so I just bought a 94 MIM Fender P - the black label Squier Series, for a very decent price with the view of giving it the full relic treatment. My good friend works in a custom guitar shop so he will look after the body for me, but I will attempt to relic the hardware. Any ideas of what I could do to the tuners and bridge to give them an aged look?
PS - dont let the age fool you either - for a 30 year old bass this thing is in excellent condition and has had a very easy life. Everything still shines on it!!
Hardware is a little different. It’s easy because if you leave them out the Sun would do the job of destroying any protective shield treatment on it. That said it kinda have to be aged the same if not it’ll look off.
When I tried mine I put my nose grease on the tuners and lightly greased the gears and left it out for a week it looked like crap pretty quickly. I did similar thing to the bridge. The potato chips grease on your finger worked pretty well too especially with the salt content.
I really don’t have to do much of that anymore after a few months of not wiping and polishing it kinda aged naturally. What ever you do don’t use the dremel.
If it wasn’t so toxic, I’d suggest finding something else you want to plate with chrome, and then use your nice expensive bass hardware as the anode in the plating solution. Should look super shitty very quickly.
But chrome plating solution in particular is really, really toxic. So, don’t do it yourself.
If that is the case honestly I would suggest enjoying your nice bass as is and don’t beat the crap out of it
