Librero

well, i've heard even new fender amps really hum loudly when switched to their overdrive channels. is all this happening even without a guitar plugged in?

i've tried using other brands of this so-called chrome spray paint. it works great on some surfaces (it can actually look like chrome). unfortunately, wood isn't one of those. i've tried spraying it thin and thick, few and several coats. in my experience, it gave the same result, which is like metallic silver: similar luster sans the flakes (if you can imagine that). worse than that, it takes forever to cure and it doesn't go well with clear coat on top of it.

sounds like a grounding problem...

dave, well, like i said, i'm not really defending the method. i just want to see conclusive proof whether it's bad or not in the long term. yeah, i didn't really think much about it before, but the term "tutorial" is misleading here, which is why i agreed that renaming the thread is a good idea. i didn't really mean that the single case we have here of the food color fading is trivial. in fact, i agree that it is a plausible cause for further scrutiny of the method (i think that's what some people with food color dyed guitars are passively doing right now, probably even Litch). but i don't agree with using it as conclusive proof as a few of us have done. Had JFC used polycrylic and i was sure his food color didn't contain salt or any other weird ingredient, then this proof would be more compelling. again, i'm not really defending the method or even my workmanship, since i still consider myself a newbie anyway. i'll accept any critique, no matter how bad, so long as i can learn from it. this sounds cheesy, but i'm out for the truth regarding the matter of fading. i can't argue with the costs since they're relative to one's locale. thank you, dave. oh, and i already posted a pic of my guitar some pages back in this thread. it was my first project: a recondition job with the help of a local luthier.

I miss Cool Edit Pro. Even if your recording app has limited mp3 encoding (or none at all), it shouldn't be a problem with LAME.

Ah, I see. That's helpful. Thanks.

I believe the Transtube line is Peavey's answer to Marshall's Valvestate? Low wattage amps are pure solid state while the rest have a tube in the preamp section? In any case, I've owned two Valvestates (8010 and VS65R) and am quite happy with the sounds of both. I'd assume that I'd be just as happy as, let's say a Peavey Bandit or Studio. And yeah, I like the sound of a Princeton combo, too.

rhoads56, there is no conclusive proof on either sides, really. look, i don't want to argue in circles. it's not like i'm proclaiming food dye as the holy grail or anything, man. i don't think it'll ever be better than the real thing to the eyes of many. even i would prefer to use alcohol based dyes the minute i get my hands on them. at this point, i just want to know how well Litch's method can stand the test of time. i'll see for myself on my guitar, and am hoping to see pics of Litch's guitars too as time goes by.

You can doubt all you want. But you don't live here. Fillers, paint and sealers are quite common around here, in various levels of quality. But alcohol based wood dyes are quite a rarity, unless you want the natural colored wood stains. It's probably true more than you know. Contrary to what you may think, I do want to learn, and I am learning. Isn't experimentation a method of learning? I am neither encouraging nor discouraging the practice of using food color. I just want to keep an open mind until there's enough to prove or disprove the validity of using food color. Circumstances permit me to find out for myself. I understand that it's not the case for others, but don't dismiss what I'm doing as a waste. It's not like taking some pictures with a digicam every six months or so is a big deal. If nothing else, I'm doing a favor for those not willing to try this method out. If the guitar fades, then here's an additional case in point against using food color. If you're worried I'll be using food color and ruin many other guitars, don't be. It'll probably be just this one. I want the "correct" dye too. Since most of the stuff I'll need for my future project will be bought online, I suppose including some dye with them won't hurt my wallet much.

