How to age (relic) gold Gibson style knobs - easy, cheap and kinda fun too!

bad_alice

What you'll need:
1. Gold Gibson Style knobs
2. a fresh razor
3. Chromium Oxide green acrylic paint (Amazon: £4.99)
4. An art type paint brush - cheap is good.
5. a bag of gravel/nuts/bolts/metal bits or an area outside with gravel/pebbles etc

Some extra tips:
1. I scraped all of the edges - top of the knob and the bottom - with the razor and did the same around the inside edge of the silver top surface of the knob. 
2. Used my clean paint brush to paint the top surface with some amber water based stain and some brown scratch repairer I had lying around in a cupboard. Really any water based brownish stain will do. Let that dry and then used a damp cotton bud to pull off most of that with some of the residue getting stuck in the scratches around the edges to give that "old timer, much used gunk" vibe.

3. A hairdryer speeds up the acrylic paint drying process a heck of a lot

Amount of time to complete the job: 10mins plus drying time

Here's a link to walk you through the process and pics so you can see the finished knobs on my LP Standard.
Enjoy...
http://youtu.be/UFOVQ7NgFog

sixstringsupplies

They look good. Given I have been waiting 7+ months for a delivery of relic GIbson style knobs I might give this a whirl in the meantime

bad_alice

sixstringsupplies said:

They look good. Given I have been waiting 7+ months for a delivery of relic GIbson style knobs I might give this a whirl in the meantime

Go for it and wishing you an excellent outcome too. As with everything take your time but honestly, this isn't rocket science. It's genuinely pretty easy to get a great result.
Btw here's some extra tips I'll add to the OP in a sec:
1. I scraped all of the edges - top of the knob and the bottom - with the razor and did the same around the inside edge of the silver top surface of the knob.
2. Used my clean paint brush to paint the top surface with some amber water based stain and some brown scratch repairer I had lying around in a cupboard. Really any water based brownish stain will do. Let that dry and then used a damp cotton bud to pull off most of that with some of the residue getting stuck in the scratches around the edges to give that "old timer, much used gunk" vibe.

3. A hairdryer speeds up the acrylic paint drying process a heck of a lot

sixstringsupplies

bad_alice said:

sixstringsupplies said:

They look good. Given I have been waiting 7+ months for a delivery of relic GIbson style knobs I might give this a whirl in the meantime

Go for it and wishing you an excellent outcome too. As with everything take your time but honestly, this isn't rocket science. It's genuinely pretty easy to get a great result.
Btw here's some extra tips I'll add to the OP in a sec:
1. I scraped all of the edges - top of the knob and the bottom - with the razor and did the same around the inside edge of the silver top surface of the knob.
2. Used my clean paint brush to paint the top surface with some amber water based stain and some brown scratch repairer I had lying around in a cupboard. Really any water based brownish stain will do. Let that dry and then used a damp cotton bud to pull off most of that with some of the residue getting stuck in the scratches around the edges to give that "old timer, much used gunk" vibe.

3. A hairdryer speeds up the acrylic paint drying process a heck of a lot

thanks for the tips.

When we first started trading in 2014 I spent hours and hours relicing strat plastics and nickel hardware but 50% of them looked great and the other 50% looked appalling (ie not it for sale) so decided to exit the relic/aged parts market very early.

WezV

i use Colron scratch filler for quite a lot of plastic work. Be it small parts or full plates.   I like that it can be fully removed or washed out with white spirit if i take it to far.

I have tried green paint before, but not got it looking as natural as yours, i think i scraped too far through the gold

bad_alice

WezV said:

i use Colron scratch filler for quite a lot of plastic work. Be it small parts or full plates.   I like that it can be fully removed or washed out with white spirit if i take it to far.

I have tried green paint before, but not got it looking as natural as yours, i think i scraped too far through the gold

Scraping through the gold layer is easily done and I've done exactly that when trying to age a black reflector knob #matron myself. The goal here is to make the layer of gold paint thinner and, from fail/fail again/holy-cow-SUCCESS experience, this is where using a brand spanking new razor for this makes all the difference. That then allows the heavy acrylic painted on top to give the gold that cool greenish tint that all us old Gibson Goldtop fans are suckers for. Weirdly enough, I've been wracking my brain to remember the brown stain I used to age the silver  reflector part and whaddya know! It was bloody wood scratch filler. Well, not bloody. Brown, in fact. But thank you for the prompt as it driving me nuts.

@WezV can I just take a moment to heap lavish amount of praise and admiration on you for theLPs you've been responsible for modding - I'm following Ol' Black's development avidly - and Christ alive man! The level of LP filth you've built yourself is glorious! Having perused your website a good few times I must mention Earth 3 as a particular highlight and my GAS was tested to almost breaking point by the LP that was on sale here recently too. That one nearly crushed my GAS resolve tbh. 

