Complete at last - Esquire Build - Aged finish haters look away

lamf68

I have recently finished an Esquire build that I had every intention of keeping, It has been 3 years in the making, it's been a multitude of colours and the neck was an experimental piece for me to use new methods to check the lacquer. It's an Allparts soft V 7.25" radius with a Tusq Nut, the body is a guitar build job If I remember rightly, but it maybe a Mexican Tele(I had 4 that I  was working on at the same time and I've no idea which one was which)...It's got a Dimarzio Tru-Velvet pup in there, all the hardware has also been part of my experimental Hydrochloric Acid aging...The Loom was built by Marc at Mojo pickups and has a pair of Jookys signature PIO caps in it, I do still have to attach the jack socket in it, just haven't got around to doing it. Finish was done by staining the wood initially with iron oxide before a white primer was laid down and a Crescent Bronze Copper coat with 3 tinted clear coats and a few pure clears. Checked and aged not too over the top based on a few custom shop jobbies I found online.

DrBob

And that's the finish for my next build right there !
Or maybe the Burgundy Mist ...
Another awesome guitar Rich

DrBob

Nope, looking at it again, definitely the crescent bronze. Stunning colour

Aidanspaghetti

Excellent!

samzadgan

wow man...that looks amazing!

jd0272

Matey, that is pure porn.

impmann

Wow

ThePrettyDamned

Lovely work man.

Using thus as inspiration for my thinline. Might have to message you at some point for tips, particularly gently ageing nickel hardware.

axisus

Very nice! Right up my street.

ThePrettyDamned

Yup, I'll ask.

How did you age your hardware? I want very mild ageing, so whatever you've done but less of it.

Currently, I've very gently scratched it up a little, polished it back up and then left a load of sweaty paw prints on it out in the garage. Wondering if I can speed things along, it doesn't take long to age nickel naturally but still...

Rickyd

Very nice, especially loving that neck and headstock, superb.

lamf68

Hydrochloric acid in a tub, about 3mm in the bottom, then float another smaller tub inside that one and dump All The hardware inside the dry one. Lid on the whole thing and left it 24 hours before removing it and dropping the parts out into another tub with bicarbonate of soda and water mixed up in. Out of there to dry with a blast of wd40 on the tuners to expel as much moisture from the mechanism as possible and bobs your uncle... I tried checking the stuff every 20 minutes or so at first but it was like watching a kettle. I gave up and thought at worst I'd end up having to buy new parts..the bridge took a lot longer than the tuners as the nickel coating on the tuners was obviously thinner and 1 tuner lost a but too much of the coating but it still came out better than I'd imagined. I'm showing any old shit in the tub even now, anything metal is getting rammed in just for experimental purposes.

ThePrettyDamned

Cool, cheers mate. Was worried you'd say acid fumes, but hey ho. I'll probably do mine the old fashioned way - sweaty hands and lots of use. Nickel usually takes me a couple of months before it's dulled a bit, so I'll start there and see how it goes.

If not, I'll try acid

Gassage

10/10

Brilliant.

capo4th

Great colour

lamf68

DrBob;670382" said:

Nope, looking at it again, definitely the crescent bronze. Stunning colour

Rob, I've got another shade of copper which is more like a copper pipe if that makes sense, another stunning colour. I've bought so much of this powder ive enough for probably 100 bodies in each shade. 4 different shades of gold and proper Inca silver from powder. All a slight swine to work with but the finish is above anything ready mixed, I've never seen Metallics look so vibrant.

DrBob

lamf68;671042" said:

[quote="DrBob;670382"]Nope, looking at it again, definitely the crescent bronze. Stunning colour

Rob, I've got another shade of copper which is more like a copper pipe if that makes sense, another stunning colour. I've bought so much of this powder ive enough for probably 100 bodies in each shade. 4 different shades of gold and proper Inca silver from powder. All a slight swine to work with but the finish is above anything ready mixed, I've never seen Metallics look so vibrant.

[/quote]

I totally get what you're saying and I think that 'Copper Pipe' sounds amazing. Only slight delay is that I'm currently working to earn the money to pay to get the body made but I won't get paid until the end of July so it will be a while..

lamf68

Whenever you're ready Rob. I'm away for most of July anyway so it'll time just nice.

WezV

the body crazing looks really good

have you tried ageing the metal particles in this style of finish yet... the way they go when  the lacquer wears away

I am talking about the green you get on some copper danelectros and a lot of gold tops

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/9b/62/c2/9b62c2018e2b5a05922558fb6dfec066.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g52/chriscanada/DSC03492.jpg

lamf68

WezV said:

the body crazing looks really good

have you tried ageing the metal particles in this style of finish yet... the way they go when  the lacquer wears away

I am talking about the green you get on some copper danelectros and a lot of gold tops

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g52/chriscanada/DSC03492.jpg

Wez, I've tried this mate, but to no great effect, I've managed to get my powders to go green a little but nothing as drastic as that, would you happen to know ho to do it?

Wazmeister

@iamf68 - now THAT'S what a geetar should look like ! Stonking job mate !