Members Halo Storm Posted June 20, 2011 Members Share Posted June 20, 2011 My daughter just got a new electric and she wants to distress it. SHe's all about it being "her style"... I'm cool with it. ANy tips...??? I've distressed or customized "many" guitars BUT not for about 10 years now. Any "fun, cool, creative tip would be appreciated..." Demi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted June 21, 2011 Members Share Posted June 21, 2011 Dont know what you mean by distressed. If you mean making it look beat up, I'm personally not into that. I'd be in an opposite camp of making worn guitars look new again and having kids do the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Average_Joe Posted June 22, 2011 Members Share Posted June 22, 2011 I'm in WRG's camp on this one. I'm not a fan of artificially distressing anything. But it is easy to do. All you need is drink a bottle of Jack and then decide to "fix" it. I've distressed many things in my house in this manner. No instructions needed, just let the Jack work it's magic. But anyway you could easily put artificial wear in the usual spots with some fine sand paper and then a buffing wheel. If you got spare parts, you could swap some and mismatch them. Quick pass with a propane torch can put cig burns. Plenty of ways to destroy somethings beauty, just don't know what kind of ugly she wants on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrbrown49 Posted June 22, 2011 Members Share Posted June 22, 2011 IMO it's really hard to make a hard plastic finish look like it's worn like an old nitro finish and pull it off convincingly. It's an art unto itself. Seems like 99.99% of home relic jobs look pretty bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Halo Storm Posted June 25, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 I have done this to a few guitars in the past. BUT, this was before the time of the dremmel etc... I've seen some fun examples and have come up with ideas from everything to steel wool, sand paper, dremmel... The finish is just a matte or satin paint. I'm gonna look around on flickr and such for examples. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrbrown49 Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 I have done this to a few guitars in the past. BUT, this was before the time of the dremmel etc... I've seen some fun examples and have come up with ideas from everything to steel wool, sand paper, dremmel... The finish is just a matte or satin paint.I'm gonna look around on flickr and such for examples. So you've done this before? That's cool. Were you happy with the way your previous work looked? How did you do it before? I'd also look at some real naturally worn vintage gear. Look at the common locations of wear and the character of it and try to mimic that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Halo Storm Posted June 26, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 26, 2011 I was super happy with the old Hondo II I did years ago. BUT, this is for my daughter and it's gotta be HER style. I told her to start looking for worn looking guitars on the interwebs and find a model pic to use... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RickBeall Posted July 14, 2011 Members Share Posted July 14, 2011 I put an old lap steel pickup on a tele body and I relic'ed the body to match the pickup. it came out looking great. No problem with the poly finish at all. What I did was sand certain spots with sandpaper that was pretty smooth. Maybe it was 400 grit. It was the sort you use between paint coats. Use a finer grit than you think you need. Rough grits will result in your removing too much wood and finish. Less is more. The heavy relics look to fake. Make it a light relic where from a distance you can even see it. That's my taste anyway. I also used an old boy scout hatchet to put a few dings in it. Once you are done sanding, the sanded parts will be too matte. So you need rubbing compound from the automative store to get it smooth and shiney again. Working from some pictures is a great idea. I actually had an old tele with 30 years of use worn into it, and I just created its twin. Looking at the two black tele's, you can tell which is real and which is memorex, except that one has a lap steel pickup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 100 dollar cars Posted July 14, 2011 Members Share Posted July 14, 2011 i bought a MIM strat at a pawn shop...looks like someone took a hammer to it, tried to set it on fire, and dragged it around a concrete sidewalk. the cool thing about it is that it looks like it was a factory respray. sort of a daphne blue under a midnight blue. i think it looks amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cosmik de Bris Posted July 14, 2011 Members Share Posted July 14, 2011 The best way IMHO is to play it for 40 years, the only true way to put your style into a guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators isaac42 Posted July 14, 2011 Moderators Share Posted July 14, 2011 This^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrbrown49 Posted July 15, 2011 Members Share Posted July 15, 2011 i bought a MIM strat at a pawn shop...looks like someone took a hammer to it, tried to set it on fire, and dragged it around a concrete sidewalk. the cool thing about it is that it looks like it was a factory respray. sort of a daphne blue under a midnight blue. i think it looks amazing. pics? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members radonballoon Posted July 16, 2011 Members Share Posted July 16, 2011 for metal parts you want to use muriatic acid. place the acid in a container and poke holes in it to 'breathe' then get a larger container and put that container in it. put your metal parts inside the big container and close it. this will cause the metal to corrode and if it is plated or chromed that will peel and tarnish. you can also use it in specific area's carefully. if you ding it up or scratch it you will also get unique effects in those area's. that's the way to get the best results for aging metal short of it really aging. be careful!!!!!!!!!!! muriatic acid is bad {censored}. you do not want it ANYWHERE other than the container it's in and the one you're using to tarnish the metal parts. read up on its dangers and how to dispose of it right if you go this route. for the body, good luck with poly finishes. imo the only good relics are the nitro's that you can 'wear' thinner with naptha and the finest steel wool. the poly will show every little scrape of nick and it will look like you tried to make it that way which is cheasier than the ones come out right. i've relic'd a few guitars for people in the past. at first i thought the idea was neat but now it's worn out. no pun intended! i say wear your guitar out by playing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 100 dollar cars Posted July 17, 2011 Members Share Posted July 17, 2011 pics? well, here's the link. for some reason i can't get the picture to load. anyway, it's beat to hell. i think it was the MIM with the satin finish. you can see the burn mark by the jack, and there's a big char mark on the side/back. the headstock is singed like they let a cigarette burn down too many times. it was 25 bucks and it actually works fine. http://www.flickr.com/photos/27161259@N08/5948516228/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dhsun Posted July 18, 2011 Members Share Posted July 18, 2011 Professional craftsmen may help to you, thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaveGrima Posted July 29, 2011 Members Share Posted July 29, 2011 Soak the metal parts in acid? BTW, awesome playing and tone dude! I love it when people break guitar stereotypes. What amp did you use for that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Halo Storm Posted July 29, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 29, 2011 @DaveGrima - No Amp. I recorded straight into my MAC with Propellerheads Record with my BOSS GT-8. Thanks for listening... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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