Matching Colors

I found many articles and videos showing how to dye a guitar. None of them was attempting the same sort of finish I was looking for. I assumed that the Seafoam Gibson used some amount of grain-popping. Someone online said he was quite sure the color was mixed into a clear coat and just sprayed on without dying the wood. I was so committed to the grain popping technique that I ignored this advice. Amazing how the brain works.

The blue and yellow dyes prepared and ready to mix

I bought powder blue and yellow dyes from Luthiers Mercantile International. These were much cheaper than the pre-mixed bottled dyes found elsewhere. I made solutions of yellow and blue making sure I had more than enough to do all of my experimentation and to finish the guitar. I experimented with various ratios on a piece of plywood with a maple veneer. I improvised a pipette dropper by marking a drinking straw with a Sharpie. By capping the end of the straw with my finger I could get a similar amount of liquid each time I dipped the straw.

My green mixture. Notice the laboratory quality tube dropper.

The sample board. 

Finding the right color was tricky because the color of the wood would greatly affect to final color of the dye. Additionally, the wood I was using for tests was a bit darker than the veneer on the guitar body. I  made several samples on a piece of plywood with a maple laminate, and then tried it on a maple board. I sprayed the sample with lacquer. This made the results darker still.

A maple board dyed and with lacquer on the upper half. 

In the end my color choice was really more of a guess. I realized that matching the exact color of the Gibson would require not only knowing what technique was used but having an identical piece of wood to the kit body to experiment on. After several weeks of research and head-scratching (mostly head-scratching) I was ready to take my chances.

Guitar Kit World Les Paul

I ordered a Les Paul from Guitar Kit World in Australia. The guitar was drop-shipped to me from China. With the options I selected, the kit cost $241 with free shipping. The maple veneer and the mahogany body added $44 to the base price. Being left-handed only cost me $3. Other kit resellers would charge as much as $30. Marty, the owner of Guitar Kit World, was a lefty and was sympathetic to our plight.

The Guitar Kit World kit

The guitar took about six weeks to arrive. During that time the blue left-handed Agile appeared on the Rondo Music website. I immediately ordered one. Within a week the Agile arrived while the kit guitar was still in route.*

The kit was a complete guitar with all hardware, electrical, and strings. Opening the box I found that the body was 1.5 inches thick, as opposed to the two-inch Gibson Les Pauls. I have since noticed that this seems to be standard on the Chinese kits from other vendors.

Small dents in the first fret 

On closer inspection I found a few other anomalies. There were a number of dents in the first fret, there were glue marks on the back of the horn and on the head stock, and wood was jagged where the cutaway meets the neck. I figured that none of these items were deal-breakers and could either be repaired or hidden in the finish.

Marty at Guitar Kit World was eager to offer solutions to the some of the issues, and even sent a coupon for a discount on my next guitar.

It should be noted that shortly after I received my kit, a banner on the Guitar Kit World website stated that they had switched vendors and were offering higher quality kits.

*The Agile looked great, but during inspection I found that the heal of the neck was severely cracked. Rondo accepted the return without question and a second guitar was sent. At that time the left-handed blue flames disappeared from the Rondo website. Perhaps I got the last one.

What Was I Thinking?

If I had really wanted to save some money I would have just spent $500 on a new Epiphone. Spending a couple hundred dollars on a kit guitar may seem like a good way to get an ultra-budget guitar, but unless you already have all the tools and supplies, it is really easy to spend a couple hundred dollars more finishing your guitar. None of this includes any upgrades you may want to make to the guitar's hardware.

AL-3010SE Blue Flame

While the hidden expense was something I already knew in the back of my mind, being cheap was really just an excuse to have a fun project. The real path to building a kit was a bit more selfish than my desire to get an inexpensive instrument.

I knew I wanted a Les Paul copy, as a proper Gibson was out of my budget. Being left-handed, I am limited to dramatically few budget guitars to chose from in any style. The Epiphone Les Paul was a nice guitar but was available in back, cherry-burst, or black. Right-handed models were available in so many colors, several were not even in the visible spectrum.

While searching for something more interesting I found a company called Rondo Music that made the Agile series of guitars. They offered left-handed Les Paul copies in a variety of colors including a great looking blue flame. Folks on guitar forums believed that the Agiles were every bit as good as the Epiphones and often better. The Agile guitars were also much cheaper because Rondo Music only sold direct.

Seafoam Les Paul Classic

I was ready to buy the AL-3010SE Blue Flame (links to right-handed model) but found they were out of stock. I emailed the owner who said he would be having more stock arriving in the coming months but made no promise of what colors or variants would be available.

I then had the idea that if I wanted a blue guitar, why didn't I just build one. I thought that if the blue Agile came back in stock, I would surely buy one as it would be vastly superior to the guitar I intended to build. Since I had really admired the Gibson 2014 Seafoam Les Paul Classic, I thought I would try to copy this guitar rather than the guitar I actually wanted. If I was going to end up with two guitars, why have two guitars that were blue?

In other words, I wanted a blue guitar I could not get so I would build a guitar I did not like as much. Perfect logic.

Let's be honest - I really just wanted to build a kit like I did in junior high and had the bug to do it again. What kind of results could I get with middle-aged life experience and patience?