Many people say that the best way to get a relic finish on your guitar is to play it a lot, but the truth is that guitars these days have extremely good paint, so it's almost impossible to get it naturally. This video is one of the best I've seen, the result was great!
Was watching a guy in Singapore heat the finish while using a small chisel, by doing it that way, he just kind of rolled the paint off and it came out great!
I would think the best way to make it looked relic’d is to leave all the hardware on while doing it. Maybe cover the hardware, pups, dials etc with paint tape and start going. After all, a true relic’d guitar didn’t get that way with the hardware off. Nevertheless, yours came out well. Great Job.
I took a new Squier Tele and did a full blown relic of the body adding belt buckle rash, dents, dings, dulled the finish, chips, aged the neck, spider webbed the dots, "checked" the finish along with the body, cig burn, aged all hardware to make it non-chrome and non-shiny and it looks like a guitar you'd find in the back room of a bar in the South.........very cool! Nice work here.....
I don't understand why people with poly-coated guitars try to get them relic'ed to look like an aged nitro-coated guitar. Polyurethane doesn't age like this, there is no instance where the paint flakes off or gets abraded in great huge chunks unless it's being done deliberately. Don't get me wrong, I love relic'ed guitars almost as much as an original, but the instant I saw that I knew it was a polyurethane-finished guitar. Polyurethane is literally just plastic. If you wanna age plastic you expose it to solvents, discolouration, and temperature fluctuations. Beside minor abrasions and dings there's no impact damage that will affect it down to the wood in great huge swathes like this.
Nitro def looks better because you can check the paint. Without checking it’s too obvious. That being said. I found a way to relic poly without the checking, but it’s how a poly would age naturally so I’m digging it.
It hurts to see a guitar get damage like that. But the result looks great. Classical instruments like violins get reliced for over 100 years and it also looks very good
Totally 💯 Awesome Mike!!! I JUST got my Brande New Vanilla blonde Telle... It just so happened to arrive with a damaged box and a chip already in the corner right under the control knobs perfect spot to realize that this is a guitar I need to relic!!! So I found your channel art specifically this video which I find extremely awesome and informative! Thank you!!
a heat gun makes this process much easier, you can loosen the finish in specific areas and follow up with a file and a flathead. a swipe with the end of a flathead will lift the lacquer enough that you can use the file to scrape it away and not risk taking any of the wood away with it. just follow the natural angles of the body for authenticity and don't go overboard. otherwise, it's quite difficult to go wrong with this method
I also want to try it, to relic a guitar. A cheap guitar for the first time. This clip helps ma a little bit, to understand, what I have to do. Thanks for it !
Nice work, you know you can be the greatest luthier/artist but you will never beat the art of time/age, so it looks “fake. some people like it, even through most are bedroom players, I personally don’t, I have a couple of honest dents on my relatively new tele, they look sexy! Luthiers can’t make time, in my opinion a relic guitar is like a young boy in an old man custom.
I don't understand why people disapprove of other players' preferences. If someone wants to have their guitar relic'd, great. Otherwise the suggested alternatives are: pay a lot of money for an "authentic" one, don't play a guitar that you like the looks of, or aging it "naturally" by dropping it multiple times, rubbing it with giant metal buckles and watches, dragging it across the ground, and setting it on fire. I mean, to each their own, but one of these options seems like abuse.
The thing with relicing is that you can pretty much always tell. It's relatively easy to make an instrument look beaten up and neglected, but it's much harder to make it look loved and played for half a century. If you want to make the guitar look used, just play the damn thing, and it will.
Seems like those who buy Relic Guitars either have too many guitars that they cannot play them all, or some would rather put artificial wear and tear on a guitar because they dont play guitar often to make a naturally relic. Many of them just know the basics in guitar playing and many of them suxs.
The soft, foreign relation to Bob Ross style voice and the chugn, shredn, metal almost made my spine disintegrate. He even said, "It just gives me an 'idear' of where we're going." Come around my jobsite and say 'idear?' Well, I reckon a fella might get arrested or worse.
Greetings Mike. I trust that you are well. I’m looking at having some work done on a telecaster I have my eyes on. It has 3/4 heavy knocks… where in SA are you based?
Yes! THis guitar had some real buckling and craklure in the finish. All rightee than. Hust get on that finish with a chisel. THat will get it offs there purdy gud.
Have to agree. I like the process of just using an instrument to the point it happens naturally. Far more interesting as it's like it grows with you and becomes personal to you in a way that can't be faked.
Older vintage guitars only look this bad, when the owner didn't care for their guitar. Not cleaning the body or neck ever. Checking of the paint will occur over time though. I wouldn't buy a guitar that looked this bad or a car for that matter, it shows neglect to me. Besides I think relic guitars never look like an aged guitar, I just saw one at a shop yesterday. It looks fake. It was a Fender Tele custom shop heavy relic. But to each his own.
I found the Most Authentic Way to Relic is Ask What They Play. If they Are Lead The Mid to High Neck will Be Very Worn, If Rhythm then Lows to Mids. I had a Lead Guy ask Me to Do a Relic and it wasn't Believable at all coz I (He Wanted it) the Lows to Mid 🤦🏼♂️. Ok the Customer is ALWAYS Right but Please Think before doings Such a Thing. I Relic-ed My LTD EC-50 To Hetfield's Iron Cross Mk1 and it was Very Believable that I Stole Papa Het's... Only Deal Breaker to the Fact I couldnt Say that its James' is He CAN AFFORD an ESP 🤣🤣🤣
I’m not against what you are doing here. But I am puzzled that you’d do a video like this and not mention the type of finish, wood, or even bother to show the finished product for more than 10 seconds. I never even saw the bottom or back of this guitar. Strange.
I don’t understand why u would want an aged guitar done artificially. Like all the scratches and dings on ur guitar should tell ur story from playing it so much, not how much u paid a guy to fuck it up for u.
Why do so many people like relic’d guitars? I think it’s because there’s something about the electric guitar (especially a Fender Telecaster) that embodies an anti-establishment and almost working-class (or blue-collar) attitude of the 50s, 60s and 70s: we don’t need pristine classical instruments, we need something to express our attitude and rebelliousness
