Image 1 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Hello and welcome back to “Mod Garage." This month we'll continue with our relic'ing project, taking care of the rest of the hardware: the bridge including its studs and the strap buttons. This is also the first time we'll discuss some possible upgrades regarding the hardware.
Image 2 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
When comparing the strap buttons of our Harley Benton DC-Junior guitar (Image 1) with vintage Gibson Les Paul Junior Double Cut ones (Image 2), it's easy to see they have a slightly different shape and are mounted in a different way. While vintage Juniors have the upper strap button mounted on the back of the guitar, our Harley Benton has it on the upper horn, like a Stratocaster. Regarding balancing the guitar when playing it on a strap, I think this is a good upgrade. But if you want to stay more original, you can relocate the strap button to the back of the guitar, closing the hole on the upper horn if you wish.
The original strap buttons have a slightly different shape, and the early models were made out of aluminum, while the ones on the Harley Benton are metal. You can buy aluminum strap buttons with the original shape from several companies if you wish: the Gibson part number is PREP-020. Personally, I'm fine with the ones on the Harley Benton guitar, but I removed the black felt washers underneath them. Vintage guitars don't have these, and because we'll relic the body of the guitar as well, there's no need to protect the finish in these areas.
Image 3 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
As for the bridge, we have a big difference here. The vintage Gibson has the classic, super-simple, and non-adjustable wraparound-bridge design (Image 3), while the Harley Benton has a wraparound version with six individual adjustable saddles, like a Stratocaster (Image 4).
Image 4 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Regarding tuning, this is a real upgrade, but I think it destroys the appearance of this guitar and its design of simplicity. Besides this, the quality of this bridge is only average. It will work, but there are bridges like this on the market with better design and quality. So, if you like the idea of individual adjustable strings, you can keep this bridge or buy one like it with better quality. The studs have a metric M8 x 1.25 mm thread, and the bridge has a post spacing of 82 mm and a string spread of 52.5 mm.
Image 5 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
I decided to change the bridge for a compensated, non-adjustable wraparound bridge made out of solid aluminum from the KMS company called the “Whiptail" (Image 5). This looks pretty much like the original but is compensated for a better intonation and is a real upgrade regarding tone.
Image 6 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
I also changed the diecast studs for the KMS version made out of steel (Image 6) and incorporated another upgrade: an additional thumbwheel to lock the studs against the bushings. I do this on almost all Gibson-style bridges to enhance tone and stability. The problem is, there are no existing thumbwheels with a M8 thread, so I had to use a standard thumbwheel and modify it to fit. The system behind this is very easy: Simply put the thumbwheel on the studs as high as possible and screw the studs into the bushings before installing the bridge. After adjusting the perfect height of the studs, get the thumbwheel as low as possible and tighten it so it will lock the studs against the top of the bushings (Image 7). Voila! The whole bridge system is as solid as can be now, and you'll instantly recognize how tone and sustain is enhanced on most guitars, so give it a try. I left the original bushings in place to avoid any possible damage on the lacquer when pulling them out to replace them. The factory-equipped ones are okay and will work fine.
Image 7 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
You can use the same relic'ing process we used for the metal parts of the tuners and screws in my previous column, “DIY: Relic'ing Tuners, Part 1," but I'll also show you an alternative way to do this. If you want to keep the stock bridge or change it for a similar type with individual adjustable saddles, it's important to completely disassemble the bridge before you start. At first, have a look at the pics of the original bridge and strap buttons, to get an impression of how they look after 50 years and more. Especially on the vintage bridge (Image 3), you can see there is noticeable wear-off where the strings have contact and that everything looks a bit dull. So, as always, break the shine with fine sandpaper or steel wool. If you want to mimic heavy wear-off on the bridge, use a small file or some sandpaper wound around a toothpick or similar, and rub away the nickel plating at the contact points of the strings. Next, put everything inside our box with the mixture of nails, metal parts, broken glass, gravel, sand, little stones, basalt, etc. and shake the devil out of it to create some nice random scratches, dings, dongs, and bumps. When you're happy with the result, take the parts out of the box and use a soft brush to clean them from dust. If you want, you can use iron (III) oxide (ferric oxide) liquid to create even more patina on some random spots of the hardware and the screws. Don't forget to wear gloves and goggles and to use old newspapers to protect the surface you're working on.
You may have heard of the aging method using hydrochloric acid (aka muriatic acid) for hardware. This is a good alternative for the parts we have in the works now. So, why didn't I mention this earlier? For a very good reason: We started with the metal parts of the tuners, and even if you close the hole in the case carefully, more than enough acid fumes will creep into the guts of the tuner, causing corrosion inside. This often results in non-turning tuners that you'll have to replace. The only procedure that's safe for this is to take the tuners apart and only age the cases. We're talking about a very strong acid, so before we start, here are the basic rules to follow to be safe:
- Always wear acid-resistant gloves, goggles, an apron, and respiratory protection.
