ok first time and i need advice

[guitarpreston]

tomorrow morning im picking up a strat from a guy. pain has been stripped already. i want to repaint the body and relic it and tint the neck to give it a vintage look and possibly roll the edges of the fretboard. tell me everything PLEASE!!! lol

[guitarpreston]

Ok I got it. It's a mim standard. Alder body. I know relicing guitars makes most of you guys cringe but I wanna do it. The main part I need help with is how to yellow the pick guard and make the neck darker without having to play the crap out of it for years. Idk how to get the stinkin plastic to take any color

[Silverface]

The best advice is to search the forum, as all these questions have been asked and answered before. The plastic-aging question doesn't come up as often, so you may want to Google that one. But "tell me everything" generally won't get you many responses - there's too much to cover, too many different approaches for reaching the same goal, "relicing" has a lot of different degrees and meanings, and the few specifics you mention normally take a LOT of practice and experience to get good results.

I'm not trying to discourage you - but you need to do some work yourself as far as research - and then practice. And practice some more. Most finishers who are successful at their first projects do NOT start out with the most complicated systems, which is exactly what you're aiming for - they start with an oil finish; then maybe an opaque lacquer color with a clear coat; then a neck or three...or five...then a see-through blonde. THEN a relic.

You have to get the basics down before trying to realistically show wear, as it takes a knowledge of how to put finishes on to take them off in any honest-looking manner.

Rolling the fretboard edges is tech work - I suggest asking that one in one of the other forums. It's another tricky process that, unless you own professional grade fretwork and woodworking tools and know how to use them, can be a disaster. An expensive one.

[Jack FFR1846]

http://home.provide.net/~cfh/fenderc.html

This is a great read. Lots of myths dispelled and lots of things uncovered. I remember the parts where very old, very beat up Fenders have plastic (pickguards in particular) that look brand new. Newer guitar pickups actually age more than old ones do.

You're going to want to remove all of the paint and start from wood. Decide what you want to do for relic'ing. I had planned on taking one of my guitars and doing an undercoat of black and then white primer then surf green so that any wear would show that there was a respray at some time. In the end, I decided to just spray it a solid black and leave it nice.

You can roll the fingerboard edges without removing the frets. Get a sanding sponge and use the edge to sand the square edge off between frets. I've done this on a couple necks and it turns out really well. At the same time, I leveled and crowned the frets and refinished the back of the neck with tru-oil. Actually the one I"m in the middle of painting black lacquer has leveled frets and rolled fretboard edges.