The Steel Guitar Forum

After I bought my SD10 Rains to use as my main guitar (with the band), I started looking for a smaller, lighter, good quality, "practice" steel.

I found this "basketcase", Carpsteel that someone had painted red with a spray can. I stripped the guitar down and took it to Hydrographics for a snakeskin dip finish. After re-conditioning everything and putting the guitar back together...I think it looks awesome!

Many thanks to Gary Carpenter for helping supply me with missing/damaged parts.

Wallace, great job. I can't wait to see it. Dale

I wanna see a bigger picture, and explain the "dip" process please.

That is one tasty snakeskin effect....

Scott, you can Google HydroGraphics and see how the process works. They have hundreds of patterns to choose from. Used a lot for firearms, automotive and motorcycle parts. Doubt there are any more steel guitars with this finishing process applied to them. I will work on getting a larger/more detailed picture to post. Thanks for your favorable comments everyone, I thought it would be a hit.

Very nice, and thanks for the info on the process! Enjoy your "new" steel!

Cool! Hope it doesn't bite...

That is amazing . I just looked at some hydrographic stuff on the Internet . Is this the same as some Carson fibre wrapped guitars we have seen on here ?

So...what is involved in prep for this process? Must all hardware be removed? Strings,changer,tuners,headstock,undercarriage,etc?
It looks absolutely great.

The folks that do this can tape off parts of the object. But since I was planning to re-condition the entire guitar, I stripped everything off. It did take some time to get it ready and more time to get the guitar back together and set up everything to get it ready to play. I enjoy "tinkering" with things, so it was worth the time and effort for me.