This is a tale of obsession….
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ack in the mid 90’s, I stumbled into a big name guitar chain with a friend of
mine. I made my way into the “Vintage Room” or whatever, and noticed a peculiar
looking Stratocaster on the wall. It was a “Relic”, and it had an unusual
finish. I’d seen it on Telecasters, but not Strats. It was kind of white, but
kind of yellow. Difficult to describe. You could see the grain through it, in an
eerie kind of translucent fashion. That was cool, kind of mysterious. It also
had gold hardware, and a tinted maple neck. Somebody called it a “Mary Kaye”.
What, like the cosmetic people? I didn’t get it. Not the nickname, anyway. 
What
I did get was a jones for a guitar that looked like that.
About the same time, I was getting into
Brian Setzer’s kind of guitar playing, and I liked his sound a whole lot. Then I discovered that Warmoth was making
hollow Strat bodies. Wow! What does THAT sound like? I had to find out. So in December of 98, I decided to order one of their hollow Strat bodies in swamp
ash, and I wanted it to look like that guitar I saw, so I checked out their
finish options. One was “Mary Kaye White” and white as a sheet it was – that’s
not what I saw that I dug so much. The closer of the two was “Butterscotch
Blonde”, so I went with it. When I got the body, I was kind of bummed. The color wasn’t exactly what I was looking
for, and you could see every pore in the wood from,
oh, fifty feet away. WRONG. So after living with it
for a while, I decided
to find someone to finish it the way I wanted. I
even brought a great
picture from a Fender catalog to the shop
showing exactly what I had in mind. Two weeks
later, I pick up my now
WHITE guitar, only vaguely see through, from the shop. I’m
told in six months the finish will yellow to the color I want it to be. Now is a
good time to mention that both of these finishes were Polyurethane, which I
never really wanted in the first place. I still loved my guitar though; it was a
unique Strat with a great neck and some killer tone. And super light. But I
wanted it to be my ultimate custom guitar; with all the features I wanted
INCLUDING THE FINISH.
So now it’s November 2001, and the 18 month old finish on my baby is still as white outside of the pickguard as it is underneath. Meanwhile, I’m finally joining the rest of the world and becoming computer literate. I buy my first computer, and I’m taking some classes. I start surfing the net, and HOLY COW!! LOOK AT ALL THE COOL GUITAR SITES!!!!! I keep hearing/reading this name on some of these guys posts, which are usually accompanied by a picture of a pretty cool looking guitar; ReRanch. ReRanch? What’s that? See the little blue bar underneath the name, Tim? That’s called a Hyperlink. If you click on it, you’ll find out.
So how cool is this? There’s this guy in Texas, who mixes up classic Fender colors in nitrocellulose, puts ‘em in aerosol cans, and teaches you how to finish your guitar! Suddenly I was hit by a bolt of lightning.
I NOW KNOW WHAT I MUST DO………
I didn’t want to wreck my main guitar, my pride and joy, what if this is something only some people can do? So I used my Japanese Strat as a guinea pig. If it comes out good, I’M DOING IT. It came out surprisingly good. I got compliments. But I wasn’t totally convinced, so I talked my buddy into letting me refinish a bass body he had lying around in Blonde, to get a feel for it. It came out great. By now I had researched the "Mary Kaye Strat” and learned that it actually had a sort of sunburst finish, basically the center glowed kind of yellow/amber. Yikes, that makes it a little harder, doesn’t it? This is getting stupid, just order the paint and GET ON WITH IT. So I did. And I screwed it up. Not much, but enough. So I stripped it, reordered the paint, and did it again. Tonight as I write this, it’s hanging on the wall behind me, every time I walk by and look at it, I think “I’m so glad I did this”. Thanks, Bill, and all you Reranchers, for helping me accomplish a task and realize a vision. Now I’d like to invite you behind the red curtain for a peek at…….
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