I am not much into relicing but I heard this on a website.
this person relics his guitars by tapeing very dull sandpaper onto his arms and pants and just plays for hours on end.
I have never heard of this. Just wondering if anyone has ever done this before.

The only method I've heard of is hours of honest play wear.

Call me old fashioned

Honestly ,in my opinion....the best relicing is to just play it to death.That is what truely gives a guitar character.Anything else is just garbage.I have had been paid to make $50,000.00 kitchen cabinets look old and distressed for customers and it's just not the same as real wear and tear.Not that it's not fun beating the crap out of a brand new set of cabinets and giving em wormholes and burnishing the hell out of em.It's all fake (Faux) in the end and your not fooling anybody but yourself.
my .02

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1986 Fender Sidekick Reverb 35
1990 Fender Red Knob - "The Twin"
1992 Fender Newporter - Acoustic
2000 Fender American Series Strat - Natural ash
2010 Fender Mustang 1
2011 Fender Blacktop Jazzmaster -Sunburst
2012 Fender Champion

In my opinion, that person is an idiot. But hopefully he has something on youtube, so i can laugh my $@! off at him. I dont like artificial relic crap. To me it is for people, as the above mentioned ,who dont spend enough time playing the instrument to create the natural wear and tear. If it were a a vintage jimi hendrix played strat, and was beat to $@!&, that is one thing,...but.. for someone to come out and be like , ya my guitar is so cool cause someone sanded the paint off in a factory,, prolly why there is so much garbage music on the radio these days.,, it is a mentality,,... that is not good.

Personal opinion aside, (cos opinions are like holes. Everyones got atleast one but some speak out of two)

I have relic'd a guitar with that method partly. Taped fine sandpaper to my forearms, side of the right hand, tops of thighs. And played for a little while. So I marked the guitar just enough to see exactly the right places for wear spots and the direction the wear needs to go in.
Then stop, make a clear drawing of wear areas and direction of wear.

Then set about thinning the finish of the guitar body. I used T-cut and the buffer on a orbital sander. Kept the pressure/thinning even all over the faces of the body till I had a nice smooth matte appearance. Then set about with the deeper wear in the applicable areas. Using much the same method, though more heavy handed, paying attention to go in the same direction as noted.
Then on the odd area where wood becomes exposed, brown shoe polish works wonders.
For knocks and dings, I gave it to a couple of two year olds to play with.



Lots of work all to suit that old worn neck

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No no and no

I think that might be,.. everyone has two , but speaks out of one,..

Throw it loose into the box of your pickup along with a short hunk of round bar and some loose sand or gravel and go 4-wheeling out in the boonies somewhere. Instant relic.

You're welcome.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

LMAO!



Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Now, that's funny!

Maybe it’s just me but I don’t get it. My question is why? Why do you need to make it look old? Does it make you a better player; these fads crack me up, what’s next burning a cigarette into the headstock, even though you don’t smoke. How about buying left handed guitars just to sting them up right handed? Hmmm that just might work.

Who cares what a consenting person does with his / her guitar? The real issue arises if the guitar gets relegated to a closet somewhere or under a bed and never or seldom sees the light of day or if you carelessly beat it up to a point where it won't play. I say do what you want with it. Make it your own as long as you don't hurt anybody and don't break it for no good reason. Hmmm...what would be a good reason? I bet Jimi has a few good reasons, but I digress... mess with it, change it, paint it, sand it, but above all, play it and let the paint chips fall where they may.

I'm always on the lookout for one someone has stuffed in a closet or under a bed somewhere and wants to sell cheap. Money to be made there even if one has to part it out and sell the components.

I wish more people would buy nice MIM and US strats, keep them for 5 or 6 years and then decide they need money for some other passing fad hoby.

Jeff

Look up "poseurism" in the dictionary and the definition is "relicing".

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

I didnt see that word but this is close enough and makes the point.

Poseur is a pejorative term, often used in the punk, heavy metal, hip hop and goth subcultures to describe a person who adopts the dress, speech, and/or mannerisms of a group or subculture, generally for attaining acceptability within the group or for popularity among various other groups, yet who is deemed to not share or understand the values or philosophy of the subculture. I would have to say you are right.....