- Never do this inside your flat. Do it outside or in very well-ventilated areas.
- Keep away all pets and children from this procedure.
- Always have a bowl of clear water near you to stop the process.
- Never put the parts directly into the acid. Only the fumes of the acid should make contact with the hardware.
- Never put the acid into your sink or outside in a sea, river, etc. This is hazardous waste! For disposal, contact your local acceptance point for hazardous waste.
If you feel unsure about this procedure, stay away from it! The “stone aging" process works well and is not dangerous in any way. Safety first is the prime directive here.
You don't need much for this. First and foremost, you need hydrochloric acid. The highest possible concentration of this acid is 37 percent, but I suggest using a 25 percent concentration or less. As a rule of thumb, think of it this way: less concentration equals longer time to expose the hardware to the fumes, but safer handling. You can dilute hydrochloric acid with cold water if you want to get a softer concentration. Always put the acid into the water, never the other way around! This works pretty well on nickel-plated hardware. A higher concentration will work best for chrome-, gold-, and black-plated hardware.
Image 8 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
We also need to use two plastic boxes that fit into each other, and the biggest one, containing the smaller one, needs a lid (Image 8). Never use any metal or aluminum boxes for this. I recommend using clear plastic boxes so you can see what's going on inside from the outside.
The process works best if you slightly break the shine of the parts with some fine sandpaper or steel wool, and then afterwards clean and degrease them with naphtha. Now put the hardware into the smaller box and the acid into the bigger box. Put the smaller box into the bigger box so it will swim on the acid. Now, close the lid of the bigger box and wait. The fumes of the acid will start the process on the hardware and, depending on the hardware, its plating, and your personal taste, the process can last from a few minutes up to several hours. Check closely for the result, especially when having different kinds of hardware in the box. When you're happy with the result, take the inner box with the hardware out and put the hardware into clear, cold water to stop the process. Afterwards dry it with an old cotton rag or towel, and then you're done!
Again, this is only one way of doing it. You're invited to discuss other options with each other in the comments section online.
Image 9 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Here's the result of the process after breaking the shine, putting it in the aging tumbler for an hour, and then a 45-minute treatment in the hydrochloric acid box (Image 9). I think it looks great, and I'm very happy how it turned out.
In the next part of this series, we'll start relic'ing the pickup, including the pickup cover and the screws, and talk about pickups for such a guitar in general. But first, we'll have a deeper look into another guitar mod next month: the combined “preset/deck" solution for series switching on a Stratocaster.
Until then ... keep on modding!
Image 1 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. Today we'll work on the plastic buttons of the tuners, and, after this, they'll be finished. In September's “DIY: Relic'ing Tuners, Part 1," we slightly sanded them to break the new factory shine, which was an important step to relic them. Not all vintage tuner plastic buttons show the same overall appearance: some are dull while others are shiny, and some show discoloration while others don't. This has a lot to do with the plastic material used for the buttons and, of course, how the guitar was stored and used though the years. We'll try to mimic a typical pattern of wear, dirt, and use to make them look old, and you can decide if you want them shiny or not during the process.
It's also the first time we have a sidebar from a pro ager, so a big shout-out to Andy Nowak from CrazyParts for taking time to offer expertise on relic'ing different materials. We'll have more advice from pro agers throughout this series. The next installment is about how to make wood look old and used.
To start, remember that two different tuners are used on this model of guitar, depending on what factory it's coming from. Both versions are technically equal, but the Wilkinson tuners sport shiny white buttons while the Kluson versions have a shiny, creamy color to mimic some discoloration. Today, we won't cover how to get discoloration on the shiny white buttons. We will cover this in a follow-up in this series. As an introduction, please read the sidebar from Nowak regarding different plastic materials. If you have the white version of the tuner buttons and want some discoloration, please be patient and don't put them into coffee or tea for days. We'll address relic'ing white plastic parts in a later column.
Have a look at Image 1, which shows pics I collected over the years while restoring vintage guitars, showing exactly the tuner buttons we have on this guitar. You can clearly see the discoloration ranges from none to cream, and that some are dull while others have a greasy shine. They all have some marks from getting bumped or whatever, and some dirt build-up, especially inside the marks and at the seam where the two halves of the buttons are molded together. This is exactly what we'll do now, and you don't need much for this: disposable gloves, dry paper towels, a small cotton rag (old T-shirts work great), a fine scribe tool (tracing scribe) or a nail, needle, etc., some Q-Tips or cotton swabs, brown shoe polish (I prefer Kiwi brown, simply because it's the best and I use it for my brown genuine leather stuff anyway), car polish or toothpaste, naphta, and some dirt or dust. I use a mixture of the contents from my vacuum cleaner bag spiced up with some ashes from my open fireplace (mostly from beech wood).
