Loar tailpiece Cover

[dhergert]

Man, how do the original tailpiece covers get so hammered??
I've thrown 3-4 hours of time in the rock tumbler, and a month in a vinegar/salt water bath, and it's nowhere close to the wear you see on a lot of the Loars...
Go figure...

I don't have a signed Loar, but I've seen a lot of TP cover wear caused just from being carried around in a case. The cloth on the inside case lid in contact with the tailpiece, combined with years of vibration caused by carrying by hand, by car, by aircraft, by train, etc... This combined with a little bit of aged fine dust, sand or dirt can turn that soft fuzzy cloth into fine sandpaper which has worn the plating of a whole lot of tailpieces.

I'd agree with Timbofood though, your work is showing great progress Spruce. If I had a Loar with a missing TP cover I'd be watching this thread pretty carefully.

Might benefit from a little custom hand touch-up pretty soon. Bicycle chain?

[Spruce]

Bicycle chain?

Yeah, I dunno...
Check out this Loar cover...rust city.

[Jeff Mando]

Yeah, I dunno...
Check out this Loar cover...rust city.

Most of the guitar relic guys will age metal parts with either muriatic or hydrochloric acid with the parts suspended in the "vapors" in a container, with proper precautions for ventilation and skin and eye protection. There's tons of "how to" videos on youtube....

Some results are quite convincing and some look very amateur and homemade. I think timing is the key.

I tried to relic some nickel pickup covers by throwing them on the porch behind the swing and I left them there for about three years. When I finally needed them for a project, I checked them and they still looked almost new after three years of rain and snow and heat...............acid is the way to go, baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dhergert]

The mu or hc acid vapor trick works on nickle plating. Not sure about nickle-silver/German Silver. I may be wrong on this but I don't think it does anything with real silver plating or gold plating.

For nickle plating, the easier acid route is using circuit board etching compound, it is much easier to work with and to control the "aging" process. Still should use gloves but a simple dunk in the compound, in a glass or ceramic bowl, in normal kitchen-type ventilation is typically considered safe. Just rinse with water when the item is sufficiently "old".

These processes are very popular among banjo people. Lots of nickle plated metal parts. If I remember correctly, I think Greg Rich had something to do with developing the mu acid vapor method at least among banjo folks. Then everyone discovered circuit board etching compound and the rest is "history".

Btw, the trick with authentic looking nickle plate acid aging is to do it un-evenly.

[Spruce]

For nickle plating, the easier acid route is using circuit board etching compound...

Btw, the trick with authentic looking nickle plate acid aging is to do it un-evenly.

Tried them both on that tailpiece that I posted a pic of, along with muriatic...
It just laughed at me...

[dhergert]

I'm guessing your tailpiece is nickle-silver then? And undoubtedly that tells us the acid aging process doesn't work on nickle-silver.

This is still good though... Like Edison, by your shared experience we're learning 10,000 ways not to age a nickle-silver tailpiece.

I guess I can add one thought about nickle-silver... I've got an 1889 S.S.Stewart banjo that has what is known as a spun-over rim, where the outer covering of the rim is nickle-silver sheeting that has been spin-molded (lathe) over an inner rim of wood. The nickel silver has lots of dings and dents and is clearly well used. But as far as metal color and texture is concerned, it's as fresh as the day it was made, and that's with little or no effort to clean it. Stains and colors don't appear to adhere to it.

Again, if my assumption is correct that your tailpiece is nickle-silver, it may be that you'll need to silver plate or nickle plate (if possible) your tailpiece in order to degrade it to look like the plating has worn off of it. Nickle-silver may simply not "age" well; that may be one of the reasons people like to use it.

Edit: There is a fair amount of copper in nickle-silver. Have you tried eggs/sulfer, or amonia?

[Loudloar]

If you want to age nickel silver, just get some fingerprints and sweat on it and it will start to get dull in a few months. And it will look natural because it IS naturally tarnished. If your arm is rubbing on part of it that area will stay less tarnished but even that unevenness will present a nice aged look.

Steve

[Timbofood]

Liver of sulphur is sometimes used to give an aged look on some silver jewelry, not sure if it's applicable but, not expensive stuff for an experiment, drug stores used to have it.

