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Aged copper pipe slide.

I just made my first guitar slide. It turned out way better than I expected.

I used ammonia vapors and salt. My first attempt was off the recipe, I thought I could do better than what the internet said to do. So I made a crusty salt water paste and applied that to the tube. It is sitting in about 1/4 inch of non-detergent ammonia.

I could see discoloration within 5 minutes so I knew it was working. You can probably see that in the above picture, the top of the tube, which doesn't have much salt on it, is turning black already.

A three hours it looked like this:

It looks great but I can tell the bluest part is where the salt is deepest. I fear that that would wash off. I left in in about 5 more hours and then took it out to dry overnight.

It was gorgeous then, but useless as a slide.

When I washed the salt crust off I was very disappointed, but not surprised.

So I took the same piece and did it again. But this time I made up some very salty water and just dipped it in. I left it in the vapors for about 90 minutes.

I let it air dry for maybe 10 minutes. I didn't need to wait much longer since the air is so dry here. I washed it off with tap water than then buffed with a paper towel to get the blue off that would fall off anyway. You can see the result above.

I'm really happy about it. I know that it will wear off as the strings slide, but that's ok, this isn't going in a museum, it is meant to be played.

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Permalink Reply by Grandpa on January 28, 2018 at 10:33am

Looks purty. Is it smooth enough to slide easily across yer strings?

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Permalink Reply by Paul Cezanne on January 28, 2018 at 11:20am

oh yeah, smooth as a new pipe.

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Permalink Reply by Lonman on January 28, 2018 at 3:59pm

very cool. I had no idea about this

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Permalink Reply by Kigar on January 28, 2018 at 4:38pm

It turned out great. Salt and vinegar gives another cool effect, also torching the piece then cleaning off the char is another. Or just leave it outside for while. Copper is interesting stuff!

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Permalink Reply by Grandpa on January 29, 2018 at 10:41am

Glad you ended up with a smooth slider. I luv old copper, actually any old and/or patina'ed metal. Mrs. Grandpa has a bunch of it in her garden. I prefer glass slides myself, but after four tries I can't get my Dunlop 105 to take the patina you achieved lol. I have used muriatic acid fuming and salt to age nuts, bolts, screws for git builds, and I think I'll try the ammonia vapor/salt treatment for a couple of copper pipe tailpieces. Good pic, good tips, thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Fred Johnson on February 7, 2018 at 1:32am

Ammonia is the stuff to use,tried lots of other things even peeing on the copper,after I read somewhere that Rodin used to get apprentices to urinate on his sculptures to get a patinated effect(must have inferior pee).Suspended the copper over a paper towel soaked in ammonia and left it overnight.