Aging nickel silver parts....

[Possum]

Whats a good method to make bucker baseplates look old? So far I've read that drain cleaners have something that will darken it, antiquing solutions which make it too dark, baking in an oven which hasn't worked very well so far, ferric chloride which ain't so great. Hanging in sulphuric acid fumes? Looking for ideas to make crappy baseplates look like they were done that way on purpose....

[belwar]

Whats a good method to make bucker baseplates look old? So far I've read that drain cleaners have something that will darken it, antiquing solutions which make it too dark, baking in an oven which hasn't worked very well so far, ferric chloride which ain't so great. Hanging in sulphuric acid fumes? Looking for ideas to make crappy baseplates look like they were done that way on purpose....

Someone told me that circuit board etching solution works really well. Never tried it through. Couldn't hurt to try though

[Spence]

Put a load of baseplates under the elastic in your underpants and go jogging.

[Manlius]

I think you can have good results with concrete stain - only takes a couple minutes in the solution. You want to submerge them in the solution, not hang them like with a muriatic acid.

You can find some infor here: http://www.stampcrete.com/patinacharts.htm

I think the English Amber and the Bronze give a nice darker, rusted-aged appearance, but perhaps the browns can get you a darker hue if you prefer that.

The bottles are fairly expensive, but you can keep reusing the solution by pouring it back into the container with a funnel. There is another company making these stains as well, so if stampcrete isn't around you (it was founded here, so I just had to drive down to there HQ) they may well be in your area.

I do stress that the acid works pretty quickly

[madialex]

Put a load of baseplates under the elastic in your underpants and go jogging.

OUCH!!

[John_H]

This guy suggests vapor etching it with ammonia. I searched on "nickel patina"

[Possum]

pc board etchant is ferric chloride. I'm in the hospital now after jogging a mile with 60 plates in my underpants, they said they can sew it back on....

[JGundry]

pc board etchant is ferric chloride. I'm in the hospital now after jogging a mile with 60 plates in my underpants, they said they can sew it back on....

Don't use those baseplates. The pickups will sound like ass.

[JGundry]

pc board etchant is ferric chloride. I'm in the hospital now after jogging a mile with 60 plates in my underpants, they said they can sew it back on....

Don't use those baseplates. The pickups will sound like ass. And for God's sake don't play them through a Mesa Rectoverb.

[belwar]

Don't use those baseplates. The pickups will sound like ass. And for God's sake don't play them through a Mesa Rectoverb.

You son of a b! That made me shoot soda out of my nose!

[Spence]

pc board etchant is ferric chloride. I'm in the hospital now after jogging a mile with 60 plates in my underpants, they said they can sew it back on....

Blimey, you've got a lot of spare room in there Dave.

[Possum]

I didn't put them in back, in front....now I can sing like Robert Plant and have had 3 offers from Zeppelin tribute bands.....

[delb]

i am not sure if this works on chrome but it looks real good on the sadles springs ect on my strat to suspend parts over a steaming pot of vinager with a steel wire, the steel reacts with the vinagar fumes and gets rust, but not real rust, makes the parts look 100 years old but in perfect working condition.

[David Schwab]

i am not sure if this works on chrome but it looks real good on the sadles springs ect on my strat to suspend parts over a steaming pot of vinager with a steel wire, the steel reacts with the vinagar fumes and gets rust, but not real rust, makes the parts look 100 years old but in perfect working condition.

I aged a new polepiece screw to match the rest on a Gibson Tim Shaw pickup that way. It looked just like the rest of them.

[madialex]

Thanks to Spence, this has been the best thread here in a long while

Don't try the down the pants thing if you wear boxers, they all fall out before you even take a step

[Spence]

If you put a couple of baseplates up your exhaust pipe (on the car Dave), the low level ozone does a good job.

[LtKojak]

Looking for ideas to make crappy baseplates look like they were done that way on purpose....

I think if you order'em at Stew-Mac, at least half of'em will ship looking just the way you describe'em... even inside the plastic bags!

Oh, I see... you mean bad looking but not THAT bad looking, I suppose...?

[Possum]

Oh you got those TOO? Mine were thrown into a bag loose with no plastic coverings. they also raised their prices on baseplates, I ordered from AllParts this time, hopefully they will be better...

[LtKojak]

Oh you got those TOO? Mine were thrown into a bag loose with no plastic coverings

I think they've discovered a whole lot of baseplates swimming in dirty water from some flood and they instructed the employees to ship'em roughly 80/20 until supplies last... and yes, I've got most loose with no plastic bag, but I've got some rotten ones INSIDE the plastic bag as well. That's why the effects of a flood came to mind in my case. It took some elbow grease to clean'em up, but I've used'em anyway, so everything was fine.

Now that I've stated this, aside from this particular case, I have nothing but good things to say 'bout Stewmac.

[belwar]

I think they've discovered a whole lot of baseplates swimming in dirty water from some flood and they instructed the employees to ship'em roughly 80/20 until supplies last... and yes, I've got most loose with no plastic bag, but I've got some rotten ones INSIDE the plastic bag as well. That's why the effects of a flood came to mind in my case. It took some elbow grease to clean'em up, but I've used'em anyway, so everything was fine.

