Patina Pickguard

Brand new crappy old pickguard. Click to enlarge.

Picked up some liver of sulfur today to create a nice patina on my Tele pickguard. Filled a small jar with hot water (about 80C) and added the liver of sulfur. I then applied the mixture with a cotton ball and Q-Tips to get the desired effect. I allowed between 2 to 10 minutes contact before washing off. It actually went darker than I had planned but I rather like it. I lightened it a little with some silver polish but mostly kept as is. Looks like an old tarnished, weathered relic. Would be perfect for someone with a real old, beat up Tele or a modern relic style.

Here’s a detail…

Neil Young and rust never sleeps. Click to enlarge.

As you can see, it really is a cool effect. The sulfur actually hastens the process of tarnishing which would probably take months to years to get like this depending on the conditions. As it is pure (99.9%) silver, it could be cleaned up with silver polish, but I’ll leave it like this and seal it with some clear poly which should arrest further tarnishing.

Here’s a detail shot of the guard (before the poly) on my trusty old Tele. This would really look great with relic’ed parts (which I don’t have)…

My Telestar. Click to enlarge.

I’ll put up some more pics after the poly.

On an unrelated note. I mentioned before that I was signing papers for our new office, however that morning I was informed that someone else got in ahead of us so we lost the office. I was seriously bummed. After a couple more days of looking I decided on another property. Close to home, enough space and new. For the most part I can’t complain. Papers are signed, up front money paid and move in is Friday of next week. Very happy!

I should probably post something sometime of the experience of renting property here as a foreigner. Although the system is generally very polite in Japan being a foreigner in this system is like being a brainless child. No matter how capable or successful one is it is next to impossible to get credit cards, property etc., without the help of one’s Japanese spouse (if one has one). I am grateful for the help of mine but it is unfortunate that there are so many hurdles foreigners must jump. Especially since a foreigner I indeed am…