Relic'ing a 51 Southern Jumbo that has a brand new sunburst

[Kerry Krishna]

 After years of being sanded, my 51 Gibson is curing till Dec 10th in a spray booth.  The Luthier who did the work did an amazing job on it too. The problem that it looks wildly out of place on this ancient guitar.  I need some adult supervision on relic'ing it. I would love to see a start to finish video on this, but my search has turned up so little, as to be almost non existent.  I have only a slight idea how it is done properly.  The divots that were there before from playwear, I can take care of myself, but the heating freezing stress lacquer crack thing has me kind of puzzled.

     One of the YOUTUBE vids  I saw showed a guy using a blowtorch with a wide angle spray nozzle heating the guitar from quite a few inches away, then spraying it with  Nitrix out of a whip cream container.  I have a few ideas myself of what and how I would do, but do any of us know of a better video? Thanks Forum members!...

[Paul Verticchio]

FRANK comes up with some pretty cool & unique solutions.  I'd like to hear more too.

We had a recently refinished Martin R-18 come through the shop last summer as a trade in. I know exactly what you're talking about.  It just didn't look "right".

The first thing we did was to rub it down with ultra fine (white) 3M Scotchbright.  You can get it at auto supply stores.  It has the abrasive qualities of 0000 steel wool without the millions of metal shards.  That de-glossed it so it looked to be the correct age.

I then used 400 wet/dry to wear away the finish on the binding where it would naturally occur.  We stopped right there but a few well planned & executed dents would've made it look 100% period correct. 

If it hadn't been summer (or if the local butcher shop would've let me hang it in their freezer for a couple of days), I would have added weather checks using the described "natural" method.

Those old slope-D Gibson's are incredible sounding & playing guitars. Im my opinion, everyone should own one for their unique voices. Soooooo woody.

Best of luck Kerry.(-:

[Kerry Krishna]

I am still of the opinion that you are a good person there Paul.  What you are describing with the Scotchpad is exactly what was going to be step one anyway...  Thanks Paul and Frank.. 

 

 Mike, I just registered over there. Thanks for that link. 

[FRANK]

I did not hear about it I experiment a lot

[mike carne]

What's finger cheese?

Why not have the back & sides refinished?

Just a thought.

[Rory]

Ugh....a second reluctant vote here for the cold car approach, from personal 'experience'.   We were skiing once and the last day we did not have a room. The hotel would not hold our instruments in their office while we skied the last day, so I thought, it wasnt all that cold and put my guitar in the truck with down sleeping bags and blankets over it. It was/is a koa lap slide. Got home, took it out of the case and whadda ya know...it looks just like a 100 year old weissenborn now!

 

Rory

[Paul Verticchio]

Hi Rory.

That happened to me a lot before I got the "message" in 1973(:

True story: In the late 60's, I had a friend whose daddy had deep pockets. My friend had no musical talent but his dad bought him at least 2 new Gibson's a year. Anyway, he'd wait until the temps went sub-zero and would leave his new guitars out in his car overnight.  The next day, he'd call us over to his house just to...get this....listen to the lacquer crack when he opened the frozen guitars in a warm room.

That's where I learned this 'trick'. Gee, and now folks charge hundreds of $$$ to artificially create weather checks.

Best of luck,

Paul

[Kerry Krishna]

 Well, the spray guy Terry has finished it,  and will let me bring it home for a month to let it cure. So a month from now, I will start this process and document the whole thing too. Maybe even a vid for my YOUTUBE channel. It's all vids of me playing songs though, so I am pretty sure it will not fit well...