Cream "Gibson" Color Survey?

[clown_luthier]

i think the best way to get paf cream is that % of other colors, adding RGB to white.
even if you pick right color now, after natural aging it can turn into something else.

my guide is to get that base color that can age into (today) pafs color, darker or lighter.

i heard that pafs had a few base colors, and i got verification that i have one of base colors in my sample

JGundry, pick one that you love the most, after all, your name is standing on your pickups. i would be very proud on myself on you place with that mold

looking forward for more progress, you are guys doing great work

[Spence]

That's the problem with viewing photos on computers. They all look different. Suffice it to say if one has never adjusted the color on their computer it will be very wrong right from the factory, even on Macs which are closer to the mark than PCs.

I think Possum's last photo was too green, so here it is with the white point more balanced.

You can really see that the two bobbins are a different shade now.

I could really see the difference anyway David but yes, it's more obvious now.

Not surprised Jon was being offensive again because I said something about his swatches. That's just the way he is. It's like he thinks no one else has access to the real deal and he also missed the point which Clown Luthier has also made.
I already have butyrate bobbins but rather than be on here showing off with this stuff and then not sharing, I do the decent thing and keep quiet about it.

[cryptozoo]

Have you posted this over the LPF? They'd love to talk plastic shades all day long. If you're polling the winder's forum so you can get the preferred shade for your bobbins that you're refusing to offer for sale to anyone here, that seems a little bold.

[JGundry]

Not surprised Jon was being offensive again because I said something about his swatches. That's just the way he is. It's like he thinks no one else has access to the real deal and he also missed the point which Clown Luthier has also made.
I already have butyrate bobbins but rather than be on here showing off with this stuff and then not sharing, I do the decent thing and keep quiet about it.

Spence I was joking. Lighten up.

I'm sure other people have access to this sort of thing but probably don't have the opportunity to do calibrated studio photos of a variety of samples. I frankly don't see how any of of what I posted implies that nobody has access to the same thing. I hope some people find the photos useful.

Cryptozoo,

I advertise on the LPF and I don't want to do anything that smacks of spam. Belwar and I are not selling these but frankly everything I post will be useful to people like Possum who might sell them down the line.

[greenfingers]

Everyone has their own view of the right shade so you'll never please everyone.
The thing to do is make sure that your all your plastic parts either look new or old and in keeping with real examples.
On my computer, all those colour swatches look wrong so I'd rather not comment on them other than to say that Possum's photo looks right on my computer.
A

Yea! and add to that the brains perception of colour and shade, no one will see the exact same thing.


You would think B is the lighter shade but it isn't, its the same. Weird.

[Spence]

Spence I was joking. Lighten up.

I'm sure other people have access to this sort of thing but probably don't have the opportunity to do calibrated studio photos of a variety of samples. I frankly don't see how any of of what I posted implies that nobody has access to the same thing. I hope some people find the photos useful.

Cryptozoo,

I advertise on the LPF and I don't want to do anything that smacks of spam. Belwar and I are not selling these but frankly everything I post will be useful to people like Possum who might sell them down the line.

Jon, I admire anyone who struggles to get things right so thumbs up from me.
Just surprised that Sam Lee Guy hasn't given you the exact colour specification.

[kevinT]

Even when they come out of the injection molding machine, I don't think they're going to match exactly with the color sample you chose. Whatever color you choose, I would go, at least one shade lighter.

[Possum]

...

On "calibrated systems" there really isn't a single calibrated system that is correct. Your flash strobes may have drifted in color temperature over time, we don't know what monitor you're using or how your photos are output or how old your camera is etc. etc. etc. In the print world a prepress system is calibrated for a particular press, and may be totally unsuitable for a different printer's machines. Your swatches all look real red heavy to me, and I recently did a quickie calibration of my iMac monitor using printed examples from the presses Shrapnel album packages were printed on because I did a book cover design for my Dad's writing. But here we have the same problem of monitors which project light versus a physical object which reflects light, they two aren't the same and can't ever really be 100% matched.

