The Steel Guitar Forum

Thanks to Jim Hillmar for this cool chart of Fender's custom colors.

I've always loved any of these colors. I had a Sherwood strat for a while but always wanted a burgundy mist Tele. I never liked sunburst anything. I think it reminds me of the awful, unplayable Kent I had as a teenager.

Yes, very cool, thanks for posting. I forget what it was I saw awhile ago in the Burgundy Mist I think it was a 60's Jaguar but it faded into a kinda redish orange color, totally cool and beautiful.

When Fender switched to the pedal steel models with Jaguar style claw pickups, custom colors were avaliable at no charge on them (unlike the basses and armpit guitars).
Despite this, custom color steels are very rare. I have only seen candy apple red and lake placid blue.
You can see beautifully aged lake placid blue in this vid:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CtTOtKzyhBU

Tom Morrell is said to have had a sherwood green Fender that he lost in a bad house fire!

Fender also changed up the colors in 1966 (see pic) after the CBS acquisition.
Teal green metallic is a super cool forgotten color, but my favorite is ocean turquoise metallic.
When I custom ordered a guitar a few years back, thats what I chose!

Not to be outdone by the upstarts out in Fullerton, during the early 1960s Gibson's chief Ted McCarty commissioned retired automobile designer Ray Dietrich to design a new series of solidbody instruments which were marketed as Firebird guitars and Thunderbird basses. Dietrich also proposed a batch of "custom colors" to compete with Fender's. The instruments came to market in 1963 with these optional ten colors in addition to the standard Gibson sunburst:

Those Gibson custom color birds are so cool. Shame they are so rare. I don't think I have even ever seen a picture of a vintage heather poly guitar.
Its crazy how heavily the clear coats Gibson and Fender used on these guitars yellowed.
I saw this 1965 Jaguar listed as ocean turquoise metallic on reverb a few weeks ago, for 25 grand
Check out how green the clear coat makes it look compared to my guitar and the paint chip on the chart.

I am envious of the longer vibrato arm on the '66... but it's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean (turquoise metallic), right?

If you are interested in finishing a steel or a fretted guitar in nitro lacquer vintage Fender or Gibson colors, I highly recommend Oxford Guitar Supply:
https://oxfordguitarsupply.com/

I have been using their aerosol products to finish several Telecaster-style (aka partscaster) guitars. Oxford lacquers are really terrific and service is excellent. You can get five or six cans shipped to the, continental US for $17, but it will also cost that much to ship one can. If you are finishing something about as big as a Tele body, I recommend buying two cans of color, as you will likely need it for patches.

Here's a mini (17" scale) I built from a Stew Mac kit. I added Gotoh tuners, a bridge with six individual saddles, and made a pickguard from Italian cellulose acetate. The color is Ice Blue Metallic.

Wow that is an awesome finish Bob.
My attempt a few years back with lacquer spray cans didn’t look half as good!
What is that tuned to?

Weird that the color as per the color chart is actually “blue ice” metallic.
Similar misconception with “foam green” always being called “sea foam green”.

Thanks Joe. Working with nitro lacquer is a learning process for sure. The key word is patience--never rush any stage of the process. I highly recommend using primer under the color coats. In my experience, primer is the best way to show what minor defects or pore fills still exist after a sealer coat.

I do plan to build a lap steel someday...

I always wondered if my triple deluxe color is from the Custom shop or not. It's also got an awesome momentary switch on it. There are some dings in the finish and there's definitely no other colors below the blue other than what looks like black.

Jeremy DeHart wrote:I always wondered if my triple deluxe color is from the Custom shop or not. It's also got an awesome momentary switch on it. There are some dings in the finish and there's definitely no other colors below the blue other than what looks like black.

That is a killer color for sure.
Yours seems modded to have 4 legs, which honestly I'd much prefer to the stock 3 can be unstable and a PITA.
Interesting that Leo also thought 3 screws was more stable than 4 for guitar necks...
I'd love to have a momentary switch to mess with on mine instead of the "all on" switch.

I chose Lake Placid Blue Metallic (from ReRanch) for my Deluxe 8 knockoff. Looks pretty close to Jeremy's triple Deluxe. I don't know if Fender painted his steel or not but they look great in that color!

Bill Sinclair wrote:I chose Lake Placid Blue Metallic (from ReRanch) for my Deluxe 8 knockoff.

I did likewise on my Century Deluxe rescue:


Is Guitar ReRanch open for business? The following message has been on their order page for a couple years: "We are closed to build inventory and try to stay safe. We will be back when things start moving back to "normal". Check back and Thanks, Bill and Glenda..."