Custom Relic finish on Fender Stratocaster

This Fender USA Stratocaster was recently in the workshop for a custom relic finish.
This process is all done by hand rather than machine, to ensure the most accurate results and authentic finish. 

The first process is the guitar is completely stripped down to allow easy access to the body and neck for the ageing process to begin. After a consultation we knew exactly how the customer would want their guitar too look with the level of ageing.

The headstock and neck was aged and stained, along with a specialist stain worked in the fingerboard to give the whole neck a played in and worn feel. 

Once the neck was complete, work began on the board, this is time consuming work as the finish is slowly worked away to provide complete control on the look of the guitar. The progress photos were sent to the customer so they could say how much ageing they wanted.

The body complete, the hardware was added for the customer to see how the guitar would look, so they could approve the appearance before assembly could begin. At this stage the scratchplate and backplate were aged too.

​The guitar was then reassembled and set back up to it's original setup before the work began. The end result was a unique  guitar that looked like it had been played hard for many years!

There's plenty of  photos of the finished guitar in the gallery below.

Please get in touch with us if you're interested in finding out more about our custom relic finishes on your guitar!