Aging a 57 Classic Cover

[Possum]

...

Well I finally got pushed into this relic cover thingy. I figured a real simple way to do an exact version of a real aged Gibson cover, but the problem is that nickel plated covers have copper underneath the plate which PAF's didn't so you do your aging tricks and the copper starts to show through, barf.
So here's my version of an aged cover, authentic its not but beats the new shiny look :-)
Different manufacturer's cover respond differently to aging techniques I found out as well. Ideally you would plate a raw nickel silver cover, polish then age it.....

[David Schwab]

Anyone know a quick way to get pole screws rusty?

I rewound my friend's '81 Shaw pickup, and seem to have misplaced one screw.

I have screws that look the same, but they are too new looking.

[greenfingers]

you can rub it a bit with some 1200 wet dry paper, put it in some malt vinager to get any oil from you fingers off, and then put it on a window ledge out side and spray it with some water and leave it. Mother nature is your freind when it comes to rust

[jonson]

quick rust

In reply to you David as Greenfingers said rub with a bit of wet and dry and get rid of plating then mix 1 to 1 white vinager with household bleach in a jar with a screw top lid. Outside if you can and don't sniff the chlorine fumes. Best not in your workshop as all your tools will rust. hang the screws for 20 mins inside on a piece of wire put lid on as well and then remove but don't handle untill you have run them under some water and let them dry. Can achieve quite a heavy rusting this way.

[EFK]

In regards all of the formulas which involve adding vinegar or some other acidic substance to bleach - the bleach being a strong oxidizer is what is really doing the work. You can obtain equally effective results by simply using it solo. Try heating the bleach and suspending the part to be rusted in it as well, although it is easy to go overboard there: in my 'day job' I frequently need to add a lot more than 40-50 years!

You can also scuff up the screw head, degrease (alcohol, lacquer thinnner etc.), brush on bleach or other corrosive agent (I use a ferric nitrate solution for a lot of things, which involves nitric acid) and stick the screws in a wood 'keeper' i.e. a wood block w/ six holes to stand the screws upright. Stick this keeper w. treated screws in a small tupperware container (@8-10" square, 6" deep), add a little tin or little plastic container w/ a few tablespoons of water in it, seal the container w/lid, and stick the whole thing in front of a light bulb until you see condensation on the inside of the container (@ and hour or two). Turn off the bulb for an hour, then turn it on again for another hour or so. Turn it off and leave overnight WITHOUT OPENING. You will have beautiful rust in the morning. Gently heat the screws, dunk in ammonia and repeat a few times to kill the corrosiveness (otherwise they'll keep rusting heavily) and oil. Done. This process can be accomplished in 24 hours.

[Joe Gwinn]

Anyone know a quick way to get pole screws rusty?

I rewound my friend's '81 Shaw pickup, and seem to have misplaced one screw.

I have screws that look the same, but they are too new looking.

One traditional approach is to soak in urine held in a glass jar.

[spud1950]

What is Pickling? Comes in a powder? Add water? Put in a crock pot,full tilt, several times?

It's this stuff. Sparex is the most common brand.

http://www.rainbowsupply.com/detail....DUCT_ID=45.128

A word of caution. I've had a lot of expirience using it for jewelry. For use with non ferrous metals only. Any metal containing iron coming in contact with it causes a chemical reaction that deposits a layer of copper plating over the piece and it's really hard to get off.Even if the piece in the solution is non ferrous,if you put any ferrous metal in with it, it will deposit a copper plating on it. Use plastic tongs or some other such plastic implement to put pieces in and take them out.

[NightWinder]

.>?*7!QE

Just don't poison youself with all those chemicals. Or your customers.

[MattT]

I don't relic any of my stuff and my sweat takes care of covers...but at my day job I have access to big vats of: Phosphoric Acid (for passivating carbon steel), Nitric Acid (for passivating stainless), Oakite (Alum/Copper/Brass/Bronze brightener), as well as a couple of different 'mixes' of Nitric/Sodium Dichromate (different specs for different types of stainless). We also have vats of hot Caustic and also use Hydrofluoric in small batches for extra tough jobs. We also have several Ultrasonic cleaners at a few different frequencies/power levels (i.e. aggressiveness)...and an Electro-polisher that uses Orthophosphoric acid. We even use Simple Green to clean out diesel tanks...actually Simple Green is pretty damn aggressive, I wonder if it would work?

[Possum]

...

Actually the copper plating/sparex thing only copper plates if you've been pickling sterling silver in the pickle pot. Sparex removes firescale, which is basically oxidized copper, so the more you pickle the more your pickle pot turns into a copper solution. Putting any ferrous metal in it does some kind of chemical reaction and plates the copper in solution to the ferrous metal. clean new sparex solution has no copper in it so that won't happen. I did try the pickle thing with pickup covers and basically it doesn't do anythng useful. Sparex is the same chemical they use in adjusting PH in swimming pools, alot cheaper to buy it that way :-)

[Joe Gwinn]

Actually the copper plating/sparex thing only copper plates if you've been pickling sterling silver in the pickle pot. Sparex removes firescale, which is basically oxidized copper, so the more you pickle the more your pickle pot turns into a copper solution. Putting any ferrous metal in it does some kind of chemical reaction and plates the copper in solution to the ferrous metal. clean new sparex solution has no copper in it so that won't happen. I did try the pickle thing with pickup covers and basically it doesn't do anythng useful. Sparex is the same chemical they use in adjusting PH in swimming pools, alot cheaper to buy it that way :-)

It's the same reaction one gets when immersing an iron object in copper sulfate.

[Possum]

....

yeah, when the pickle gets really saturated with copper it turns a nice blue. I did silversmithing and some gold work for about 7 years. I forget the name of the stuff sodium bisulfide or something like that, you can buy a big jar of it for way cheaper than Sparex and its the same thing...

Here's an archive of my old website, I had the first art jewelry website on the internet in '94....

[David Schwab]

In reply to you David as Greenfingers said rub with a bit of wet and dry and get rid of plating then mix 1 to 1 white vinager with household bleach in a jar with a screw top lid. Outside if you can and don't sniff the chlorine fumes. Best not in your workshop as all your tools will rust. hang the screws for 20 mins inside on a piece of wire put lid on as well and then remove but don't handle untill you have run them under some water and let them dry. Can achieve quite a heavy rusting this way.

This worked very well... thanks for the tip!

I first abraded the screw with some 600 grit wet-or-dry (I used that grit because I had a small piece sitting in my electronic tools box, I'm sure slightly coarser would have worked faster) to take the shine off. I don't think I removed much plating, if any. I also scuffed up the slot with a chisel and a jeweler's file, squirted it with water, and hung it in a small container over the vinegar/bleach mixture.

After a short time you could see the rust forming. After about an hour it had turned the mixture a rusty color, as it dripped off the screw. Most of the rust washed right off the screw, but it did make it match the rest of them.

Can you spot which screw it is?

[kevinT]

looks nice david....there is nothing like a naturally-aged bobbin....

[TD_Madden]

This worked very well... thanks for the tip!

I first abraded the screw with some 600 grit wet-or-dry (I used that grit because I had a small piece sitting in my electronic tools box, I'm sure slightly coarser would have worked faster) to take the shine off. I don't think I removed much plating, if any. I also scuffed up the slot with a chisel and a jeweler's file, squirted it with water, and hung it in a small container over the vinegar/bleach mixture.

After a short time you could see the rust forming. After about an hour it had turned the mixture a rusty color, as it dripped off the screw. Most of the rust washed right off the screw, but it did make it match the rest of them.

Can you spot which screw it is?

Far right?