TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

[St_Genesius]

So, first, some context: https://forum.seymourduncan.com/sho...uot-with-Reranch-stuff&highlight=rerproducing

Also, a google image search for "TV Pelham Blue" will show you some of the variations in how this finish can look. Different instruments, different angles, there's some significant variety between any two photos. In particular, notice how in some shots the grain appears lighter than the blue, in others darker.


For the past week and change, I've been testing/practicing on scrap mahogany. I won't bore you with the failed attempts, except only to note that the idea I out forward in the other thread about putting grain filler on TOP of the color does NOT work at all because a) Pelham Blue fills the grain too much on its own to allow the grain filler to really get in there and b) even if you COULD get it in there, the application of it will totally flatten out the metallic particles, thus losing you part of what makes PB special.

So, on to the success! This video show my latest, and closest, attempt to recreate this finish. It's one single coat of color, sprayed VERY dry across 4-5 passes, with only got a couple of thin layers of clear on it -- just enough to lock in the metallic -- as I'm now running very low on non-tinted clear. Based on what I've seen, I think it will take approximately ALL THE CLEAR LACQUER IN THE WORLD to get truly smooth finish on an entire instrument.

TL;DR: just watch the video.

 

[GilmourD]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Niiice! You'll have to give us the lowdown on how you did that in case we want to reproduce that in the future.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Basically, Wattage was dead on the money in the older thread: sand it smooth (I went to 320), no sealer or filler, spray color VERRRRRY light (this was just one coat of color, from damn near two feet away), then clear until the world runs out of clear because holyfsckingchrist does this finish suck up clear.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Sweet! Thanks for the posting, one of my favorite finishes I've seen on the Les Pauls!

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

I'll be spraying it on an SG Jr as soon as Precision ships one to me. Already planning an aged version, with tinted natural back and sides, to do on an LP build in the fall.

 

[sosomething]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Good god do I ever love that color.

That might be my favorite opaque finish of all time period. I don't think it's possible for a guitar to look bad in that color.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Yeah, it's interesting how it changes from aquamarine to almost periwinkle depending on the angle. I was a little afraid that by shooting so dry and thin that I'd lose that aspect of the color, but amazingly, I didn't.


I did a test with tinted clear, which fast forwards the finish by about thirty years. Not the look I wanted for this project, but pretty cool nonetheless. I think when I do that, I will do a normal, grain-filled, finish.

Good god do I ever love that color.

That might be my favorite opaque finish of all time period. I don't think it's possible for a guitar to look bad in that color.

 

[Snake Aces]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Sweetness! Nice work!

 

[GilmourD]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Got pics of that tinted test? I might like that on a future project.

Sent from my VK810 4G using Tapatalk

 

[rgand]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Looks great. Thanks, that's a fine finish.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

I tried taking a little video of it this morning on my way out the door; not sure how it turned out. Lemme check and I'll upload it.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Here are the first set of tests. The first several are, at this point, essentially identical. That wasn't the plan. The plan was to do grain filler on top of the color, trying white, silver and black variations, but as mentioned earlier, that just didn't work. At all. And in the process, I managed to flatten out all the mettalic flakes, which then necessitated spraying more color, which further obscured the grain, and so I was left with what looks basically just like a rather inexpert attempt at regular Pelham Blue. Which, I suppose, is exactly what it it.

The bit nearest my hand is the one I sprayed with tinted laquer. The color doesn't show up in this video quite the way it does in real-life (I was facing the wrong way to get the light right) but it's close enought o get an idea. I think that with grain filler underneath, or on a more close-gained wood (like maple) I could pull off a very nice looking finish. And this is all with rattle cans, btw. I don't have a gun.

Got pics of that tinted test? I might like that on a future project.

Sent from my VK810 4G using Tapatalk

 

[AlexR]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Did you use a premixed colour coat, or a can?? The premix makes it much harder than it needs to be, as you are using not only a hue/intensity designed for solid colour, but a mix designed for coat thickness building. I did TV yellow and of course used a gun with the base white/yellow mixes suited to the fact that I was not wanting to fill pores initially. I could spray quite happily from my usual 1/2 foot away. In fact the initial white took several passes to get to the right intensity.

And I'm sure you could get grainfill in there. The pelham metallic in a thin coat initially, a thin locking coat of clear and let it sink in. Then you could do some waterbased filler (which can be easily scrubbed off in a gentle fashion with a damp cloth). Once the metallic is on, even without clear over the top it seems quite robust from the 2 goldtops I've done manually (crescent bronze mix in clear).

 

[zenmindbeginner]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

I think the most confusing thing is to read all of the various tidbits of advice from people on the internet.

There is no such thing as "TV yellow"... the color was a quick and easy paintjob designed to save time and money on Gibson's new budget models they were introducing.

There was a "TV Model" that had this cheap quick finish that is now referred to as "TV Yellow"... the term "TV" was a marketing ploy designed to compete with Fender's Telecaster. Fender was busy using a new form of advertising at the time which would be now know as "product placement"... Fender was trying to get their Telecaster model as much airtime in broadcast television that they possibly could. This spurred sales and resulted in Fender gaining a certain amount of market share that would not go unnoticed by Gibson.

Gibson's strategy would be to create a "TV Model" guitar that would be marketed as having a more "safe" luminance value. Early broadcast cameras were notoriously unstable. In a multicamera studio, each camera had to be optimized using a gray-scale backlit test-picture source (sort of like how the Indian Head Test Pattern was used to calibrate end user viewing and broadcast monitoring). After each camera was optimized, the cameras had to be matched to produce identical signals. These camera adjustments used to take a long time, and it was usual to let them heat up and achieve constant temperature. With early television broadcast standards, in-camera gamma correction of 0.45 was used (and has been used ever since) to bring the effective result down to 2.2. This level was chosen because this allows for the typical fairly dim TV-watching environments where, with a more daylight-oriented correction, midtones and shadows would be rather too bright. Mostly used to shift the brightness away from dark areas where RGB noise build-up could be seen quite easily. Soooo... considering that there was a gamma shift towards being darker, one would conclude that the "TV Model" being superior for television because of it's darker color seems to be more marketing than actually serving a technological purpose.