Now that I've stated this, aside from this particular case, I have nothing but good things to say 'bout Stewmac.

Agreed. Prompt delivery and very good customer service. Way better than allparts.

I just bought 200 baseplates from stewmac and there were only a few that were oxidized. Now to be fair, I dont know if that came from Stewmac, or the maker Keiyo like that.

Also, stewmac is in the process of upgrading many of thier pickup parts and will be working on some more vintage correct stuff shortly.

[David Schwab]

Agreed. Prompt delivery and very good customer service. Way better than allparts.

Also, stewmac is in the process of upgrading many of thier pickup parts and will be working on some more vintage correct stuff shortly.

Well that's good to hear. I like Stew-Mac also, and have been buying stuff from them for the past 20 or so years.

My only complaint with them is they used to have more bass related parts, like bodies and things, and they should offer a wider range of hardware, like some of the nicer Gotoh stuff.

I've met Dan and he's a real nice guy.

[belwar]

Well that's good to hear. I like Stew-Mac also, and have been buying stuff from them for the past 20 or so years.

My only complaint with them is they used to have more bass related parts, like bodies and things, and they should offer a wider range of hardware, like some of the nicer Gotoh stuff.

I've met Dan and he's a real nice guy.

Everything they do is market driven, and right now the market for some of those parts is very soft. Combine that with the minimum quantities that have to be ordered from overseas, and rapidly fluxing japenese yen, and the general lack of capital, and some parts have to be cut. I think right now they are making good money in tooling. I know as a maker I tend to buy a fair number of small tools from Stewmac, onesie twosie specialty woods from LMI or allied Luthierie (todd there is a great guy and I highly recommend him).

I had a meeting at the namm show with Jay from Stewmac, and they definetly are going to be improving several of their parts. I spoke with them mostly about humbucker parts. I believe that they are going to be carrying better covers, probably better wire, better keepers, wood spacers, etc. We are also working (albeit slowly) on some new HB bobbins - but cash is Sooo tight for everyone. However, remember that with improvement comes cost. It costs money to make non off the shelf parts and I would expect these parts to cost more.

[JGundry]

Here are some tips for light aging with no chemicals. First get a variety pack of Micromesh and a fine 3m scratch pad and #1 course buffing compound. First you want to take the shine off the nickel. Experiment with different grades of micromesh to come up with the dull look you like. The micromesh is good at making random looking scratching. Use the #1 compound to kind of even out the hazy scratched look. If you want to show shiny lines for the strings use 12000 Micromesh to buff those areas. If you can get 12000 Micromesh on a little foam pad or foam stick it makes doing the string lines even easier. if you make is too shiny dull it down with a little #1 compound. Do the buffing with your bare finger. At some point in the process you can drag you keys across the surface to get a few random deep scratches.

If you want to age it further the ozone thing Spence mentioned may be worth a try. I have an ozone generator and experimented with it a bit and it does seem to age it nicely in just a few hours. You can do a little touch up with the 12000 Micromesh and #1 compound after the ozone. I have to work with it more but it seems promising.

I have been doing chemical aging but I think I going to try and get away from it. In general I think the look of chemical aging is too severe. You take a lot of time undoing the severe aging with buffing etc. when you chemical age.

[LtKojak]

Guys, seriously... what's with the aging thing... the relic thing... are people become so gullible that will pay $$$$$$$ for FAKE things from the past?

I hate the whole vintage/aging/relic thing with a passion, but's that's just me. What I'd like to know is if your customers are asking for that kind of thing in flocks and if they do, what's the age group, if any.

In my case, I've been asked a couple of times lately, but I think that the act of refusing threating to bite their heads off might be a valid reason to not being asked anymore...

[Spence]

Guys, seriously... what's with the aging thing... the relic thing... are people become so gullible that will pay $$$$$$$ for FAKE things from the past?

I hate the whole vintage/aging/relic thing with a passion, but's that's just me. What I'd like to know is if your customers are asking for that kind of thing in flocks and if they do, what's the age group, if any.

In my case, I've been asked a couple of times lately, but I think that the act of refusing threating to bite their heads off might be a valid reason to not being asked anymore...

Not everyone likes badly fitting suits and a pork pie hat either but if Kojak wants it and you can make it then why not.

[David Schwab]

Guys, seriously... what's with the aging thing... the relic thing... are people become so gullible that will pay $$$$$$$ for FAKE things from the past?

I hate the whole vintage/aging/relic thing with a passion, but's that's just me. What I'd like to know is if your customers are asking for that kind of thing in flocks and if they do, what's the age group, if any.

In my case, I've been asked a couple of times lately, but I think that the act of refusing threating to bite their heads off might be a valid reason to not being asked anymore...

Amen brother!

My take on the whole thing reminds me of how the used guitar market was before it became the vintage guitar market.

