Foto Flame Orville, LOL.........

MIJvintage · Jan 16, 2008

This one has a 'foto flame' top, being passed off as a, "beautiful Flame Maple top"

buyer beware................

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=170186114984&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=007

leadguitar_323 · Jan 16, 2008

G'day Mij, mate i hate to sound a bit naive but what exactly is "foto flame", i've heard the term a lot before but never looked into it.
Please enlighten me..

Cheers Mick

hawkeye2u · Jan 17, 2008

It's not even Orville By Gibson!!
Just an Orville, I'd be careful, seller sounds a bit sus to me IMHO

twinfan · Jan 17, 2008

It's a beautiful photo though. Most of them are the big wide flame photos, not this great vintage-y style...

Anonymous · Jan 17, 2008

leadguitar_323 said:
G'day Mij, mate i hate to sound a bit naive but what exactly is "foto flame", i've heard the term a lot before but never looked into it.
Please enlighten me..

Cheers Mick

Fender use the term fotoflame on some Strats (MIJ I think) that have some sort of photo of flamed maple on the top to make it look like proper flamed maple. Not sure what they use for the photo - maybe it's just paper? But some of them look quite good, if you like the look of flamed tops on a Strat. Personally I don't.

I haven't heard of them being used on Gibson type guitars, but it seems fairly obvious that someone would try. But how do you tell it's a fotoflame?

Mike

togps · Jan 17, 2008

leadguitar_323 said:
G'day Mij, mate i hate to sound a bit naive but what exactly is "foto flame", i've heard the term a lot before but never looked into it.
Please enlighten me..

Cheers Mick

It is only a coated picture over the wood top .. like a wallpaper

leadguitar_323 · Jan 17, 2008

Thanx guys...

i didn't think orvilles ,especially long tenon orvilles had foto flame tops, veneer maybe but not foto?????

Mick

MIJvintage · Jan 17, 2008

Here's a shot with the Fender Foto Flame trademark & the smiling hamburglar

The term Foto Flame is a patented & trademarked term used by Fender Japan.
It is a very thin (1-2 mils) transparent film of a photograpghic image that has been scanned from actual wood samples.
It gives the image of flamed maple.

It can also be seen on some Orville & Epiphone Lesters in particular, and also other makes of guitars.

I don't care for it myself but some people don't mind it; it just looks too cheesy, IMO................

MIJvintage · Jan 17, 2008

hawkeye2u said:
It's not even Orville By Gibson!!
Just an Orville, I'd be careful, seller sounds a bit sus to me IMHO

LOL, please don't kid yourself; you obviously never had your hands on "just an Orville" as some examples are completely bitchin guitars

I have actually seen & played several Orville examples that are constructed with better specs & that are better guitars, than some OBG models

You can't just generalize away the quality of the lowly "just Orvilles"

Now the fake flame is something all together different :lol: ...............

MIJvintage · Jan 17, 2008

stratman323 said:
leadguitar_323 said:

G'day Mij, mate i hate to sound a bit naive but what exactly is "foto flame", i've heard the term a lot before but never looked into it.
Please enlighten me..

Cheers Mick

Click to expand...

Fender use the term fotoflame on some Strats (MIJ I think) that have some sort of photo of flamed maple on the top to make it look like proper flamed maple. Not sure what they use for the photo - maybe it's just paper? But some of them look quite good, if you like the look of flamed tops on a Strat. Personally I don't.

I haven't heard of them being used on Gibson type guitars, but it seems fairly obvious that someone would try. But how do you tell it's a fotoflame?

Mike

dead giveaways for photo flame tops
1. flame pattern is 100% symetrical with little or no variation in sides
2. no opposing light/dark in flame patterns
3. it all looks the same i.e. no variation in light response
4. looks very thin and dead, with a grayish tent/tone

a veneer has more depth, and veneers some times can look pretty lame

Anonymous · Jan 17, 2008

So Fender Japan even use fotoflame on necks?

Wow, I never knew that... :-?

MIJvintage · Jan 17, 2008

stratman323 said:
So Fender Japan even use fotoflame on necks? Wow, I never knew that... :-?

the above pictured example is from 1994, and most of the examples I have played usually have a somewhat larger neck profile than the UNfoto flamed examples

Anonymous · Jan 17, 2008

MIJvintage said:
most of the examples I have played usually have a somewhat larger neck profile than the UNfoto flamed examples

That's two good reasons to avoid them then

JohnA · Jan 17, 2008

I had a foto-flame strat about 15 years ago and loved the look of it, it came with Japanese pickups that sounded awful though.

The neck was big, but that's how I like them.

japanstrat · Jan 19, 2008

The Orville foto-flames were all made by FujiGen (no G or J letter in the serials) starting in 1993 (1993/1994 is when they first appear in OBG catalogs and the earliest serials I've seen are 1993) and probably going up till 1998. The model name was LPS-80F and sold for 80,000 yen.
IMO foto-flames have a false sort of look like fake breast enlargements.

leadguitar_323 · Jan 19, 2008

I know which ones i prefer..!!!

Mick

MIJvintage · Jan 19, 2008

japanstrat said:
The Orville foto-flames were all made by FujiGen (no G or J letter in the serials) starting in 1993 (1993/1994 is when they first appear in OBG catalogs and the earliest serials I've seen are 1993) and probably going up till 1998. The model name was LPS-80F and sold for 80,000 yen.
IMO foto-flames have a false sort of look like fake breast enlargements.

So would this (LPS-90FT) represent a laminate top?
The top on this one did not have that fake 'foto flame' look.........

japanstrat · Jan 20, 2008

Do you mean this one http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=52952&sid=03f325223f2d8e4f9b8e2be231d4b4d5

it's similar to

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=170186114984&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=007

I don't think the Epiphone Japan LPS-90FT is a real maple veneer/laminate top, not for 90,000 Yen. The price is only 10,000 Yen more than the Orville foto flames which were 80,000 Yen.
Some foto flames are really obvious like the Orville LPS-80F and some foto flames aren't that obvious, I think the Orville LPS-80QF is not as obvious a foto flame as the Orville LPS-80F.

The Orville foto flames were LPS-80F, LPS-80QF F=flame, QF-quilt flame?

Looks like they increased the price by 10,000 Yen for the Epiphone LPS-90FT FT=flame tiger? flame top?

Anonymous · Jan 20, 2008

The seller of this Strat body claims that it isn't a fotoflame:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280193769653&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=018

but surely it is? If it's not a fotoflame, it would have to be a very thin maple veneer in order to fit around the curves and contours of a Strat body

japanstrat · Jan 20, 2008

Looks like a foto flame to me but I suppose it could be a veneer with the black paint on the sides covering the seams.

The Maple that is used for genuine flame/quilt tops comes from the stressed part of the Maple tree and is therefore more rare than ordinary Maple grains.
So guitar companies sometimes cut a piece of genuine flame/quilt Maple into thin slices then put the thin slice on top of an ordinary looking thicker piece of Maple.
Genuine full thickness flame/quilt Maple is only going to be on higher priced guitars because of it being quite rare compared to ordinary Maple.
Foto flames are really like putting wallpaper with a nice pattern over the top of ordinary looking Maple.

Sometimes it's hard to tell genuine flame/quilt Maple from foto flames just by looking at images.

Foto Flame Orville, LOL.........

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