Folks,
I have a varnish finish mando that looks, well 50 - 60 yrs old as others have described. It plays so nicely and sounds great.
...the problem.
The "white" / perl tuner buttons.
What suggestions do you have for me to make them well, look a bit more blended to the instrument.
Thanks-A-Mill
~x
Real mother of pearl won't age - other than a layer of grime, it stays quite white indefinitely. But I assume you're talking about pearloid, which is usually polyester. No vintage mandolins used that stuff, they used either a white or near-white celluloid which tended to age nicely, or they used ivoroid, a different celluloid which showed ivory-like grain lines and which started life somewhat yellowed and tended to become moreso as the years went by. You can get new buttons for mandolins in either of those materials and substitute the nicer buttons for whatever you have now. There's no way to make pearloid look "vintage."
I took the white ones off the Eastman MD 504 and replaced them with the ivoroid pictured. It really improved the looks. Stewart McDonald has two styles. One for Schallers and ones for smaller posts like the Grothos. I am sure that I misspelled the brands, sorry. The cost was around $1.50 per button. You will also benefit from using the thicker super glue.
Chuck
You won't benefit from any superglue if you're using screw-on buttons though. Which is what's on the better Gotohs like these:
What if you soaked them in coffee?
Superglue would still do nothing.
To dull the polished surface of genuine MOP buttons, put them in vinegar for a short time. Very dilute nitric acid works well, too. To give celluloid buttons a slight aged yellow, expose them to bacteriostatic U.V. for a while.
I have dyed white celluloid buttons with Fiebing's and Angelus leather dye. It doesn't go real deep, but seems to go deep enough. Some I did fifteen years ago are holding up under normal use and still looking pretty good. I have never found anything that'll touch polyester buttons (the question that started this thread) at all. Best thing to do with them is get rid of them.
I have long been dyeing bone nuts with tea. Not coffee: tea. Plain old Tetley's or Lipton's.
Occasionally you can pick up a set of these old Gotohs from the 70s, 80s, I picked this set up on eBay. They are a plastic MOP simulation but are very discolored/old looking. I've seen at least one set on a Gilchrist F4. The only problem is that they are not reverse geared.
Gail Hester
Gail - I think these ones you have are the so-called reverse gears - the shaft is below the cog, but they turn the correct direction. The more modern ones above are the ones that aren't reversed.
Please have a look at this.
I recall that these old buttons were born somewhat yellow. Many by now have just cracked and crumbled. But the Stew-Mac ivoroid buttons replace them perfectly.
Paul, the ones I posted turn oposite of your diagram.
Gail Hester
Weird! I have an identical set that turn the right way. (No, I don't want to trade!) (Maybe you can sell them on eBay?)
Paul, or maybe you could sell me yours?
The issue of reverse/standard gears has always been confusing since there are really two issues, worm over/under and the direction the post turns relative to the tuner button. For example, Grover sells their tuners standard or reverse geared based on the direction they turn while the tuners are all worm under. I have a set of the standard ones that turn the wrong way and they drive me crazy.
Gail Hester
My understanding is:
1) there is one correct way for the gear to function (see photo above).
2) the old gears with the shaft below the cog are known as "reverse" gears.*
3) the later ones with the shaft above are not "reverse" gears.
All the old gears everyone thinks of as a model worked correctly; IOW, the button, when turned one way, always resulted in the post turning one way so the string wound on the inside. No exceptions. The linked page I had above explains this, as well as the various flavors of gears on the market.
*The only way the term "reversed" makes much sense is in regards to A-model gears or guitar gears where all the shafts are the same length and there is no obvious up or down. But, whatever.
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