because some of us already have food color dyed guitars. i might as well turn it into a quasi experiment, as if it's a terribly difficult thing to do at this point. a friend of mine used food color and water only on a cheap bass guitar body last month. i'll also be keeping an eye on that. and also, the "correct" dye is not readily available locally to some people, like me. and i've really looked. i'm planning on ordering some online even if shipping doubles or triples the cost for a future project, but it'll be a while. and since i'm at it, i'll put in my additional reasons for using food color. this won't apply for just about anyone else, of course. i know. i do understand what Litch meant with small batches. at the time, i wasn't sure how deep i'm going into this new hobby of mine. i didn't want to fork out huge bucks for imported stuff unless i knew i was going into it all the way. now i know, and using food color as a dye provided a good medium for practicing my dye/transparent finishing skills without leaving me with a costly pile of stuff i'll never use in case i tell myself i don't want to do this anymore after the project. my skills are still not where i want it to be, but that'll be helped later on. i don't regret trying it, regardless of whether it will fade later on or not. i might even like how it'll fade if it does. but of course, this last paragraph is simply a personal opinion.

yes it should, assuming the only variable factor spanning several guitars is the food color itself. but in this case, it's not. renaming the thread is a good suggestion. but to take it off the site isn't. so far, no one has really given any conclusive proof that this method is crap. it'll take a long time to have that, if ever. if you give the rest of us a few years to see what happens with our food color dyed guitars, then you'll get your proof, assuming the dye does fade. mine is already seven months and counting. if the color remains stable after that time and you're still not convinced, give us another three years, and then five...

thank you, dave. it's really great how much care you put to your product. i'm not declaring it as a success yet. but it's too soon to dismiss the procedure outright either, just because a single work got screwed. like i said before, there's this dye spill i have outside the house which i'm also observing. i wish i had taken a picture of it. just to be sure, since more than a few of us aren't exactly experts in chemistry here. are we sure UV is the real issue here? isn't six months way too fast for a food color dyed guitar to fade the way JFC's guitar did, even if he didn't use polycrylic? there has got to be some other catalyzing factor in that case.

well, i followed Litch's procedure. my finish work still looks the same after six or seven months. i really find it strange that this thread still takes some bashing up to now. it has worked for some of us. all it took was one person with a faded finish who didn't even follow the instructions for others to call this a useless thread. not necessarily, i think. don't get me wrong. it doesn't hurt to have all the protection you can get. but i think the issue has been a little bit overrated here . i mean how many of us leave our guitars outdoors, under direct sunlight all day, everyday? now, if it was a car we're talking about, then by all means, get as much UV protection as possible. in my case, tropical sunlight does hit my guitar every afternoon for a few hours. it's summertime here, with really hot, intense sunlight. but the finish is still holding up pretty well.

Saga... so i guess the body would be made of basswood as well?

wow, you're just using a paintbrush for those? i gotta see this. if it turns out great, i might do the same thing on a guitar lying around here. i don't like red, but the guitar looks really really great.

There are quite a few recent threads on that subject here.

i wouldn't use polycrylic as a top coat. This almost sounds scary, coming from a chef...

It looks evil! It'll be interesting to see the end result. Good luck.

John@B.F.EGYPT Guitars, Could we have a better view of that headstock? It looks nice. There are pics of a very cool assembled HT-10 kit somewhere here.

yes. it kind of gets in the way between the dye and the veneer.

I'll attest to this one. And the sealer on the body might give you problems too.

i like the way the blue guitar turned out, by the way.

i had to use the poly-food color technique Litch used because i failed to track down wood dyes locally. no way i was paying international shipping rates for a small jar of dye. i saw a stool here at home with a dried spill of the mixture i used for my green strat. i'll be putting the stool under the sun for a some weeks, maybe months, to see what happens to the green dye.

Regular UV exposure... Do you have any specific parameters in mind? I live in a tropical country. And I left my strat body under the sun to dry and cure as long and often as I could for more than a month. It was regularly exposed to direct sunlight and temperatures well over 85 degrees Farenheit. Like I said, so far so good. But now I wouldn't dare to do further tests. Those conditions will ruin the rest of my guitar. Maybe the PolyCrylic does make a difference. I really hope it does because I'll be doing the same process on a friend's guitar body soon.

Thanks! It's taken a bit of a beating since it got put together, though. I'm planning on spraying some more coats of lacquer on it after the work on my other guitars are through.