Relicing a Stratocaster

[Guitar-Sam]

Have any of you who have reliced your guitars had trouble finding the words to explain to your family why your guitar is on that kitchen table covered in coffea grounds.
I'm just finding this funny right now as I'm doing it as we speak/type.

[Mars Hall]

I go the "all natural" method. I play them.

[Guitar-Sam]

Me too usually but my partscaster is vintage parts with a brand new shiny white pickguard that just looks soooo outta place.
Well anyways after 15hrs of soaking in a brew of super balck coffea with the grounds in it I pulled my parts out..........AND There still shiny white!!!!!!

[guns4hire34]

1000 grit wet & dry is just the ticket!!!!!! takes the shiny right out !!!!!

[NY Chief]

Put a mint green pickguard on thar!

[gutpile]

bake it in the oven @ 425 for 6 or 7 minutes!!

[Guitar-Sam]

I roughed it up and used a wash of brown buzz bomb primer on a rag.Come out nice wish I thought of it befor I wasted all the Maxwell House.lol
Then I wacked it a few times with my keys.

[Guitar-Sam]

Now if the body were a little more dinged up and yellowed it would look just like Yngwie's Duck strat.
Weres my chisel set......... ....... I'm scared of that part though ,its not like I can get a replacement for $18 like a pickguard,if I screw it up.Hell the way I lean my guitars on everything everywere it'll relic itself in about 2yrs anyway .

[HARLEYIII]

I just play mine, plus I smoke 2 packs of Marlboro Reds a day. My ESP/ LTD Viper (Yeah, Its a cheap Korean turd, but rivals alot of "real" SG's I've played, and only cost $500.00) used to be olympic white. It's now cancer yellow. It's only 4 years old, and looks 10

[xbearxau]

Dont be scared to give it a go. I love doing these relics, you just gotta know when to stop. A bunch of keys, a couple of sharpened flat screw drives and some razor blades along with some carefully applied dirty sump oil and this is what you get................................oh yeah and about 40 hours labour.

[JimiJames]

Muriatic Acid - Hydrochloric Acid
I was a Pipe Fitter for 6 years installing plating lines for the metal finising industry and this seemed to work well for
etching a metal surface...I don't know for sure but, I would personally try it based on what I've seen.

[xbearxau]

Thats what I used to age the metal parts above. Hydro acid and metal fillings mixed together, then that goop was slopped onto the jackplate and left to eat away the chrome. The other metal parts like the switch and strap eyelets were just sprayed with hot very salty water and left to weather for a few days. Another tip.......I got a bag of steel dust and fillings from a local machine shop (cleaned off their lathe), and made a paste out of them with the salty water. After a few days it turns to a rusty slop that you can rub into the surface of the body. Thats how I got the finish inside the pickup cavities and all over the body.

[BrianH]

Me too usually but my partscaster is vintage parts with a brand new shiny white pickguard that just looks soooo outta place.
Well anyways after 15hrs of soaking in a brew of super balck coffea with the grounds in it I pulled my parts out..........AND There still shiny white!!!!!!

The Callaham stuff is really nice. My '55 reissue thin skin Tele's pickguard was just TOO white - the one Callaham sells was a great fit and looks perfect - just off white.

brian

[Guitar-Sam]

Well I ended up relicing the whole body and everything I'm pretty happy the way it turned out.
Befor it looked like I slapped a vintage neck and bridge on a new body(which I did LOL)now it looks like a vintage played to death old strat.
Not something I would normally do but its a MIJ Oly white strat body aged to a canary yellow and being poly it looked wrong with a mid 70s neck and hardware on it.Now it looks like the Duck..........to bad I'm not a huge Malmsteen fan.

[Guitar-Sam]

I FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO POST PICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hell while I'm using my new technical skills,heres the same guitar last ,month befor I reliced it.My strat is on the right the left is my freinds 74' in the studio.