Make a guitar look vintage/old.

[kaos]

I have an old Epiphone Les Paul knockoff, with some nice pick ups in it and nice mechine heads, and all. I want to give it that old vintage look, kinda like the Fender "relics". Any on got any tips on how to do thaT?

To kidna have This kidna look: http://www.chrisguitars.com/fen87strat-sb-relic.jpg

[hartke20g]

you pretty much can't. it's impossible to age a polyeurethane finish. the relics are vintage, and back then guitar companies used nitrocellulose laquer to clear coat it which is a very thin and not-so-strong clear coat, so it rubbed off in common wear areas and yellowed when exposed to UV light and a dirty (smokey) atmosphere. unless you refinish your entire guitar in nitro and wait a few years, you'll never get that look.

hope i didn't crush your dreams too bad. i remember when i foiund this out. that was a bad day.

[kaos]

I'm not sure if mine has a polyurathene finish, its like an 80's guitar.

[hartke20g]

it's most likely a poly finish. they stopped using nitro in the late 70s. plus, if yours is from the 80s and it's not already looking at least close to the one you posted, it's a poly finish.

[kaos]

Oh. Thank you

[Spencer]

Well if its poly don't try to sand it to the wood.... Don't work too well.

[kaos]

wadda ya mean? I'm planning on refinishing mine any way, so howmuch do I sand before I can put a nitro finish on?

[fortyseven]

you'd have to strip it all and repaint it. then cover it in nitro and play very hard for quite a while...

[Dave293]

If you refinish with nitro you can make the finish craze with a can of compressed air.

[kaos]

How far would I strip the wood down, all the way?

[hartke20g]

enough so that there's no paint whatsoever on the entire body.

[Polyamarous]

Tie it to the back of your guitar and drive really fast.

[jordan-z]

I think there was a post a while ago about this.. a bunch of people told a kid to take out all of the electronics and put the bass (guitar in your case) on his roof for a day or two (or howeverlong it took) to get the vintage look... might be worth a try, sounds easier than refinishing:)

[hellonearth07]

hey, anybody know of places to buy nitro to finish a guitar?? i might be building one in the near future and thought after a while it'd look cool when it started wearing better then a poly clear coat

[good rats]

You could always play the guitar and give it a vintage look the right way...with hours of actually playing it instead of worrying what it looks like.

[hartke20g]

You could always play the guitar and give it a vintage look the right way...with hours of actually playing it instead of worrying what it looks like.
like i said, unless it's a nitro finish, that'll never happen. the guitar's wood will rot before poly ages like nitro (or at all).
it's all explained here http://curtisnovak.com/restors/FenderColors/index.shtml

Tie it to the back of your guitar and drive really fast.
wait........what?:p

[pitchfork]

Tie it to the back of your guitar and drive really fast.
Did you mean car?
I didn't know you could drive these guitars, new fangled technology, I wondered what the button that said morph was for.

[Polyamarous]

Yes I meant car! Do'h.

It wan't serious though, it'll rip huge chunks of the wood off.

[motoden]

wear sandpaper on your arm

i'm serious.

[211dave112]

the picture in the first post is an awful example of how relic'ing cand and should be done. it looks really deliberate in that picture.

[hartke20g]

the picture in the first post is an awful example of how relic'ing cand and should be done. it looks really deliberate in that picture.

i think that's an actual relic in that pic.