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Post subject: Heavy Relic Strat with no aged plastic parts...why?!?!?
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 2:13 pm
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Hi folks,
I recently purchased this superb used guitar and I love it.
It's a '54 Heavy Relic 60th anniversary ltd edition from 2014.
The heavy relic job is great on wood and hardware but I don't understand why the Custom Shop builder leave plastic parts brand new...
So I'm thinking to swap this part to aged.
What do you think about?
I think that guitar is not credible without plastic parts aged.

Thanks for precious help!!

Cheers from Italy.

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Post subject: Re: Heavy Relic Strat with no aged plastic parts...why?!?!?
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 3:16 pm
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I'd leave them they the controls and pu covers are a special type and may relic sooner than you expect. :D


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Post subject: Re: Heavy Relic Strat with no aged plastic parts...why?!?!?
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 4:18 pm
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jimmy_james wrote:
I'd leave them they the controls and pu covers are a special type and may relic sooner than you expect. :D


Correct!

Those are "mini-skirt" knobs and the "football" switch tip, peculiar to and specific to the 1954 Strat. They'll age soon enough with play or you can speed them along with some artificial help.

The guitar looks superb just as it is.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Heavy Relic Strat with no aged plastic parts...why?!?!?
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 5:18 pm
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Retroverbial wrote:
jimmy_james wrote:
I'd leave them they the controls and pu covers are a special type and may relic sooner than you expect. :D


Correct!

Those are "mini-skirt" knobs and the "football" switch tip, peculiar to and specific to the 1954 Strat. They'll age soon enough with play or you can speed them along with some artificial help.

The guitar looks superb just as it is.

Arjay


And a further vote for the leave as is and enjoy making suff dirty through playing it.

Those plastics are very special and unless you can get aged parts of the exact same type and material (I seem to recall they are polystyrene just like the originals) you will be doing the guitar a grave injustice. Also the polystyrene is very brittle and you may damage the original knobs if you try to remove them.

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Post subject: Re: Heavy Relic Strat with no aged plastic parts...why?!?!?
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 8:42 pm
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Leave it as is. It looks fantastic paired with that excellent relic job (I usually don't like relics, but this is an exception).


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Post subject: Re: Heavy Relic Strat with no aged plastic parts...why?!?!?
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 12:20 am
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Hey guys!!
Thanks a lot for your support.
I appreciate a lot your replies but I do not agree with you.
Obviously it is my personal opinion.
I mean, I have got several Relic and Heavy Relic Custom Shop Strat and Telly and all of them are credible (wood, hardware and plastic are aged).
This is the first that I see with wood and hardware hard reliced and brand new plastic parts.....for me the guitar is not credible in this way.
I saw many '54 and '55 original Strats and none had new plastics after 60 years :?
What do you think?
Thanks as usual!

Cheers from Italy.
Francesco.


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Post subject: Re: Heavy Relic Strat with no aged plastic parts...why?!?!?
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 2:55 am
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Retroverbial wrote:
They'll age soon enough with play or you can speed them along with some artificial help.

Arjay


Drop it in a cup of thea, it work


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Post subject: Re: Heavy Relic Strat with no aged plastic parts...why?!?!?
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 3:25 am
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I think you will find that any 50's Strats that have been used to the point of relic will have had the knobs and pickup covers replaced in their life as the originals will have broken. A good number of pictures of Buddy Holly with his Strat show the pickup covers damaged.

Custom Shop probably took the view that to authentically relic the original plastics would mean they should be broken. Who knows, perhaps this is what they did in the past and so many people complained that they stopped doing it. I am only speculating.

To revisit our original comments, if you want reliced plastics you might as well use modern reliced plastics as, if the guitar was authentic, the odds are the plastics would have been replaced.

My only hesitancy is I certainly recal threads on here of people complaining that their authentic 50's knobs broke when they tried to remove them and assume this is a real danger so you can't just remove the originals and put them in a box.

If it were mine I think I would get some brown and black shoe polish and work it into the grooves of the knobs and around the bottom of the PUP covers and leave it as that. Would this be authentic? Arguably not as a real used 50's Strat would have had its plastics replaced by now.

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Post subject: Re: Heavy Relic Strat with no aged plastic parts...why?!?!?
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 3:27 am
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This is a genuine 1954 Strat, and the plastics look to be in remarkably good condition
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Play the reproduction like you mean it, and your plastics will develop a patina all of their own. Don't tickle the thing, play it without a care.
Get a bit of sweat on the pickguard screws, and they'll corrode.
Get a bit of grime and DNA on it and it will begin to resemble The Real McCoy.

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Post subject: Re: Heavy Relic Strat with no aged plastic parts...why?!?!?
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 3:33 am
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I would leave the guitar as it is.

Vorrei lasciare la chitarra così com'è


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Post subject: Re: Heavy Relic Strat with no aged plastic parts...why?!?!?
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 6:54 am
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Thanks so much to all you guys.
Very helpful!!

Cheers,
Francesco.


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