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Hello, All
I've spent a lot of time today trying to design a label for my first guitar. Do you guys all make your own? Do you use self adhesive labels or glue them in? Any special kind of paper used to print them on?

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Hesh--that's a fine looking label.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Great Looking label Hesh.

Ron, like Hesh said, check the free downloads.

I paid a desinger to help me with mine. You can see them in this thread

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

[QUOTE=Hesh1956] So I found a girlfriend who has artistic ability AND a copy of Paintshop Pro [/QUOTE]

That's great Hesh, where did you find her, I could use a girlfriend like that, but I don't think my wife would like it to much.

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Here's mine....



I print them on acid-free paper, just to be safe.

Ron,

Mark the top block ala Martin with stamps or the classier laser marking like Paul and go with a headstock logo. To me, just my opinion, there is nothing that ruins a great looking guitar than that piece of paper glued on the inside. I am of course not consistent as I think they look right on classical guitars!

Sorry one of my hobby horses.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

You can also have a custom branding iron made up at WoodcraftJohn How38696.2202777778

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Hesh, so your full name is Hesh Breakstone? That really lends itself to a great makers name - Heshtone. You are very lucky. I've been racking my brain to come up with a name, "Burns" appears to be taken by some mob in the UK, so I figured I'd use the name of the street I grew up on, but wait, that was "Torres Street" a name used by some spanish bloke. What a dilemma

Great labels guys.

There's a Spanish guitar builder named Torres Street? that's crazy!
If all else fails just revert to your porn name. A little game we would play in college. The first name is the name of your childhood pet and the last name is the street you grew up on. Me: Charlie Chestnut.

No Rian guitars out there before mine as far I know, I got luck with the spelling. Luckily I don't have the most common last name in this country or things would be different; Olsen!Arnt38696.6215162037

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

[QUOTE=Pwoolson] There's a Spanish guitar builder named Torres Street? that's crazy!
If all else fails just revert to your porn name. A little game we would play in college. The first name is the name of your childhood pet and the last name is the street you grew up on. Me: Charlie Chestnut. [/QUOTE]

Paul, mine would be Zac Deronda. Now that does sound sleazy!

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Kiwi Gawain.

Ugggghhhh   

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

YOu can buy software at office supplies stores very cheap for designing business cards. This will at least help you get started with a label and if you like it then just print it off on some card stock.   

Paul, mine would be "Rex Delwood" ....hows that for a lounge lizzard name

here's one I used for my first few guitars. I've used a slightly differnt one recently. Printed up on parchment. It was designed in a software package called "Instant Artist", which is old & not on my current pc.

The picture below is a scan, and I digitally removed the (parchment)color, and touched ip some areas. It's not camera ready, just serving as a template to remake in some other software package when I get around to upgrading.

.

Terry Stowell38697.8706597222

How are people glueing the Labels in. I've been using Hide glue recently but still not 100% happy with the results.

Hi guys,

Here's the one I plan to use on my 4th guitar (in the works). The guitar's decoration & appointments will all be in the Art Nouveau style and the label is as well. I plan to print this on a very elegant, mottled amber-colored stock.

Skip

Cool Skip! I like that, show us a pic with the cool paper.
Where'dya get the graphic from?

Hi Terry,

I like your label too. It has the look of money! By that I mean it's really elegant & professional looking.

I got my label graphic of the Art Nouveau frame from a Dover Electronic Clip Art book. It includes a CD-Rom with all the book's pictures collected in several different graphics formats. $ 15 but it's got lots of good inspiration-graphics for the other guitar details too.

I don't have our digital camera right now - my wife has it at work - but the paper is parchment-like in look & feel & a pretty amber color.

By stupid mistake I chanced upon a really cool way to glue in the labels. I let the inkjet printed label dry for an hour, then flood the paper with thin CA. The ink doesn't run!! Then I put the label in place on the inside back & add more CA if necessary for good full adhesion. The CA makes this particular paper (and probably others) look kinda old & almost translucent. This is NOT how an archivist would approach attaching a label & if the CA doesn't self-destruct after a decade or so, the crappy ink probably will. Oh well, I wasn't destined for luthiere fame anyway.

I like the idea of using a different looking label that suits each different guitar. Not something the professional luthiers here would probably want to consider, but I build two guitars a year so far on average. I can afford the time to spend on a different matching label for each.

Cheers,
SkipSkip Beach38698.0035069444

As known to most of you. I Custom design and produce label art for my self and others. Lance uses my labels at present. Here is mine

Here is mine - thanks to Michael!

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

I really like that watermark approach. I think it would REALLY be cool to have a pic of the guitar being built as the watermark. Kind of a "one-off" like Skip's approach.

I'm inspired!

Great looking labels, guys. I just cobbled up a quickie label using WordPerfect, high-rag content paper and a laser printer. It works:



But I plan to improve it. You guys have given me a few ideas.

I secure my labels with a small dab of Titebond on each corner.

Oh, the pets and streets thing -- I've always found that to be pretty humorous:

Taffy McAvoy
Toni Carnell
Spikey Soneto
Dusty Oaks

(there's more -- we have and have had a lot of pets)

Best,

Michael
Michael McBroom38698.5078009259

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Live to Play, Play to Live