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I have a commission for an acoustic bass guitar. However the client wants the top to be powder blue in colour. I just don't see how powder blue is going to look good against some nice back and sides wood and I worry that it will end up looking very low end. I'm almost ready to tell her to find another builder. What would you do?

Pat

PS I apologize if someone here has already built a powder blue topped guitar. I don't mean to criticize and, in fact, I'd love to see a picture of it.

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Give the client what she wants....

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Not opaque color. But dye that still shows the spruce grain is cool. Check out this one: http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10130&t=42550&start=50

For powder blue, you'll need the whitest spruce you can find. Engelmann. I think it would be good tone-wise for a bass, too.

Alternatively, you could leave it natural in the center, and spray a burst with blue tinted lacquer around the edge. As long as there's some natural grain visible, it's ok in my book

I had a customer that wanted a purple mandolin once...
I talked her out of it. Some folks will build anything. Not me. If you don't feel good about it, pass. You are degrading your instruments and relegating yourself to build anything. Once you let that in the door, don't be surprised when some truly wacky stuff comes your way. I remember a mandolin maker that built a "melondolin", but he was kinda nutz. Built a Wisc. cheeze mandolin too...

I've turned down orders like that too.

OTOH, you could make it work with dyed maple back and sides...

When building something off beat it might be prudent to get the money up front. Sometimes people want to back out when their vision doesn't match reality.
For a powder blue bass I would make some color samples before starting work.

I'm with Dennis. It could look ok. Dependent upon back and sides. A stain rather than a solid. What do they want for b&s


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Sometimes building something out of your comfort zone is good for your creativity. Who knows what it could lead to.


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Depends on how Pretty she is !

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I would tell her to get stuffed............... unless she would go for heavy figure Maple back, sides and neck. All blue done in transtint and possibly a black burst. It would look very cool. In fact I think I just might do one myself.

Why not have fun with it Pat. It's always entertaining to do something a little different and hey, it's her dime. You can charge extra for it.

Check out the Blue Guitar Exhibit (all arch tops) that was at the Metropolitan Museum (NYC). Here's one example:

http://blog.metmuseum.org/guitarheroes/ ... odel-1994/

Blue, but not powder blue.

Go for it!
But...I agree with Clay....

Yea, go for it, you never know where it will lead...

If you don't want the gig, then decline. However, based on what I've seen of your work, I'd say you certainly possess the creativity and talent required to meet such a challenge.

FWIW, I would proudly own and play the D’Aquisto guitar linked to above.

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George :-)

Don't let her see the guitar with the MOTS bevel edge.....

Thanks for all the comments guys. I guess I shouldn't totally close my mind to the idea. I have to admit that D'Aquisto looks pretty good. Colour aside, I think the shape of the head stock is neat.

What I have done so far is sent my client a link to the page of images that Google finds when you search on "powder blue guitars". Here it is: https://www.google.ca/search?q=powder+b ... Q#imgdii=_ What you find here is mostly low end, toy type instruments and I told her that I didn't want to build something that ended up looking like a toy. I think that has got her thinking.

Perhaps I'll send her the link to the D'Aquisto. As has been suggested, maybe a stain that the grain showed through could look OK. Might be worth experimenting.

Good point Clay. I will not show her the MOTS bevel edge guitar LOL.

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

It might come off better with a clown vomit pick guard. :p

Clown vomit pickguard? sounds good to me.

To me, painted tops only make sense if the guitar is made with electric guitar sensibilities. For example: Fender for cheap

IMO if you can't see it in your head, don't take the commission.

You should see all of the blue guitars from the Chinery collection. There was a nice book published about them some years ago. They are in varying shades of blue and they are pretty fabulous. Several of the luthiers said the blue was tricky to apply without going opaque. Chinery had given each of them a bottle of the exact same blue dye. Some of the instruments are dark and some are lighter. Some are blue sunbursts. Many of those guitars show very nice figure showing through the color tone. It can be spectacular and in no way do any of them look like toys.

My thought is that you would probably want to talk your client into an all-blue instrument--not just the top. You'd just have to experiment with particular shades of blue and your client would have to understand that you might not achieve a specific color without making it completely opaque.

However, if you're still not interested after seeing the entire blue guitar collection, you should probably pass, because who wants to work on something that neither inspires nor interests their creative side?

In case someone didn't know...

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

+1 The book is "Blue Guitar" by Ken Vose with photographs by Leslie Jean-Bart. Lot's of blue eye candy in this book.

Google the Chinery Blue Guitar Collection - lots of images out there. There are 21 (22) guitars in the collection.

Quilted or flamed maple with a powder blue top could be cool. Maybe you could use some oil paint colors.

http://bluedogguitars.com/ Good enough for Michael Dunn, good enough for me.

It occurred to me that I should have posted a pic in case someone did not get the joke. Then I forgot. Thank you Chris. I certainly meant no harm

Ya know, the weird thing is I get such a strange feeling looking at blue hued guitars. Acoustic or electric. Must be some buried psych thing. To me, the whole concept is strange. Would I do it? Maybe. But I would just increase the price.