Help! - Pink Tele! - advice on 'shell' or 'paisley' options?

[telepath]

Hi,

I have a (very!) pink one ..
Tele that is ..

Its a T-style copy - unsure of 'breed' as headstock had been sanded a little. It may have been a 'Wesley', FWIW.
Hardware has been mildly modded a little since the pic below, but the colour is the same and I essentially can put it back to 'standard' tele set-up.

Question is re the colour.
I assume its a poly finish, its thick and shiny.

I'd like to do one of two things!

1. soften and lighten the finish to closer to a 'shell pink' - or close enough.
or
2. put a paisley pattern ('decal' - if such a thing exists) on top of it.

In natural light its not far of the base colour of a Paisley Fender.

How might I go about option 1. ?
(I really wouldnt mind at all if it ended up looking a little roadworn in the process ;) )

and is option 2. a possibility for a relative novice at finishing?
(I'm fairly competent and patient)

Pic below of what the finish looks like from a photo I took prior recent (reversible) hardware mods:


Any advice would be real appreciated.
Thanks!

[varakeef]

There's no Paisley stickers or decals commercially available. There's however some guys who try to sell Paisley papers around 100 buck a sheet.

Then there's an option to make the sticker yourself, stick it on silvery or golden backing glued on guitar and then clear coat it.

Which is what I did...


I got the pattern from the scan of original guitar, made a file and got it printed on clear window sticker at the local shop for 15 euros a sheet (and after I printed some more the price dropped to 12 euros). The backing is gift wrap paper, cost around 3 euros per 3 metres...

[telepath]

Looks good!

Thanks for that varakeef,

I did imagine that 'paisley-ing' might be a bit of a job, perhaps a bit much for me.

So I guess what I want to do, is 'lighten' up the current pink finish.

Still looking for a bit of advice here then !

if I sand it flat, and then tint it with a milky clear coat, and then flat that back a bit, would that get closer to shell pink (from a kind of 'pepto bismol' pink)?

Any assistance greatly appreciated.

Thanks!