So, Color Trans Grey Exists in the Catalog?

[claxor]

I've always liked grey-ish patterns, and have been frustrated that dark or black transparent colors in Jackson's custom shop look brownish. Then, I discovered two custom shop guitars that actually look more grey than brown! (I know, I know... you're going to say the photography probably isn't accurate) Well, one of them was shot in the Music Zoo's own studio, and they take damn accurate photos of their guitars, I feel, since I bought one of theirs years ago.

So, what kind of stain is this? (or its actual name) This is S/N J8902:

[claxor]

[Jack Napalm]

It may say trans gray in the catalog but it self identifies as bad ass!

[P I K A]

I've seen trans black look like both black and grey and black and brown. I'm with you the grey looks better. The first one is probably trans black not sure about the 2nd.

[toejam]

I've never seen Jackson say anything about trans gray. Their trans black has looked both gray and brownish at times.

[neilli]

That crop circle guitar was my custom order which I rejected because the colour was nothing like I'd requested, which ironically was 'trans grey'. I'd sent in pics of various guitars I wanted it look look like (PRS, Ibanez etc) but after several attempts it still had that green hue to it which I really dislike. So I passed on it and it was sold as an in-stock guitar, which kind of sucked because I'd spent a lot of time on the specs and it was pretty much perfect otherwise (3 piece neck, crop circles, non recessed trem with rout etc).

What I learned from this experience was that each piece of wood will take stain differently, plus if you want them to match a colour, you need to send it in as a hardcopy picture i.e. don't rely on monitor settings being the same.

For reference, this is the sort of colour I wanted:

[claxor]

Wow, neilli... that's quite the story.

Didn't really see a greenish hue in that guitar, but eye of the beholder I suppose.

Maybe I should just stick with gloss jet black... they can't screw that up (I think)

[JCB RR1]

That color looks like the "Mocha" finish on the standard PC1, which looks like a real "trans black", not the brown "trans black" available on the USA select series.

But it is hard to define the trans colors in general, not only it depends on the wood, but also on the light on which the picture is taken or seen.

[Wizard of Ozz]

Is it for sale?

[claxor]

Is it for sale?

Not that I'm aware of. It was listed as 'sold' on Reverb.

[shreddermon]

What I learned from this experience was that each piece of wood will take stain differently

So true. Even when Jackson gets it spot on, mother nature sometimes says "nope, not on this piece of wood."

[neilli]

Yeah. Just wish they'd been able to either pick wood appropriately, or say from the get-go "this ain't gonna happen, the wood has a green tint so let's come up with some alternative colours that will work with it"..

[Mudlark]

I'll echo the wood is finicky comments, though I suspect this isn't news to any of us. Finicky in more ways than one.

I've got a quarter sawn USA Soloist neck of maple/ebony board that that needs frequent truss adjustments while my flat sawn maple/rosewood combo rarely gets touched.

Same as my rosewood fret board taking multiple coats of stain without issue while others had less than stellar results.

I remember from my days of logging picking up two similar looking pieces of wood from the same species, both 8 feet long, grew right next to each other, and the weight difference could be quite surprising and impossible to explain...other than the possibility the tree was getting more water from the roots than the other tree?
This applies to both hardwoods and softwoods.