Rain


 ...........oh, and beer..... 

.

I'm glad no one blames the beer.

Ya know, pickup covers and bridges aren't plated the same way as they used to be plated. Do you have a pre 1970 pickup cover or bridge? Acid burns metal, sweat and body oils can contain those acids our bodys produce, including digestive acid. A broken in guitar has been "burnt" by your acid. An old guitar that has been played many times by many people has developed it's own "burn" circuit. Some call it tone or character and such. You can fill that burn-character-tone with as much wax-polish-oil as you want and the character of that guitar will always return after a few hours. A new guitar needs to be "burnt in". I guess it all depends on what you know and feel and play at that point.

Actually, I am not overly worried - in fact, even if I jokingly put the emphasis on guitars, the potential damage to my health is the only real concern. More like a heads up for me. It's just funny that it took stains on my guitar pick ups for me to motivate me to investigate what would cause that.

Reading a few charts of alkaline vs acidic food, it's rather easy for me to come to the conclusion that I put way too much acidic junk in my body, anyway. So I needed to cut back on that and counterbalance w/ alkaline stuff.

I like a guitar that's lived a little. In this particular case, it surprised me how quickly it happened. Some people pay big bucks for new instruments that look aged. Looks like I am my own aging factory. :)

  Good to hear your takes on this Spacey and Danny,Crg.

In my case I never buy a guitar with the intent to resale and so if it gets a few scratches or dings or becomes tarnished slightly I'm not too concerned. Yeah, I'm usually the guy with the dirtiest car in the parking lot. I clean it but it isn't a religion know what I mean? I keep my guitars clean mind you but it isn't a show piece for me. I'm not in the habit of wiping mine every time.

 I put a lot of those plated fixtures on around my house. Door handles and light switch covers. Usually in less than a year they are tarnished. Bought a nice brass plated door handle a few years back and now it looks terrible and is past  saving. This is probably the same technique used to plate guitar hardware or very similar. Since then I have decided to buy black or colored hardware. My guitars will just have to live with me.

  In looking at this online a few guitarists are into clear laquer nail polish believe it or not. They put it on the plated hardware and it seems to offer some protection. Anything clear that comes between your hands and the plating and seals out oxygen and therefore prevents oxidation is a good thing I guess, but I'll never know because I'm not doing it ;)

Starise


  Good to hear your takes on this Spacey and Danny,Crg.

In my case I never buy a guitar with the intent to resale and so if it gets a few scratches or dings or becomes tarnished slightly I'm not too concerned. 

I know what you mean. :) In fact, I've played the same old strat for over 15 years. And though it's probably a bit too beaten up to be sold, it never was in the plans to sell it. 


I rarely fall for guitars, I'm a man of a few guitars. And I never fall for acoustics - though I finally did earlier this week when this one showed up in my newsfeed... A Gibson Songwriter. As strange as it'll sound, I don't like all black acoustics. So this one gets just close enough. Admitting that it sounds as good as it looks to me, I could see myself playing one of these. :P

The songwriter is a great guitar. Like all things Gibson it's best to hand pick the one you buy. 

If you decide to get another bridge for your guitar I'd recommend moving away from the "lightning bolt" design. It was bad in the way back and still bad today. You'll find a huge tone improvement if you go to an aluminium wrap around with nickel plating. Trust me on this. If you don't like it I'll buy it from you.

A Gibson replacement is too much money. I get them from All Parts for about $50. The Gibson version is about $150 from the art and historic division. If you really like the lightning bolt bridge I have one from a 64 Firebird that you can have. It's crap, but it's free.

Woah, thanks for the tip, John. :) I wasn't really used to that type of bridge, so I didn't even know there were alternatives.

I bought that LP Junior so that I'd have a guitar I could take w/ me everywhere w/o me worrying that it'd get lost on a plane or something.

Now that we're settling down and since I got used to it, I've made it my alternate tunings guitar. I've already planned on having some work done on it, changing the pick up and maybe replacing the machine heads, so I'll have the bridge replaced as well.

I had  one of the melody makers they put out a couple years ago. A plain white wash finish. That guitar was a real winner and completely under valued. I stripped off the finish and changed the bridge and got an amazing guitar for a few hundred bucks.

On that guitar I installed a bridge known as a baby grand. They are unconventional looking but amazing in terms of tone, tuning and intonation. It's machined from aluminium and has brass saddles but all nickel plated. They cost about $80 but are really worth it. I think it's made by Hipshot but you should check.

When I was downsizing, I took the guitar to the store I bought it from and sold it to one of the staff for more than retail. The thing rang like a bell.

Gibson is a strange company. I had a Les Paul in the late 70's and swore I'd never have another. After all these years as a Strat man I found a Gold-top this year and haven't looked back. It just feels perfect and sounds amazing. That's 2 great Gibson's in the last few years. I wish they made them that good when I actually played.