Thinskin ageing?

[craggle]

Hi, I'm the proud owner of a Thinskin 52 Hot-Rod Tele...it's lovely, what i'd like to ask is a bit random, but having never owned a Nitro laquered guitar from new is this..How long would it take naturally for the finish to craze and crack? Or being as it's thinskin, will it ever happen?

I know it's a kinda random question, with lots of variables, but maybe there is a natural ageing time span?!

[Lance]

I guess that depends on how much you beat on it. Most likely, normal wear will start to show within an year.

[dual_tone]

it's my understanding that nitro crazing occurs from quick changes in temperature, sun exposure, and smoke.

i would imagine that even if you were carless about this stuff and lived in a cold climate (lots of changes in temp if you're traveling around with it from gig to gig or practice, etc), it would still take quite a few years before the crazing would start to appear (at least five years or so?), but this is just a guess based on what the vintage ones look like now after 50-60 years...

[Darcy Hoover]

Here's what I did.

Take your year old thinskin 52RI to a jam session with beer. Drink too much beer. Have someone call your wife to pick you up. Have your wife throw your thin-skin 52RI on the backseat, not bothering with the case, drive you home and forget about the guitar. Do this in the dead of a Canadian winter, at, say, oh... -20 C (about -4 F for you Americans). Next morning, have your wife go out and get your Tele from the back seat and bring it in the house before going off to work. Wake up around noon to a thin-skin Tele with a cracked finish.

After about a year of playing it, I do notice a lightening in the finish on both edges of the fretboard from the 3rd to 12th fret, so it's wearing pretty quick. I do have the odd chip (it does chip very easily) and the wood underneath is very light gray.

[Gary in Boston]

The fast way to crack the finish is to take the neck off the body and put it in the freezer, throw the neck neck in too. Let it sit in there a bit an hour or so and yank it out in a warm room. It will crack like a car windshield.

Not for the faint of heart.

Gary

[0racle]

The freezing method will only produce horizontal checking, due to the shrinking and rapid expansion of the wood due to temperature extremes, so it will look fake...the best way to do it is to send it to me, as I know the way the Fender Masterbuilders do it...but I'll never tell, as it's a secret I guard with my life !

[ramblinmike]

Originally Posted by 0racle

The freezing method will only produce horizontal checking, due to the shrinking and rapid expansion of the wood due to temperature extremes, so it will look fake...the best way to do it is to send it to me, as I know the way the Fender Masterbuilders do it...but I'll never tell, as it's a secret I guard with my life !

you mean the radio shack electronics dust sprays?

[Gary in Boston]

Hmm. If the guitarbhas a nitro finish the freeze method should work. I have seen it work............ by accident. A friend of mine had his Strat in the car overnight. It was cold, very cold. We got to the gig and he opened the case and at first the condinsation hazed up on the finish. He wiped it down and toke the guitar out of the case. It hazed up a second time and I noticed cracks in the yellow of the sunburst at an angle to the light. We didn't know what the problem was so we started looking over the body for other problems. The longer we kept that guitar out the more it hazed and cracked. Pretty soon the dark ares of the sunburst had white ish cracks in it. Later he learned what had caused it. I never forgot it. The crackes went in every direction really. Long cracks with "ladder like" wrungs between Areas where screws on the pickgaurd went into the wood got little "bullet hole" like fractures around them. Really quite spectacular.

Gary

[GUITARmole]

Originally Posted by Gary in Boston

Hmm. If the guitarbhas a nitro finish the freeze method should work. I have seen it work............ by accident. A friend of mine had his Strat in the car overnight. It was cold, very cold. We got to the gig and he opened the case and at first the condinsation hazed up on the finish. He wiped it down and toke the guitar out of the case. It hazed up a second time and I noticed cracks in the yellow of the sunburst at an angle to the light. We didn't know what the problem was so we started looking over the body for other problems. The longer we kept that guitar out the more it hazed and cracked. Pretty soon the dark ares of the sunburst had white ish cracks in it. Later he learned what had caused it. I never forgot it. The crackes went in every direction really. Long cracks with "ladder like" wrungs between Areas where screws on the pickgaurd went into the wood got little "bullet hole" like fractures around them. Really quite spectacular.

Gary

Let me guess...he DIDN'T WANT IT TO CRACKLE!! ?

Usually making a concious decision to keep your guitar perfect is the best way to induce weatherchecking!

If you want it to check it will NEVER happen!

[Gary in Boston]

No we were pleebs really. The more we looked at the guitar the more it cracked. Perhaps if we were from some primative society we would think our looking at it was causing the cracks.

I also lost a camera to the cold and condinsation this way.............

Gary

[craggle]

Thanks guys, thats shed some interesting light on the process

[0racle]

Originally Posted by ramblinmike

you mean the radio shack electronics dust sprays?

Nope...look at a '54 Masterbuilt Strat, that's not dust spray process.

[craggle]

..after a gig last Saturday, a got home at 2 a.m. and the sky was clear. it was frosty out..bout -3 according to weather forcast..

So, instead of taking my tele indoors, i took her out the case, and left her under the moonlight in the back garden (i didnt sleep much i can tell you lol)

Having retrieved her a few hours later, and rushing her indoors and putting near a warm radiator..i waited for the crackling..lol nothing happened, oh well, i'm resigned to the fact it will happen when it happens, just thought i'd share that.

[Telelicious]

How bout taking it to a tanning salon, picking their highest UVB bed and laying it in there on high for about 10 minutes. That thin nitro might pull right apart. I did it on a neck with nitro and it hardened right up.
UV booths are how the factories cure their fiishes fast and get different degrees of ageing.
Saw it on "How its made" on the Discovery channel.

[Tele Fan]

Originally Posted by Telelicious

How bout taking it to a tanning salon, picking their highest UVB bed and laying it in there on high for about 10 minutes. That thin nitro might pull right apart. I did it on a neck with nitro and it hardened right up.
UV booths are how the factories cure their fiishes fast and get different degrees of ageing.
Saw it on "How its made" on the Discovery channel.

I've heard you can age a poly finish that way, but without the cracking. Is that true?

[Telelicious]

Dont know all the ins and outs but thats what it showed on the program I saw. I think it works on both types. Poly not cracking makes sense since it reaches a cured point and doesnt go further wearas nitro continues to shrink and cure forever Hence the crazing and checking over time. I know my 80's MIJ tele with thick poly has yellowed/darkened quite a bit with age. After trying the tanning bed on my nitro neck (1 coat of sealer and 3 coats of clear gloss nitro) and having it work good, Im going to buy some UV lights and make myself a box.