Dark colours?

[mjg]

I'm thinking about doing a Pitbull WL-1 build, and I wanted to do a really dark green finish. Is that something that I can do with the Dingotone green? Would I just apply multiple coats of the green colour? Or mix it with a black? Or should I get a custom colour done?

How dark? I was thinking like Batman - "I only work in black. Or very very dark grey". I'd want it to look almost black, but you'd realise it was dark green when the light catches it.

Is this possible, or should I look at other finishes?

[stan]

If you get onto DB he could mix you a custom colour , very dark green sounds cool

[Hobastard]

maybe a base coat of Red .... just a thought, you'd have to try it on scrap first...

[Zandit75]

I know DB was working on a really bright green, something that would make the Hulk envious, but I'm not sure how far he got with it.
I wanted something like this initially, but it was not doable with the Tarkine Green.

[wazkelly]

Have a look at Dedman's ES5 as that was done dark green/black with gold hardware and looks stunning.

[mjg]

Thanks - I've checked out the ES-5, it looks nice. I wasn't planning on doing a burst, just solid colour. I guess I'd need spray equipment to do a burst properly?

Anyway, have talked to the 'client' (my 9 year old...) and he now thinks he'd like it in really dark red, or just black. Who was I to think that he'd want a green guitar, given that green has been his favourite colour of everything for the last 5 years or so.

So, question is now how to do a really dark red. Or even, which of the three reds is the darkest - Bushfire, Karijini or Uluru? It's hard to tell from the photos what the difference is. This will be going onto the basswood body.

[wazkelly]

Depends on how dark red you want to go?

[mjg]

Dark as possible, while still being slightly red, but almost black?

A few examples from a quick search:

http://www.bestamp-guitar.com/e_prod...aster-133.html

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/High-...959647229.html

http://www.chordism.com/schecter-hel...-black-cherry/

Not sure if that sort of colour is something I can do with Dingotone?

[wazkelly]

Nope, DT is not as dark as any of those.

Check out my J Bass in the signature as that is fairly close to what you seem to be after. I still have some of the red fountain pen ink which looks a bit like blood plasma but straight out of the container it would almost do that Heritage Cherry SG colour. For my build I added some colortone cherry red to lighten it up a bit as what I really wanted was candy apple red but done as close to that in a stain instead.

With the WL-1 being basswood it probably doesn't have much grain definition and wouldn't be worth doing any timber mate work to pop grain either therefore the darker colour may work better for you.

[GregLane]

I had success with ColorTone mixing some cherry red into mahogany red. It was very forgiving. To copy those colours you could use a drip of black and or blue to get it like the bear's porridge - just right. There is also more margin for error because you can add more coats till you get it. The quilt on the my guitar is very dark red because it two more coats as I did two wipe offs before two final applications. I also used metho. The saga is on my build diary.

I like the third colour example above. I fact I was looking at something similar for my next build and will be mixing CT.

I thought I had totally stuffed it because I added an additional coat to get the colour I wanted. The quitar looked like it had gone almost black mud. But I was too frightened to sand the quilt back. So too bad try again next time. But when I start to coat with the TruOil the light started to get into the red and I am very pleased with the result.

Just letting you know my experience as I am no expert. Leave the expertise to others. Just love red guitars. Go red.