Image 2 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
To start, use your scribe tool or a sharp nail, needle, etc. and put some marks on the buttons as seen in Image 2.
The three golden rules for success in this step are:
#1: Don't heat up the tool you're using; we want marks and not burns.
#2: Don't overdo it. Less is more and looks more authentic.
#3: Use a random pattern so every button looks different.
Take care when working with a scribe, as they are really sharp and you don't want to stab your hand with it. Wear leather gloves to protect your hand and always work away from yourself, never towards you.
Clean the buttons with some naphta, especially the marks you've created. If you decide you want the tuners shiny, giving them a particular greasy look, you should now buff the buttons to the degree you like. You can use any car polish and a cotton rag for this, or simply any toothpaste you find. If you put too much shine on them, don't worry; just use fine sandpaper and sand it down to start from scratch. After you're done, clean the buttons with naphta.
Image 3 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Now put on your gloves, put some brown shoe polish on a cotton swab, and work the shoe polish into the buttons, focusing on the marks you created and on the seam (Image 3). Massage it in for a while so the whole button is covered, and let it dry.
Image 4 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Wipe off the shoe polish using a dry paper towel. You'll see that the seam and the marks you have created show some “dirt" now (Image 4). To further enhance this impression, use dirt or dust and rub it with some pressure into the tuner buttons using your fingers, especially where the marks and the seam are. Let it sit for a while and wipe off the excess with a dry paper towel. There you have it!
Image 5 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Check the finished result in Image 5, and the before and after tuners side by side in Image 6. Now compare these with the vintage tuner buttons in Image 1. I think we're really close, aren't we? If you're not satisfied, you can repeat these steps as needed.
Image 6 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
This is just one way of doing this: It's easy, doesn't require a lot of tools, and isn't dangerous. If you want to share your method, please do in the comments section on PG's website.
Next month, we'll put down the soldering iron and relic'ing materials and I'll share my own quarantine projects and experiences during COVID-19. A lot of readers have asked me to, and this will be my first time in 15 years to write something personal in this space instead of the usual technical instruction.
Until then ... keep on modding!
Advice on Authentic Guitar Aging from CrazyParts' Andreas Nowak
CrazyParts was the first company in Europe offering aged guitar parts. Founded in 1993 as “Eezee Guitar" and renamed CrazyParts in 2003, the company is family operated by Andreas Nowak and his wife, Barbara. Customers include Joe Bonamassa, Billy Gibbons, and Bernie Marsden, to name a few.
The most important thing I can tell you about guitar aging: The basic material is what really matters and determines if the result will be good or not. For plastics, it's important if it's ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), nylon, CAB (cellulose acetate butyrate), celluloid, or any similar material. When it comes to metal hardware, it's first and foremost the alloy that matters and, of course, the plating. For guitar paint jobs, it's the type of lacquer and how it's built up.
When the necessary conditions for a good aging job don't apply, the result will be poor or it simply won't work. I've smashed hundreds of metal parts while trying to age them, simply because the alloy reacted in a different way than supposed. As an example, approximately 90 percent of all guitar hardware today is copper plated, which is a bad base for good aging results. Copperless-plated hardware is the way to go, but, often enough, even the manufacturer can't answer the question about which alloy was used. Another example is the PVD-coating procedure that some companies are using for plating their metal pickup covers. This is a copper-plating method that compensates irregularities of the surface while polishing. So not all nickel covers are real nickel-plated covers, but PVD coating that only looks like nickel. Needless to say, aging results are difficult to predict and it can influence guitar sound as well.
Most plastic replica parts are made of ABS and it's close to impossible to get a vintage-looking discoloration with these parts because it doesn't absorb anything. Forget about the urban legends with tea and coffee. This simply won't work with ABS, even if you soak it for years. This works best with nylon, CAB, and celluloid, but these parts aren't easy to find and plain tea or coffee won't work very well.
Another reason for non-authentic aged parts is over-aging. It's all about the details and not the more, the merrier. You can find a lot of parts that are simply scratched, rusty, and damaged. That's not the way vintage parts usually look.
The main formula to success is the basic material plus the post-processing: If one of these factors is bad inside this chain, the whole thing will be bad, not authentic, and sometimes even inoperable. —Andreas Nowak
