Official Luthiers Forum!

I don't understand this new trend of purposely defacing an instrument to make it appear as though you have played it for years. Why don't we just play them and allow them to be the age that they are?

I'm in 100 percent agreement - in fact I like keeping my guitars in as good a shape as I can. I also don't understand ripped jeans, rat rods or any of the other trends to just look sloppy....

Relicing allows you to be sloppy with your finish and asssembly. At least, that's what seems to be the case with the local guys I know who do it. Dust in the finish? It's a relic spot. Oops, I dropped the screwdriver on it. No big deal, it needed a ding there.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

manufacturers have been "distressing" furniture and blue jeans since at least the '80s. nothing new. some people just like the look of antique stuff that has been around the block a few times.

Some players want it some don't. What is there to understand?
Musical instruments have been "antiqued" for centuries it is a very old technique.

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Ken

Despite the tradition of violin necks, relicing a new electric is still dumb.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Totally agree, can you imagine what some of the instruments will look like down the road?

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

in the '80s, the hair metal shredders started sanding the finish off the back of electric guitar necks to make them "faster", and some manufacturers followed suit....i thought playability was why violins were like that.
after a few hours of owning my el cheapo violin i shellacked the neck...couldn't stand the feel of that bare maple drinking up my sweat and grease

Yeah,
I dislike artificial wear.
On the other hand, preserving natural wear is cool.

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I prefer TRUE patina - not faux patina.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I agree. To me it feels like cheating. But to each his own.

Yeah it seems akin to paying someone to restore your old corvette and then touting it as though you did it yourself. If you are the guy who wore the nitrocellulose lacquer where your arm lays then I can see where that could be cool, but to take a sander to it seems a bit fake.

Yeah, who wears them out on top of the legs?
Indiana Jones being pulled behind a truck is the only exception.

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I did some relic'ing on my first guitar, almost exclusively to the hardware because I like the duller look of old hardware and because I built it with a kind of theme. I wanted it to be like a cursed object, like something that was really old and buried in some crate somewhere to be hidden so no one would get hurt...

I don't really go for adding buckle rash or scratches on the face but I guess I'm not so rigid in my opinions that it isn't okay to add some cosmetic treatments to things. Some may say that's cheating but I know I am happier with my guitar for having done it. The one I'm working on now will be all fresh and new hardware, but the next five?

I try to discourage it as much as possible. Mainly by explaining you'll be paying money to lessen the value of an instrument. But you know, sometimes 22 year old guitar players don't think about the future.

"Relicing, What is the point?"- Matt

For those that buy one- I don't care what their reasoning is. I wouldn't buy one and don't care how others spend their money.
For those that ask me to build one- Again, I don't care "why"...any more than I care why they may want HB's rather than single coils...I build what they want the best I can.

Why do people do any of the things they do? Why do people spend their money any way they choose?

It's all about "choice"...and I'm in favor of having choices.



One may also want to consider that there is a big difference between some bozo hacking up a guitar than one duplicating an instrument such as the SRV guitar to a state that one may not be able to tell the difference between it and the original.
Why would anyone want a copy? That isn't the question to me...the question is; can I make a copy so accurate that others can't tell the difference?

Its a great tool to have in the toolbox of tricks. I have done some relicing, but the purpose being that I was restoring or repairing old instruments and it needed to look correct. I put a 1920's Gibson together for a guy a few years ago that was very badly abused its entire life, I had to bust it down to raw materials, neck joint broke, body had crush marks, dents that looked horrible, even most of the original binding had crumbled away. I also did some custom inlay work on it (I was against doing it but for this guitar it was the least of its problems), once I reliced the finish right, it looked like a well taken care of, but played guitar, even the inlay work looked at least period specific since I was able to get the lacquer to spider web over it. Before the relicing it looked VERY doctored.

As for new guitars, yea, its kind of stupid.

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Whatever you do DON'T confuse me as an EXPERT, or MASTER, just a self learned trial and error guy. I had to build a dozen guitar before I found out what a "Luthier" even was (????)

I guess I can get behind making a SRV replica. You hit me in a soft spot there. He is my absolute favorite guitar player.

I think that relicing breaks down into three camps. First is relicing for restoration work, which I think is totally legit. The SG that Filippo posted recently is a good example of that. Doing a repair that would otherwise stick out like a sore thumb if new materials were left as is.

Second, and this is what I felt I did, was to add a quality to the look of hardware that makes it unique. I think this is the same vein that steam punk items are in. I didn't do it to convince people that my new guitar was well used in gigs going back to the 60's. I've never tried to pass it off as being from use or wear and tear, I tell everyone that asks that I tarnished the metal because I was going for that look. I like it because it's unique and I feel it has more character than shiny new hardware. I also took great pains to get my finish as nice as I possibly could, but looking at my guitar from an overall perspective it's obviously a one off, custom guitar that isn't trying to be a vintage Gibson. I felt like I was adding an artistic flair to mine more than trying to fool anyone.

Third is taking a known quantity such as a new fender Strat or a new Gibson and trying to make it look like it's been around since the 70's or 50's. To me this is not appealing and I'd have to agree with the majority sentiment above. I hold those guitars in the same esteem as signature models. I just don't get signature models, the worst of which IMO was the SRV strat with the mailbox decal lettering on it. The only time I've ever seen someone play that live he was also dressed like SRV but stopped short of doing a full impersonation being he was an Englishman.

LOL...I hear you.

I remember being blown away thinking that there were "artists" that could take making a guitar to that extreme. I can't imagine the skills it would require to do that...to that level. Still amazes me.
I'm old and it's a hobby so many "how to" things I'll probably never learn but I can appreciate those with the skills.

Personally if I could do a "pro" paint job I'd be so freaked it'd been years before I ever wondered how to make it look like 30 yr old paint LOL.

Yeah I never really got it. I look at as someone wanting to have their guitar look like they played it for twenty years straight without actually having to do the hard work. Me personally I try to take care of the guitars I own and can say some of them have their nicks and bruises but none of them look as worn as some of these relic guitars. My twenty plus year old well played flame top Les Paul still has it factory sheen since I did my best to take care of it. Now for Stevie Ray Vaughn's guitar it looked this way because this man probably put 75 years of use on it in the short time he was around. If you want a relic guitar go earn it and play it to death....Mike

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Another day, another dollar.

Right on Mike!

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I don't mind it. I like an old, weathered look as good as a shiny, new look.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......