Tattooing Guitar

[tomhumphreys]

Hello

I have a unusual request.

I was wondering if you would be able to pass this message on to any of your luthier memebers of the Society.

I have an Admira Alba guitar that I would like to have a custom paint job in the style of Thai sak yant tattoos. This would just be on the body of the guitar. If this would be possible what would the price associated this be?

I have send anyone a pdf of my plan.

I look forward to hear back from you

If interested please contact
[email protected]

Tom Humphreys

[tomhumphreys]

Oh, I forgot to mention.

Must be in the London area

[tomhumphreys]

here is a image of my plan

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PJ..._DPLUsQPJjtLK4

[Suzidownunder]

Wow! that's beautiful. Hope someone can do it for you!

[Suzidownunder]

Following on from this does anyone have guitar tattoos on their person?

[Wade Hampton]

You might actually have the best luck finding someone to execute that design correctly by taking the guitar to Bangkok and having a local artist do the work. If that's unfeasible for you, then start making the rounds of local London area tattoo artists.

If you yourself drew up that design in your PDF, you should probably do the work yourself. Get some India ink and an assortment of pen nibs and start practicing on a similar surface, then begin the work on the guitar. Once you've completed the design, have a local guitar repair shop shoot a coat of clear lacquer over it to protect it.

Just a thought...


whm

[cmds]

Originally Posted by Suzidownunder

Following on from this does anyone have guitar tattoos on their person?

Not directly guitar, but several music related ones.

[Suzidownunder]

Originally Posted by cmds

Not directly guitar, but several music related ones.

I have two guitar ones. I was so chuffed at learning guitar late I had them done [emoji16]

[mirwa]

A few options

Someone could vinyl print it and attach to the surface and then lacquer over the stop for a smooth finish. Easily done and most luthiers have done this with similiar things such as water slide decals.

A person could possibly screen print it on and then lacquer over, have not done this to a Guitar.

It could be hand painted with a steady hand.

It could be airbrushed on as well.

Or real modern, you could get it sublimated on. sublimation however is very critical to a durable finish that won’t be destroyed by the applied heat.

Not all people are set up for it, in fact I would go so far as to say, maybe only a few people in the world are set up to sublimate onto a Guitar.

We are in Australia and we have a machine that allows us to sublimate an image into a Guitar, it’s pretty high tech stuff, but you can have a colour portrait of anything perfectly etched into the clear finish of the guitar

Steve

[slide496]

As an alternative you might consider - or maybe you have and rejected the idea - using a transparent decal overlay - http://skinyourskunk.com/classic-guitar-decals.php.

I'm not entirely convinced that the transparent is going to be like the above, maybe with work, and whether it would alter tone but they are supposed to be easily removed.

Harriet