I need some help with a '58-'59 JM restore, need color help

[OffYourFace]

Hello Jazzmaster people.  I'm new to this forum and I thank whoever's responsible for it's existence!
I just picked up a great old JM.  The body is dated 10/58 and the neck is 1/59.  It's all original except for one thing... (sigh)
Someone stripped the body and gave it one of those classic amateur shit brown stain finishes. Why so many people did this in the '70s is beyond me.  At least they didn't screw up the body contours!  Anyway, I was thinking about refinishing it in the rare San Marino Blue BUT I can't seem to find any good examples of the true color.  Does anyone know of a late '50s Fender Color Chart available on line?  Maybe someone has some GooD pictures of a JM in SMB?

From what I've seen, correct me if I'm wrong, SMB is like Lake Placid blue but with a gold base instead of silver?  It's hard to tell in pictures I've seen.
Can anyone recommend a good place to have it refinished?  Anyone experienced with RS Works?  What about case restoration?  It's got the original tweed case that needs to be saved.  Thanks for any help you guys have!

[mjet]

Curtis Novak does great refins and is very picky about getting vintage colors dead-on. Give him a shout (he's also a member on these forum pages) and ask him for his 2 cents' worth.

http://www.curtisnovak.com/restorations/index.shtml

[fullerplast]

Sounds like a very cool project!

There was never a late 50s custom color chart. Not that you COULDN'T get a custom color in the 50s, you could. But it was just that... a true custom color. Fender had no standardized list of custom colors. The customer would tell them what color he/she wanted (or describe it), and they would go get it at the paint store. I believe it was around 1960 when they first offered a custom color chart with standardized finishes to choose from.

Therefore, all the websites are wrong (for example) when they say a '59 Jazzmaster in Shoreline Gold is impossible, due to Fender not having the color available. It was actually a '59 Pontiac finish which would have been introduced in the fall of '58, and could well have been specified by the customer on a '59 Fender. San Marino Blue just happens to be a color that some customers ordered, it wasn't truly a Fender finish. In reality, any color you could possibly think of (that existed in 1958) would be appropriate to your Jazzmaster.

In case you haven't seen it, the best info on Fender custom colors is here (including the early 60s chart):


http://www.provide.net/~cfh/fenderc.html


Best of luck with your project! We're here to help in any way we can....

[OffYourFace]

Hey guys, thanks for your help!  I had just discovered the Novak site a few days ago, seems like the guy to go to.
I had also just discovered the provide.net color section 2 days ago.  I really just want to see a good example of SMB even though i'm not sure what color I want yet.

[mezcalhead]

Here's one on the excellent webrocker.de.

[GTO]

Adding to what Fullerplast says, you may want to trawl the classic car forums and try to find the original manufacturer of SMB, although the way American cars changed spec from year to year it may only have been a short run colour itself. Here is what I came up with

San Marino Blue paint codes

http://www.ppgcarpaint.com/paints-bycol ... y&AFO=auto

You could have a sample mixed, then get the colour matched to a nitro version.

[fullerplast]

Good job, GTO!



I like your username. I assume you're into Ponchos?

There's some pics of my '68 Firebird in the Misc section in the cars thread:


index.php?topic=159.0

[brianjdc]

to add to gto. if you didnt want to use ppg. contact dupont and ask them they have all the color codes available to. thats where i got my daphne blue from

[OffYourFace]

So Mr. Novak got back to me and said he'd do the job.  The only problem I have is finding a good color to go with the gold guard...
I thought I knew what I wanted but now...  I don't know.  OT?  LPB?  I think they look weird with the gold guard. 
Any suggestions?  I can't do a sunburst because of the staining.

[brianjdc]

i think lpb with gold would look killer. i like unconventional color combos

[jeremy]

lpb with the gold or tortoise guard is my dream jazzmaster

make sure you post plenty of pics when its done!

[JazzBlaster]

I like the OT with the gold guard

[GTO]

What happened to the SMB idea? That would have been the cool colour, and more vintage accurate with a gold guard. Between OT and LPB I like the OT, LPB is a bit 'common' to my mind. But of course neither is correct for a '58 body, the colours hadn't been invented.

[zhivago]

I'll throw Fiesta Red or Olympic White in the mix...they look great wth the gold guard 

[OffYourFace]

What happened to the SMB idea? That would have been the cool colour, and more vintage accurate with a gold guard. Between OT and LPB I like the OT, LPB is a bit 'common' to my mind. But of course neither is correct for a '58 body, the colours hadn't been invented.

I know exactly how you feel.  But SMB  & LPB aren't different enough in my mind to worry about which is better.  Once they get old and yellow and all that, they'll look almost the same.  My main concern is making the guitar look good overall.  I like the Olympic White pic that was posted.  All black would be cool too.  But I figure with the crazy birdseye neck it needs some spice to it.  I think I'm gonna go with LPB.  I like the color and it looks better on me than OT.  The neck has been refretted with a size just a little bigger than stock and I'm using 500k pots, I'm gonna play it.
I might try to get an old tortoise pickguard for it one day because it just looks better to me, it looks like a Jazzmaster in my mind.

What I've tried to creat below is my old 1960 SB JM that I sold and how I might like to see my new '59 JM: