POLL: Chrome or Black Hardware for the Modern Baritone Tele?

[Masta' C]

Many of you were very helpful in my "pickguard or not" thread for a cool Tele baritone build I'm putting together, so Thank You for that!
:beerchug:

While many were onboard with the pickguard idea, it seems that the majority would still prefer the guitar without one in order to show off more of the finish.

I'm now torn...

If I were to keep it bare (no pickguard), should I stick with the chrome hardware or swap over to black? What if I were to go with a black pickguard...would black or chrome hardware look best?

Keep in mind that the entire neck is Wenge, which is a dark brown/black wood, so black tuners won't stand out as much as chrome on the headstock, which some might prefer and others not.

What are your thoughts? Vote in the poll!

You can select more than one answer, if desired.

 

[PFDarkside]

There must be a hive mind wanting to build a Goblin Flake super Tele. There are a couple on Youtube, you’ve got one and I’ve been GASsing to build one.

My plan has been chrome and no pickguard with covered pickups or (don’t kill me) gold with black pickups. Your pickguard is very cool, but for some reason I’m wanting to see Pearl. I understand if you don’t though.

 

[GuitarStv]

I like matching hardware with a black pickguard. Chrome wouldn't look bad either, but there's some OCD part of me that likes it all to be the same colour.

 

[Seashore]

I voted all black, but chrome hardware and chrome pickup covers would look sweet with the black pickguard too.

 

[Mincer]

There must be a hive mind wanting to build a Goblin Flake super Tele. There are a couple on Youtube, you’ve got one and I’ve been GASsing to build one.

I generally don't do green at all, but this just looks fantastic. We need more flake finishes. This looks a lot better than some of the flake Kiesels I've seen.

 

[Masta' C]

I agree! It's a really cool finish.

From what I can tell, there's some sort of medium-green metallic basecoat topped with a mix of 2, possibly 3, different colored flakes (green and gold).

You can only identify the subtle color variations when you look VERY closely. Even from just a few inches away, it looks like a very vibrant "lime" green sparkle with a lot of depth and movement. Hard to tell that it's actually the result of so many colors presenting at once...pretty amazing!

 

[PFDarkside]

I generally don't do green at all, but this just looks fantastic. We need more flake finishes. This looks a lot better than some of the flake Kiesels I've seen.

Kissel doesn’t do any thing subtle, it’s usually love it or hate it.

I also really like this flake finish. If you want to see some other cool flakes, check out www.Rothmetalflake.com They make refinishing a guitar look easy!

 

[beaubrummels]

Black makes the sparkle totally stand out. Presence of a pickguard almost wouldn't matter so much if all the hardware were black. Might be cool if you do it in a way where you could add or remove the pickguard at any time (e.g. keep all the hardware/electronics direct mount, and the pickguard is just an accessory - like use magnets or temporary tape or something strong but temporary to hold it in place.)

 

[Mincer]

If you can switch out the hardware to black, certainly do it.