How fortunate it was then that I have no money to spend on such fun items just now otherwise I'd have much to explain and rationalise in a manner beyond most mortals to my ever patient-but-even-he-has-limits husband...
  

bad_alice

sixstringsupplies said:

bad_alice said:

sixstringsupplies said:

They look good. Given I have been waiting 7+ months for a delivery of relic GIbson style knobs I might give this a whirl in the meantime

Go for it and wishing you an excellent outcome too. As with everything take your time but honestly, this isn't rocket science. It's genuinely pretty easy to get a great result.
Btw here's some extra tips I'll add to the OP in a sec:
1. I scraped all of the edges - top of the knob and the bottom - with the razor and did the same around the inside edge of the silver top surface of the knob.
2. Used my clean paint brush to paint the top surface with some amber water based stain and some brown scratch repairer I had lying around in a cupboard. Really any water based brownish stain will do. Let that dry and then used a damp cotton bud to pull off most of that with some of the residue getting stuck in the scratches around the edges to give that "old timer, much used gunk" vibe.

3. A hairdryer speeds up the acrylic paint drying process a heck of a lot

thanks for the tips.

When we first started trading in 2014 I spent hours and hours relicing strat plastics and nickel hardware but 50% of them looked great and the other 50% looked appalling (ie not it for sale) so decided to exit the relic/aged parts market very early.

Probably a wise move - consistency with this sort of thing is difficult to attain, which is why I imagine Charles Guitars charge a fairly hefty amount for a set of knobs. My mismatching set was other rather obvious motive for trying this myself. That said, practicing on a spare set of cheapo knobs definitely helped.

If you want to provide an item that doesn't seem to be available anywhere in the UK, or Europe for that matter, it might be worth trying your hand at creating aged clay inlay dots? You'd be providing an exclusive service that us relic nuts would be metaphorically queuing round the corner for! I'm having a 62 type Strat built for my birthday in January next year, and ended up having to order a set all the way from Muricaland. I'd imagine once you've nailed the colour and consistency. It would be relatively easy to knock out sets of those?

Regardless, best of luck with your business, going forward!

PeteC

Hi   I made clay dots for one of my tele builds and made an Aluminium mould to do a full set with side dots.   

i can always do some for you and post them ( I’m in Ripon)   I have tried a few different clays and surprisingly the skin tone steadler FIMO oven clay - available in WHSmiths  - comes out closest, but you can get other tones using the different modelling clays, and also by mixing them.   My last set used the luminous FIMO clay.  

I bet you could easily make your own Ali jig and bake some, but if not I could make you some if you wish. 

bad_alice

PeteC said:

Hi   I made clay dots for one of my tele builds and made an Aluminium mould to do a full set with side dots.   

i can always do some for you and post them ( I’m in Ripon)   I have tried a few different clays and surprisingly the skin tone steadler FIMO oven clay - available in WHSmiths  - comes out closest, but you can get other tones using the different modelling clays, and also by mixing them.   My last set used the luminous FIMO clay.  

I bet you could easily make your own Ali jig and bake some, but if not I could make you some if you wish. 

Thanks @PeteC and that's an awesome offer I would've loved to have taken you up on...but...this time round those aged clay inlays are (hopefully) on route from the US. That said, would you be okay if I noted your tag down and, should I need a set in future (likely!), fire over you message and check in with you whether your kind offer is still available and work out the necessary cash etc?

PeteC

Sure!  

PeteC

https://imgur.com/gallery/DsuvTEy

PeteC

Colour depends on the clay choice and how much vintage “grime” gets added to tint them. 

bad_alice

Thanks so much, that's really kind of you.
Btw those dots look terrific and the jig is a terrific idea.
<applauds>

PeteC

Thanks, but I can’t claim the credit for the idea - I saw it over on TDPRI I think.   Milliput putty works too but isn’t quite as nice to work with

Kittyfrisk

Weren't 'clay' dots never actually made from clay?
I'm sure that while clay being great as a DIY project, the Fender dots were cut out from vulcanised fibreboard (like old linoleum).
https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/160061/fender-custom-shop-no-more-clay-dots/p1
https://precbsstratocasters.com/vintage-fender-clay-dots/

PeteC

Thats correct as far as i understand 
for black dots , many people seem to use clay though for the off white.  

WezV

There was another material claimed to be used called harvite.  There is some evidence this was applied as a paste.

The material was also used for old poker chips.  It can be a little bit difficult to work in its old brittle poker chip form, but makes a great Fender style clay dot.

WezV

Anyway, i did some experiments with old poker chips.  I found two types.  Harvite and Composition.  Basically the same material but the harvite was a bit coarser.

If you look at old ones you see a lot of colour variation, but its almost always the case that the darker the rosewood, the dirtier the dot.  Whatever material was used, it needs to get discoloured by the natural oils in the rosewood.

Chips







The callahan clay dots did not discolour with rosewood oil.  The chips behaved much more like i wanted.  I used the composition ones as they were less granular than the Harvite.

PeteC

This was the last set using FIMO clay skin tone 
https://i.imgur.com/2Dirp9M.jpeg 

bad_alice

When Matt Loxely made me a (fantastic) neck for my HSS Strat we chatted and yep, if memory serves he used Fimo- possibly the same colour a the type you used, @PeteC? It turned out great...

This time around, I'm wanting something a little darker and more prominent in terms of the aged look. This pic shows what I'm hoping for...

And these are the set I bought from the US. They haven't arrived yet but I'm keeping everything crossed they both look like this and are packed well to avoid any smashed-to-dust unhappiness when I open the package...

PeteC

I am sure we could
match that with the right FIMO or a mix of the two.  The one I am using at the moment is darker than it looks in the imgur pic I linked to above 

i will do some mixes next week and see what I can come
up with