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This is probably a bit of a nerdish question but does anyone know any details about the colour that Bruce had the 59 resprayed in? It does not seem to be fiesta red or any of the common variations.
And does anyone know what type of paint used? It does not seem like its painted in Nitro as they would wear off at certain places as much as that guitar has been used. Same as Hanks Signature strats. I know several of them are with Polyurethane instead of Nitrocellulose.

Because many have said the original Strat was 'pink' some recent manufacturers have literally sprayed their instruments a sort of pink colour (red with quite a bit of white) however it seems the original Strat was a sort of magenta/red colour (magenta is basically a red with blue added) with a very small touch of white. If you view the ITV News at 10 video you can see what the original colour roughly was, i.e. not fiesta red. The video link is on this site.

As far as I recall (I have a copy somewhere near here), the recent ITN news item did not show 34346 in colour except in its relatively recent red re-finish (recent from 1983, that is!). The re-finish is not claimed to represent the original 1959 finish.

Earlier in the year, I had an interesting chat with the chap who arranged the refin of 34346 on Bruces behalf back in the 80's.

He said there were remnants of the original red colour in the neck pocket, so the idea was to use this to match the new colour. He also made a discrete mark in the neck pocket to ensure that he got the original body back from the spray shop! Apparently, when the body came back, although close, the colour match was not exact. The guitar was nonetheless put back together and setup, then returned to Bruce. Shortly after, Bruce used the guitar whilst wearing a white suit which was ruined by paint transfer from the Strat. The guitar was therefore returned with the comment that "it's the wrong colour and has messed up my suit", so it was once again stripped and re-sprayed.

As to the colour, I'm sure I've read elsewhere that Fender refer to it as "Custom Red", however the colour has been the subject of much discussion here in the past, so I stand to be corrected.

Cliff

Cliff,

The term 'Custom Red' was not applied to the repainted 59 Strat but to the so-called 'Oasis' Strat which was the product of a special run of 54 instruments commissioned by Howard Gillespie at Oasis Musical Instruments of Ringwood intended to replicate exactly the original '59 Strat. The run was issued to celebrate the Shadows' 50th Anniversary. Number 20 is available with details of the specification at Howard's website https://www.oasismusic.co.uk/acatalog/U ... itars.html

Cheers,

Ian

Ian,

Thanks for that . I knew I'd heard the term somewhere, and I've spent many a happy hour drooling over the "Oasis" Strat so that would make perfect sense. Everyday is a school day as they say .

Cliff

No worries Cliff,

It's just the "2149556" time it's mentioned here
Look at my avatar nuf said

That custom red came about on memory vapours of the guy's that surrounded the 343436 at that time.
Hank gave his OK about the colour by phone and whet the adventure started Fender ordered that colour outside the normal or custom line.
Matter a fact one guitar got lost between the store and the customer and ended in a postcentre in east Europe....the case returned without guitar .
So Fender made a extra one...... not that long ago one got quiet damaged and Greg the master builder who create all, had to go to his private workshop to pickup the last mixed paint of that batch.

Last few years sometimes Roman red turned up as a potential good colour and some folks doubt the that custom red is what it was for real.

So it's a never ending story and the time all this is discussed could be used for better use....like playing that thing....


Cheers Rob