cool(er) looking guitar.

So... competition stripes it is then The Viper body shape sort of reminds me of a sports car (something like a Lotus Elise, maybe), and I think a metallic blue finish with wide white racing stripes would suit it perfectly, just like the Gibson SG GT Steadyriot posted above. The time is not right yet for me to try my hand at a refin though, there are a few important issues I need to sort out first, not the least of which is finding a suitable space for spraying.

I bought some automotive adhesive racing stripes to deck up the current black finish of my Viper in the meantime... and then totally forgot I had

[Flurko]

Quite funny to see interest in this thread take off almost exactly a year after I bought the guitar

The blame is on me, this subforum is one of the slow ones, so I didn't realize your post was from August 2020 and not 2021 when I saw it on the first page

[mikeehairdo]

Quite funny to see interest in this thread take off almost exactly a year after I bought the guitar

The blame is on me, this subforum is one of the slow ones, so I didn't realize your post was from August 2020 and not 2021 when I saw it on the first page

It's even funnier two years later. That sage green has me GASsing for an incredibly affordable Viper that's for sale in my area now. The offset vibrato system on off these is just *chef's kiss*