My favorite China copy relic guitars

How to relic

The general rule of thumb for relic'ing an electric guitar is to burn then oxidize metal parts, and stain plastic parts.

I'll start with staining first.

It's ordinarily true that what you'll be staining will be pick guards and knobs.

To stain both, you use instant coffee - but it takes some experimentation to get it right.

For knobs, pour a mug of water (cold is fine), stir in a small amount of coffee, drop a plastic knob in for 30 seconds and then take it out to see how it looks. If no staining happened, stir in more coffee and try again. If nothing still happens, try staining for longer.

For pick guards, the process is the same but it requires a cookie skeet. Make your mix of coffee first, then pour into a cookie sheet enough to where you can submerse the entire pick guard in there. Then stain the same way you would for the knobs.

Where metal components are concerned, the goal is to make them look tarnished and slightly rusted.

Note before continuing: This is dangerous and you can burn yourself easily. Follow these instructions at your own risk.

One of the easier ways to burn off some finish from a metal component is by using a hibachi style grill. Put in some coals, light them, get them hot, then literally cook your metal until that finish starts coming off.

How much heat is required? I've no idea. You'll have to experiment.

How long will it take? I have no idea because finishing varies from part to part.

The easiest one to test your "cooking" on is a teardrop output jack from a Strat. That's a piece of metal that's thin and should have its finish burned off relatively quickly.

After burning the finish off, it's time to oxidize.

To promote oxidation, the easy way is just to leave the metal part outside and have it rained on a few times.

If you don't have the patience for that, you can promote oxidation pretty much instantly by spraying or dipping the metal part in bleach, salt water or vinegar.

How much tarnishing/rusting is good? That's up to you.

What about the body and neck?

The way to do this right is to sand all the finish off yourself, refinish in your nitro color of choice, let cure, then burn it off. This takes quite a bit of experimentation and time to do.

Could you do it with a urethane coated guitar? Yes, but it won't look right. If you're going to do it, you have to take your time, sand-sand-sand, then repaint-repaint-repaint, cure, burn it and hope for the best. Yes, it is as annoying as it sounds. And there are a million ways to screw it up.

And that's why you just buy a cheap China copy relic in the first place. Buy something where some basic relic'ing has already been done, then just finish up the metal and plastic parts yourself. Much quicker, much easier.

Published 2019 Feb 15