In 1978 you could buy a fairly mint 1972 (or older) Fender or Gibson for a couple of hundred bucks. It was a "used" guitar. Used was never better than new. As the years passed the same Fender became more and more expensive, so the only old guitars you could afford where the ones no one wanted because they were beat to shit! Now it was a vintage guitar, and old was better than new.

As demand outstripped supply, you were left with the crappy looking guitars. But they do look old, so they became popular, and were the only vintage guitars most people could afford or would bother to take out on the road.

I bought a '66 Mosrite Ventures bass back in the early 80's for like $60 because the moron who had it stripped off the sunbust finish and painted it with red latex paint! My almost mint candy apple red Mosrite cost me a lot more money, but was still only $350. I later sold that one for $1500. I have a friend who has a '65 Fender Strat that he had since it was new. I think it's worth about $20,000 at this point.

So if you want an old looking guitar, you have to have a fake one!

I think the other thing was it allowed Fender and Gibson to sell scratched and dented models. They beat them up a little more and sell them at a premium! As the old saying goes, "there's a sucker born every minute". The best one is the unfinished/unsanded raw wood Les Paul thing. Right off the CNC carver to you!

I think it's pretty dumb myself. Clever marketing though. I bet the guy at Gibson got a promotion for that one! They do less work and make more money.

[soundmasterg]

Agreed. Prompt delivery and very good customer service. Way better than allparts.

I just bought 200 baseplates from stewmac and there were only a few that were oxidized. Now to be fair, I dont know if that came from Stewmac, or the maker Keiyo like that.

Also, stewmac is in the process of upgrading many of thier pickup parts and will be working on some more vintage correct stuff shortly.

Competition from mojo driving that you think? I've gotten lots of stuff from Stew Mac in the past and they're usually great.

Greg

[kevinT]

That is good to hear that stewmac is upgrading some parts. I don't use anything from stewmac anymore (buckers) except the bobbins sometimes. They're the same as allparts. Their keeper bars are useless.

The one thing the erks me is their baseplates don't have a clean bend on one side and the edge is rounded instead of a nice clean bend. The material is nice though. I use them for prototyping. But that edge just drives me crazy.

[Possum]

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for stewmac to "upgrade their parts." They told me that 2 years ago and nothing at all changed. They were talking about having PAF repro covers, and they never got those etc. etc. I hope so but doubt it. Yeah they're service is great but those baseplates are alot more expensive than AllParts now and they're the same I think...

[Satamax]

Whats a good method to make bucker baseplates look old? So far I've read that drain cleaners have something that will darken it, antiquing solutions which make it too dark, baking in an oven which hasn't worked very well so far, ferric chloride which ain't so great. Hanging in sulphuric acid fumes? Looking for ideas to make crappy baseplates look like they were done that way on purpose....

Hydrochloric acid fumes under a bucket.

[kevinT]

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for stewmac to "upgrade their parts." They told me that 2 years ago and nothing at all changed. They were talking about having PAF repro covers, and they never got those etc. etc. I hope so but doubt it. Yeah they're service is great but those baseplates are alot more expensive than AllParts now and they're the same I think...

I believe allparts and stewmac were getting their baseplates from different vendors in the past. Allparts' baseplates never had the rounded bottom corner on thier baseplates. I've bought different batches from SM and each time they had that funky bend on the bottom. I haven't bought any recently so they might have corrected them.

Last time that I bought covers from SM they were using Schaller covers.

[belwar]

Last time that I bought covers from SM they were using Schaller covers.

Thats changing within a few months.

[David Schwab]

I think right now they are making good money in tooling. I know as a maker I tend to buy a fair number of small tools from Stewmac, onesie twosie specialty woods from LMI or allied Luthierie (todd there is a great guy and I highly recommend him).

Yeah, I mostly buy tools from Stew-Mac, and I have several pounds of their fretwire in several sizes. I was using LMI's truss rods and was getting slotted fingerboards from them also. I remember when Todd was with LMI. I mostly buy wood right from lumber yards, but it's getting harder to find the nicer figured woods. We have so much wood stock piled at the workshop that I wouldn't need to buy any more maple for the rest of my life! lol

[LtKojak]

Yeah, I mostly buy tools from Stew-Mac, and I have several pounds of their fretwire in several sizes

Hey David!

I'd like to ask you... how's the Stew-Mac fretwire? I've never used it myself. and asking 'round here most luthiers say that it's OK but a bit weak, that doesn't hold for very long compared with Dunlop fretwire.

My take is that here people buy Dunlop fretware only because is already cut in 24 pieces and curved.

Well?

[belwar]

Hey David!

I'd like to ask you... how's the Stew-Mac fretwire? I've never used it myself. and asking 'round here most luthiers say that it's OK but a bit weak, that doesn't hold for very long compared with Dunlop fretwire.

My take is that here people buy Dunlop fretware only because is already cut in 24 pieces and curved.

Well?

The dunlop is nice, but expensive. If you are buying bulk, may I recommend Dae Hung in korea. Great quality and tons of sizes to choose from. They cut all the sets to length and file back the tangs of every fret for me. Great prices too. The stuff is hard and wears quite slowly, but can still be "bent" to the fretslot without a ton of raised ends.