Hey all!

Well, I just grabbed a 3 tone sunburst MJT body off ebay to replace the CAR Blacktop strat body I've been using on one of my starts... now I need to age the hardware and plastic to match the heavy relic look of the new body but no big deal... I've done it in the past with convincing results. I know how a great many of you feel about "trashing" new stuff to make it look old but so it goes.

Here's a pic of the body and the body it's going to be replacing... as well as my last relic work on the platic of my other MJT strat. This one should look killer!

Me likee. Rosewood or Maple neck?

I'm swapping all the parts out that are currently on the red strat, so it's be that HW1 rosewood neck.

Man, I love it when a plan comes together! So, this morning I got the red body listed on the bay and managed to half load a pickguard with spare pickups I've had kicking around... my hope is to pay for the Callaham bridge I'll be ordering for this body with the proceeds.

Then I figured I'd get after relicing the black guard. I was a little worried as I'd never aged any black plastic before and I was in uncharted territory. What I've found is that it's the unrelicing process that tends to look whatever you're working on lookbest. What I do is scotchbrite or (very light sandpaper) parts and then try to undo the damage I've just done. In this case, the scuffing up of the black plastic looked pretty unconvincing until I used some headlight lens de-clouding cream over the swirls.... god only knows what that stuff is made of or does but it did sort of "shine" my swirls. The other trick was to try and leave the area under the strings shinier but not perfect... i just rubbed a cotton cloth over that area dn it did leave some faint swirls. That black plastic is pretty unforgiving of errors in the relicing process.

My other secret trick is that baby-poo brown colored Sharpie they make... kind of a mustardy brown. I apply that to the white plastic and then try to remove it with a chemical cocktail and rebuffing it with scotchbrite. It looks good enough unless you're right up on top of it and work for Tiffany Action House... by the time it gets mounted to the body it'll look the part.

I've "aged white plastic by soaking it in coffee for a few days too. I'm not into the relic thing, I've done this only when I've bought a used guitar, or some new parts and need to make them match better, and the coffe trick did brown the white nicely.

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"Where would rock and roll be without feedback?"

I've used coffee on white parts too... it works nicely.

I completely understand the point of view of a guitar earning it's own scars, but the vibe of a played to hell and back vintage strat is undeniable. I'll never have that kind of $$$ for a 60's strat, and if I did, I'd be babying that thing like crazy, not wailing away on it or propping it up in the corner so I could grab it whenever I wanted to. Most relics don't look totally convincing, and mine are no exception, but I dig the worn in, vintage, played to death look and feel of an old guitar... new ones are nice too though.

Just ordered up the Callaham bridge... I opted for the V/N (vintage/narrow) model given the humbucker and jumbo frets if the HWY1 neck... plus I've never really liked the vintage spacing of Fender bridges... I'm always derailing my E string off the board, and as a result, avoid playing it at times. The lady said it was going to ship tomorrow... HIP HIP HOORAY!

Enjoy yourself, mate. When you've reached 70 you'll be looking for a way to make yourself look right out of the 'box'.

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"Another day in paradise!"

Funny... today my supervising teacher asked, "So you're in your 50's or your 40's or what?"I was thinking are you @#%& kidding me... try thirty-eight! I politely replied, "my 30's." Perhaps I relic'd myself too convincingly during my 20's and early 30's!

Just wanted to let you all know I upped the cheese factor by ordering some pearl tuner buttons for the neck... I think it'll look cool but time will tell.

ahh, looks great. send pic when it finished.

cheers

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It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting - paulo coelho

Missed the mailman today so can't pick up the bridge from the PO until Monday now... kind of a bummer as I could be playing it but by this evening but so it goes... here's a little mock up of how she's looking so far... I really dig the pearl tuner buttons, I was afraid they were going to look cheesy but I think they're a nice "hot rod" addition... all a matter of taste I suppose. She's coming along as planned though I did have to do a little routing to accommodate for the hum bucker which worked out fine... I was a little worried about shooting through to the trem cavity. Anyhow... if you're not into relics this one probably isn't for you. It has quite a hot rodded look about it which I like.

I was able to pickup the bridge from the P.O. first thing this morning... t'was an easy install. However... something funky was going on with the electronics. I suspected (correctly) that something was getting pinched and was intermittently shorting out... there's an awful lot of wiring in there which had plenty of room in the pool route, much less so in this body. So after getting it all strung and together, it had to come apart again. I found what I think was getting pinched, checked all the rest of the wiring, and gave a good blast of electonics cleaner on the toggle and pot that were causing the problem. The other problem, and one I may address at some point, is that these pots have been used in countless guitars of mine and at this point have gobs of solder on them... it's ugly! So, if the problem comes back, it might be the pots... but for now, it's working and working great. I love the Super Distortion in the bridge... going from jangle to crunch is fun.

Here's a picture of the finished project...

Here's a video of her in action through the Super Champ... enjoy!

http://youtu.be/nhJydc89DRw