[Darryl Wolfe]

Sorry guys. I missed this thread. With all due respect, I'll go on a limb here and suggest that the OP's cover is a reproduction I made in the early '80's. It appears to be solid Sterling Silver which was all I used and it would account for the wear. I also was unable to get my bend radius's as sharp as the originals. I could be wrong..just saying

The sure fire way to tell if I made it is to check the thickness of the metal to that other one. If the Loar one is a gage or two thicker, it's one of mine

[BradKlein]

Here's the tailpiece cover from 'Brutus', distressed by the Gibson boys in the Summer of 2005. Joe Vest would probably remember the details of its making. About 1/3 of the plating is worn off, and when the base layer gets a little green from sweat, I wipe it with a polishing cloth so I may have lost some of the factory tarnish. But I like a brighter sound. ;-)

[Spruce]

Here's the tailpiece cover from 'Brutus', distressed by the Gibson boys in the Summer of 2005. Joe Vest would probably remember the details of its making. About 1/3 of the plating is worn off, and when the base layer gets a little green from sweat, I wipe it with a polishing cloth so I may have lost some of the factory tarnish. But I like a brighter sound. ;-)

Well, that engraving makes mine look darn good...

[BradKlein]

Well, that engraving makes mine look darn good...

THAT wasn't very nice, Bruce. I think the engraving by Gibson is quite good, not an exact replica down to every squiggle, but very well executed and very suitable for a Gibson-made Loar copy.

[Spruce]

THAT wasn't very nice, Bruce.

Just making an observation, just as others honestly dissed the engraving on mine...

Serious, those squiggles are quite a ways off the mark, no?
(Compared to the originals, that is...)

[Timbofood]

But remember Bruce, you asked for honesty!
Yours are getting there!

[Spruce]

But remember Bruce, you asked for honesty!

I can take it...

[Darryl Wolfe]

Just making an observation, just as others honestly dissed the engraving on mine...

Serious, those squiggles are quite a ways off the mark, no?
(Compared to the originals, that is...)

Yes, way off

[Spruce]

Yes, way off

...not to mention "The Gibson"...

I'm getting the impression that engraving these things is not all that easy to do...

[Timbofood]

Yep, you're tough enough, Bruce!

[Darryl Wolfe]

Here is one I did in the later 70's

An older gentleman at a local jewelry store engraved it. I gave him a borrowed real Loar cover and just said to duplicate it, not any prettier

http://www.mandolinarchive.com/gibson/serial/71901

[Spruce]

...not any prettier...

...but maybe the best so far?
(...and maybe needs a lunchtime roll in the rock tumbler??)

[William Smith]

Yeh I bet them outside squiggles are not too easy and on real Loar covers isn't there a spot on the bass side that overlaps a bit?

[Timbofood]

Here we have the most authentic reproduction, as with yours Bruce, this is hand work. It's not done with a power engraver hand held. It's done with a lozenge graver ( I think) and a well practiced hand. If there is any overlapping even on the old ones it's done to try to make the whole line look "right" and sometimes small mistakes happen, this is the very nature of hand work. It very well may be excellent but, rarely is it truly perfect.
Practice will make any engraver better but, fewer and fewer people are taking the time to really learn the intricacies of the disappearing art of this style of engraving.
I wonder if the older gent who did yours, Darryl, is still doing any engraving? He was "older" then, he would fall into the "pretty old" thirty odd years later.
This thread is really interesting to me from many sides, the engraving aspect, the historical significance, the artistic side too. It's all fascinating to me!

[Gary Hedrick]

Here is one I did in the later 70's

An older gentleman at a local jewelry store engraved it. I gave him a borrowed real Loar cover and just said to duplicate it, not any prettier

http://www.mandolinarchive.com/gibson/serial/71901

The one I bought from you in the mid 80's was pretty darn close.....


with all the less than stellar craftsmanship that went into the mandolins of the 20's isn't some of this a bit of a "tempest in a tea pot"?

[Spruce]

...with all the less than stellar craftsmanship that went into the mandolins of the 20's isn't some of this a bit of a "tempest in a tea pot"?

Well, I guess it's better to try to match the "less than stellar craftsmanship" with modern "less than stellar craftsmanship" rather than "waaaaaaaay less than stellar craftsmanship"....

In any event, I'm learning that some antiquing really softens the eye's acceptance of work that is apparently really hard to pull off...

[Darryl Wolfe]

same one Gary.....it was easiest for me to look up