You can't really measure the color of a piece of plastic accurately unless you're at some kind of lab because the color of the light you're viewing the plastic is skewing results. Even a lab machine's light source if not strictly maintained or replaced can give bad results. And again it depends on what part of the bobbin is being read. All you can really do is take those bobbins to the injector guys and say "here, match this," and hope for the best. Even each person's eyeballs don't see color the same way. My right eye has some damage and both eyes don't see the color the same way, this was real fun when I was doing print work, made for alot of nail biting. Basically in the end you are just choosing a color based on personal preference, and yours will be different than Seymour's or BareKnuckles or OTP or Gibson. Where you may run into trouble is those LPF guys get real riled up about uncovered pickups matching their precious mounting rings. The Historic rings and pickguards are a weird tan color and your color choice may clash badly. I guess you may have to get into the mounting ring business to solve that problem.

[JGundry]

Even when they come out of the injection molding machine, I don't think they're going to match exactly with the color sample you chose. Whatever color you choose, I would go, at least one shade lighter.

Thanks Spence.

Sam Lee Guy has been a huge help. I actually emailed him the swatches I posted here and he picked the swatch that was of the first test run of the cream bobbins Belwar and I did as being the correct cream color for a PAF bobbin. He did give me the specs. of how he has these made. But color matches like this are always dependant upon the place doing the color mix so you really cant just provide a number value. They need a sample of the color you are shooting for.

Right now I feel like I already have a color match but I think I want to have one more go at it with a direct scan from a cream PAF bobbin that has seen very little on no UV over the years. I'm may find I'm just bumping against the edges of the tolerance for a color match but I would send a little extra now just to make sure.

[JGundry]

i think the best way to get paf cream is that % of other colors, adding RGB to white.
even if you pick right color now, after natural aging it can turn into something else.

my guide is to get that base color that can age into (today) pafs color, darker or lighter.

i heard that pafs had a few base colors, and i got verification that i have one of base colors in my sample

JGundry, pick one that you love the most, after all, your name is standing on your pickups. i would be very proud on myself on you place with that mold

looking forward for more progress, you are guys doing great work

The tricky part is the cream starts out a bit pink and the pink fades over the years and it looks more yellow and then yellow/green. So yes picking the starting point is the tricky part.

[clown_luthier]

i love this color



or this



it's a diggerent light but brownish shade is here

i had somewhere one big plastic and under different light camera capture different color, but i think base color get out, plastic is almost white, look at pic (same plastic)

[copperheadroads]

i like 7 or 10 in the first series

[JGundry]

Clownluthier,

Those two photos show a different color because they both have different white balance settings and neither one is correctly white balanced. It demonstrates what I have been talking about concerning needing a pro photography set up if you are going to accurately judge the color from photos. I'm not trying to be a jerk but you cannot tell anything critical from a color standpoint with the above photos. The differences in cream color are subtle enough that lighting, lens, camera, exposure, white balance calibration... have to be the same for every shot. You also really need to have a reliable 5000K light source. You can create neutral color from the shady photos you posted but even then they were taken under very blue light which will change the look even when corrected.

[Joe Gwinn]

18% Gray

Given that few luthiers and pickup makers are pro photographers, would a simpler approach suffice?

For instance, always photograph the items of interest with a Kodak 18% gray card as the background? This (being a known color) would allow much of the variation to be calibrated out.

I suppose one could also take a picture of the traditional Kodak color patch card (I forget the name of that card, but I have one somewhere).

[RedHouse]

Given that few luthiers and pickup makers are pro photographers, would a simpler approach suffice?

For instance, always photograph the items of interest with a Kodak 18% gray card as the background? This (being a known color) would allow much of the variation to be calibrated out.

I suppose one could also take a picture of the traditional Kodak color patch card (I forget the name of that card, but I have one somewhere).

Used to use those 18% grey cards back in the 80's when doing freelance photography, allways took a few brackets with it to use later on color correction. Simple way of doing things.