Stratocaster Relic

Stratocaster Relic
What are some things i can do to my stratocaster to make it look New old stock?

Its an artic white SSS 2007 standard stratocaster.

Hi! New-Old-Stock products are typically defined as pieces that have remained unsold at a manufacturer or dealer location until such time as they are no longer being produced new by the factory. What that means to a guitar is that it will look somewhere between brand new and like it just emerged from under a virtual pile of dust and debris! My guess is that you are trying to make your guitar appear as though it has been protected in a dealer’s showroom for a dozen or so years, and had not been extensively handled. Start by replacing the pickup covers, pickguard, control knobs, and pickup selector switch tip with “aged” parts from a source like Parts Is Parts (http://www.marshallparts.com/products/711/Accessory-Kit-Strat-Aged-White.htm) or Angela Instruments (http://www.angela.com/catalog/guitar-parts/strat.html). Next, use a quality wood finish cleaner on all the exterior wood surfaces; pick a product that is designed not to scratch wood finishes, like Virtuoso Premium Cleaner (http://www.virtuosopolish.com/). The goal here is to simply remove any wax or polish from the wood surfaces; normally, you would reapply a wax or polish protectant at this point, which you do not want to do. A true N.O.S. piece will not have shiny wood surfaces; rather, the finish will look almost semi-gloss. These steps will probably be enough to achieve the results you desire; however, if not there are a couple of additional things you can try. The frets of a N.O.S. instrument will not appear polished like a brand-new guitar, so rub some fretboard treatment like Gerlitz Guitar Honey (http://www.gerlitzusa.com/) onto the fretboard. Wipe off the excess, and allow it to dry. For the chrome pieces like the input jack and tuners, use a carnauba-based wax product on the exposed surfaces, which will opaque the finish slightly. As an alternative, you could remove the pieces from the guitar completely, and spray them with a dulling spray (http://www2.krylon.com/products/dulling_spray/) or matte clear-coat (http://www2.krylon.com/products/matte_finish/). Further, if you did not like the effect (or cost) of the “aged” plastic pieces, you could always remove your existing parts from the instrument, and coat them with one of these clear sprays. This may be more work than you want to invest to achieve your goal, but just letting it sit in the corner of your room unplayed for several years is probably not going to work for you! Then again (no disrespect intended!), you could just spray the whole assembled guitar with the dulling spray (which is removable), and in 10 minutes, you’re done! Seriously, I do hope some of this babble helps. Best regards, Dana

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