Hamish is a huge Robben Ford fan, but his Mexican telecaster just wasn’t inspiring enough. The solution was to replace the pickups with a custom wound Sunbear set, and have the guitar refinished and relic’d to look more like Ford’s 1960 tele.
First of all, the old poly finish had to go. Polyurethane is a highly durable and brittle finish, and removing it was straightforward enough using a heat gun and paint scraper. After some sanding and grain filling, the solid ash body was ready for sanding sealer and the first base coat.
I painted the body in arctic white nitro cellulose, which would have been the original colour of a 1960s telecaster before decades of sunlight caused it to discolour. Then I applied the olympic white (which is a more of an off-white yellowish colour) and clear coat.
Nitro requires a few weeks to dry before sanding and buffing – then the fun begins!
I used a number of still images of Robben’s guitar for reference, and found some videos taken by his partner and shared on her Instagram. I couldn’t find pictures of the back, so I used some images of another 1960 telecaster. We weren’t trying to replicating the original, but rather make a kind of tribute, something that would look and feel like it was from the same year and inspire Hamish. After all, that’s what it’s all about!
To relic the finish I used a few different tools. Sandpaper, knives, chisels, nails, and so on. While relicing looks like you just drag the thing across a gravel road for a while, the idea is to make it look like it has been played aggressively for a long period of time, not blatantly abused and mistreated. The marks had to look like wear from playing, but with the odd knock from the occasional mishap. No matter how careful you are with a guitar, over sixty-odd years it’s bound to come into contact with tables, music stands, drum risers and other things that ought not be anywhere near an object of value! But accidents happen.
When treating the paint like this, the top base coat got worn away in places, revealing the lower coat of the original colour.
Old finishes don’t just look beaten and scratched. They also crack and check. To replicate this look, I use techniques to freeze and heat (expand and shrink) the finish. This is done by heating up the finish with a heat gun and then spraying it with an inverted can of compressed air to release the ice cold propellant. Repeatedly heating and freezing makes the paint take on naturally random crackling effects.
The exposed wood was then stained to look dirty and worn.
Next, the guitar needed to be assembled. This included adding a new set of Sunbear Alex Farran Five Pickups and a Gotoh In Tune bridge to help intonation.
The result is one very happy customer, who can be seen on Instagram coaxing rich clean and overdriven tones with it through his own Two Rocks combo.
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Do you have a guitar that needs the relic treatment, to give it that worn in look or to resemble your favourite guitarist’s instrument? Drop me a line!
Very nice work indeed.
I have a 1963 pre CBS Strat that belonged to my late uncle. I have had it since 2018, & have previously considered getting the body refinished (back in 2020 just before lock down. Consulted with Rexter guitars up Norwich way about doing the work. He has since packed up the refinishing business).
I don’t play the Strat as often as I should (I have 2 Mexican Strats that are my go to, with their 9.5″ neck radius far more my thing), but am always pondering getting it refinished, as the body has already been stripped at some point in it life, & it has been ‘naturaled’ & then given a glossy type seal coat…really not my thing.
There is some paint evidence in the neck pick up & trem block pockets that it may possibly have previously been finished in Lake Placid blue (a custom colour choice for that year), though the tint appears more purple. Unfortunately the Strat’s life history is unknown as this is how my uncle acquired it (unsure whether he was aware of it’s history before him).
Anyway, having pondered potential colour options, I came down to Fender’s Daphne Blue, Sonic Blue, or quite possibly Fiesta Red as candidates, though a possible aged & relic’d Daphne Blue is winning the race at the mo after finding a fine Fender 64 Custom Shop example on google that looks just the ticket.
Thanks for your comments. That Tele was a really fun finish to do.
A ‘63 Strat – how very cool! I firmly believe a guitar should be played, and since it sounds like your Strat has a bit of a history with refinishes and so on, perhaps another refin wouldn’t be a problem! A light relic could be just what it needs, perhaps – enough to show it has had a life but not like it’s been abused. Anyway, a fascinating project!