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ageing pickups

I just dinged one of my guitars, a sunburst strat, so decided to give it the road worn treatment. the finish on the neck and fretboard wore out ages ago (poor workmanship?) and has taken on a grubby, dirty look which lends tself to the old toured look. I want to change the knobs, selector switch and pickup covers, the first two are no problem but how difficult is it to change the pickup covers, my main worry is that they'll be damaged and need replacing. Any tips, advice and pointers would be greatly appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by c# merle on April 15, 2012 at 1:15pm

done a similar job on this old strat copy. veneered the pick guard with scraps from previous builds and wonky knobs made from scrap wood.

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Permalink Reply by David L. on April 15, 2012 at 2:26pm

Some covers just fall off when you unscrew the pick up from the scratchplate but I have had some old ones which were glued. The only way to find out is to give it a try. Is the plan to relic the covers and put them back or to use new covers? The reason I ask is depending on the age of the strat you sometimes find the pickup dimensions are slightly different to modern replacements so check the new covers fit before you do too much work on it.

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Permalink Reply by mathew davies on April 15, 2012 at 2:53pm

The guitar is only about four years old so my idea is to use replacement pre-worn parts but will try to relic the existing ones if they don't fit. I have the back plates from my two strats sitting in tea and coffee (one in each) to see which if either works, do you have any tips if these don't work?

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Permalink Reply by David L. on April 15, 2012 at 3:22pm

There are a couple of ideas here http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php/1310-Artificially-aging-picku... and here http://www.tdpri.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-4065.html basically tea coffee, kiwi boot polish or leave it in a window to age under sunlight. The only other idea I can think of that might work would be to rub them over with one of the wood scratch cover felt tip pens you can find in a pound shop.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 16, 2012 at 4:30am

Gents,

Yeah, the tea and coffee thing works, as does leaving them exposed to sunlight for a few days to a coupla weeks after that treatment. If you want to try to speed that up and you have a warming oven, that you can control the heat to 120 degrees F or so or less, you can pop 'em in there, but only for 30 minutes to an hour or so. Wrap 'em in foil, just like a baked potato. If that scares you, try it with quick application of a heat gun or blow dryer.