The problems were when the studio lights actually reflected off of the white finish and gave off a distorted luminance value. This had everything to do with the studio layout and lighting conditions. Most broadcast situations could easily handle bright white colors but some could not. Now, people still avoid wearing white on broadcast TV not because of the glare but because of the in camera auto-gamma correcting.

The "TV Model" was designed to compete directly with Fender's blonde telecaster. Fender's telecaster was painted with thick wet coats of white poly primer that was sanded back to fill the pores and provide a nice smooth base for the trans coats. A tinted lacquer was sprayed over the primed ash.

Gibson's "TV Model" was painted with thin dry coats of white primer first. These thin "dry" coats of white primer were applied so as to not completely fill the grain... this wasn't a science as this process produced an uneven output of guitars that had very visible grain and some that had the grain almost completely filled. Then the guitar was finished with tinted clear and was done.

If you guys want to know more, I'll tell you.

 

[AlexR]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Well, whether it is a nickname or not. Say Gibson TV yellow, and players will know what you mean. Irrespective of whether the colour was given a name at the start, it exists.

Anyhow, white primer, offwhite/yellowish cream coat, mahogany coloured porefill then clear over the top.
Done

 

[zenmindbeginner]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Well, whether it is a nickname or not. Say Gibson TV yellow, and players will know what you mean. Irrespective of whether the colour was given a name at the start, it exists.

Anyhow, white primer, offwhite/yellowish cream coat, mahogany coloured porefill then clear over the top.
Done

The idea of filling the grain after you apply a finish is just weird... all you have to use is an oil based filler and a water based tint in your nitro. The water based tint won't color the oil based filler. No need to apply a grain filler after the color coat.

 

[AlexR]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

^ Well, looking at old TV yellow it has been seen by those who have done the research that the grainfill is over the base colour. It also means that the stain is only in the pores, not all over the body. If you put the tinted grainfill on first then you end up with stain all over the body.

And if you have your stain as waterbase, it doesn't mix in nitro lacquer. You need alcohol/spirits based dye.

 

[zenmindbeginner]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

^ Well, looking at old TV yellow it has been seen by those who have done the research that the grainfill is over the base colour. It also means that the stain is only in the pores, not all over the body. If you put the tinted grainfill on first then you end up with stain all over the body.

First off... I question if ReRanch has any idea what they are talking about when it comes to TV Yellow. They think the lime in "limed mahogany" refers to the color green. There's just soooo much misinformation about TV Yellow that when I see someone refer to "limed mahogany" as a greenish tint, I immediately know that this person doesn't understand what "limed mahogany" even means. I'm afraid that ReRanch is clueless about TV Yellow. Why go through a roundabout way of achieving TV Yellow when you can just apply the "TV Yellow" like Gibson did it back in the day?

Gibson referred to the finish as "Limed Mahogany" in 1955 when the Les Paul TV Model expanded beyond it's 3/4 scale and the maple discarded in favor of an all mahogany guitar.

What is a "limed" finish? Insects and parasites destroy wood via it's pores. To protect a piece of furniture, one would rub a limestone paste into the wood's pores (early grain filler baby!!). This was usually sufficient for a piece of furniture to remain parasite and insect damage free. Sometimes this finish was covered with a final coat of shellac or varnish.

No citrus fruit and no color green… that's right, the word "limed mahogany" doesn't refer in any respect to the color green. Lime refers to "limestone" and a "limed oak" finish was essentially a very light color… limestone is pure white in color.

A limed finish, bleached finish or pickled finish are all the same finishes and require the use of limestone. These finishes all make the wood lighter in color.

But of course, Epiphone's TV Pelham Blue is not TV Yellow and I suspect that it uses white grain filler to fill the pores in mahogany... TV Yellow was never achieved using grain filler. The variance in the TV Pelham Blue is due to the different woods being used. mahogany is known as an "open" pore wood while maple is a "closed" pore wood. Ash and alder are sort of semi-closed. Maple won't accept much grain filler if any, so those TV Pelham Blue finishes don't have the contrasting pores like the TV Pelham Blue does on mahogany. It looks as if the white grain filler is haphazardly applied quite quickly, leaving many open pores for a sort of chaotic and worn looking surface. When finishing mahogany, the grain filling process is really important for a smooth piano-like finish. These "TV Colors" are modeled after a budget finish that often didn't take the time to fill the grain properly before applying the color coats.

And if you have your stain as waterbase, it doesn't mix in nitro lacquer. You need alcohol/spirits based dye.

Transtint is the woodworking industry standard dye and it is soluble in alcohol and water.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

Without any grain filler at all, the pores on my sample look white from some angles, dark from others, much like the Epiphones.

I may still try a version with white filler applied normally, though. No real reason not to.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: TV Pelham Blue: The Secrets Revealed

As for grain filler on top of color, here's how it looks on Collings' Doghair finish:



Much more pronounced than the Epiphone, though *some* of that is likely the stronger contrast between black and white than blue and white. Also, Collings uses a stain for color on that finish, not lacquer. Someone more skilled than me might be able to get filler into the pores on top of Pelham Blue (and maybe even do it without destroying the sparkle) but, at least with the tools I have at my disposal, I cannot. But I'm increasingly convinced, based on what I'm seeing firsthand, that Epi didn't do theirs that way. In fact, I don't think they used filler at all.