Conference napalm::guitar

I always wanted a black, Strat and les paul, but settled for one
strat that was sunburst, and one that's candy apple red,,
on the 'paul, I bought  a gold top instead...

I like the looks of em.  My buddy Wayne has a black washburn
that looks really cool...

My favorite finishes though are the wood grain finishes...

    I never liked black guitars for some reason.

    I never did either.  I had a couple and MAN were they a pain to 
    keep clean !  Every little smudge shows on black...
    
    jc

I always thought that those black Les Pauls looked really cool! 

I'm pretty sure that they made black Les Pauls in the late 60s, but it might
have been the very early 70s. If you look at the cover of Humble Pie's 
'Rocking The Fillmore' album, you'll see Peter Frampton with a black LP. Check 
when that album was released, and it might answer your question....

alan

    You guys are joking, right?  Black Les Pauls go back to the 1950s, 57
    or so.  The first Customs were all black.  The one Frampton played in
    Pie was a 50's model.
    
    							Brian  

    Yeah, I think '54 was actually the year black LP Customs were
    introduced.  Rickenbacker made a black bakelite electric back
    in the late 30's; good like finding one, but they also made black
    lap steels that aren't too tough to find.

Fender has offered black as a custom color since '56 or 7. I have a 
1965 Stratocaster that I recently refinished in black (nitrocellulous lacquer).
I think it looks great. Maybe it doesn't seem to show finger prints much 
because lacquer has a lower luster than the modern high-gloss polyester
finishes used today.

BTW, in case you're wondering:
I bought this guitar new in '66, never liked the sunburst on it that 
much, goofed up the finish in '68, subsequently did a bad jobs of refinishing
it several times in the '70s. I'm finally very happy with the finish. Since
I'll never sell the instrument, I don't really care that it doesn't have the
original finish. It plays great, sounds great and now looks great. Ballgame.

I've thought black Stratocasters look great ever since I first saw a picture
of Hendrix playing Monterey in a photo-spread of the festival in a teen
magazine in '67. The photographer later worked assignments for Rolling Stone
which published these pictures again a few years ago.

    Isn't Neil Young's black Les Paul a '57?
    
    Alan

    I love black guitars ... I had a Les Paul custom in the 70's ... a
    Kramer Focus 3000, currently with a American Standard Strat and
    scamming for another Les Paul ... all of 'em black.  Sure, they attract
    smudges, but, like black car (got one of them too ...) they are
    GORGEOUS when they're clean ...   8^)
    
    Scary (who likes all his toys in black ...)

    I'm pretty sure that black was even used on a few acoustics as far
    back as the 50's. Didn't Gibson offer J-200's in black back in the
    60's or even 50's ? I believe the Everly brothers used black guitars
    way back.
    
    The thing I like about my Sunburst Strat is that it is black around
    the entire sides and fades into a nice honey-colored wood grain in 
    the center. 
    
    The musical instrument world, in some ways, reflects what's happening
    in the automotive world. I believe the custom colors that Fender began
    using were popular colors in the automotive world first. In the early
    to mid 60's metal-flake paint first started to appear on cars, and
    soon it was everywhere. At one time Ford only made Model A's in one
    color...Black. If people wanted a model A in a differant color, they
    had to have it repainted by a body shop.
    
    Mark
    

    Some of Orville Gibson's guitars were black--circa 1890!!!
    
    Danny W,

    
    
    This very I'm moment I'm *looking* right at a black 1955 Fender 
    Stratocaster!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    					
    
    
    
    			...ofcourse it's a "picture" of a 1955 Strat.
    HEY SANTA! Can I add one more thing to my xmas list???   ;^)
    
    				Rock on,
    					Fred

    yeah!!
         I got a picture of Howard Reed (rythmn guitarist for Gene Vincent)
    playing a custom Black 55 strat.  But I think the black was a custom 
    color.
    P.K.
    

    Dave Davies of the Kinks has played with a black Les Paul custom. 
    Currently, he plays with a Fender telecaster.  The cover of the
    Live Kinks from about 1967 shows his with a black Les Paul, and
    I've seen videos from as late as 1984 or so where he's using
    a black Les.
    
    By the way, I own a black Les custom, and love it.  I don't really
    have any problems with smudges.

       
       
       
       
       
       re: smudges - Depends on the finish, I guess...  plastic doesn't
       seem to smudge up as much...and a black axe doesn't attract as
       much attention.  Plastic does seem to generate more of a static
       charge, which in turn collects dust...
       
       
       
       
       

    When I saw the kinks, Dave Davis was using a LP Artisan (sp?),
    which is like a natural walnut finish.

    
       ...latest round of GTS.
    
       ...Dear Santa-
            I would like all the components to build a strat-like
       guitar. I'd like it in black, one pickup in the bridge, one 
       volume control, a Floyd, a compound radius neck and to top 
       it off one of those red smoked mirror pickguards.
            I think that would look killer!
    
    					  	-B()()M-

    Yo Boom, sounds kind of similar to the Strat-style parts guitar I
    bought not long ago.  Black, white pickguard, Warmoth birdseye maple
    neck and fretboard (didn't actually measure to see if it's a compound
    radius, it could be), EMGs (hum/single/single).  Only thing missing is
    the Floyd (and it looks like it had one before)...
    
    Looks, sounds, and plays great (and I got it for a song...)!
    
    Greg