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]

ageing parts

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