Tune-O-Matic
New member
This recent thread https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?t=234042 got me thinking about how I turned gold hardware into nickel.
A while back I converted come chrome hardware on a LP clone to all nickel and all that remained was some nickel humbucker covers. I had a set of gold nickel silver covers from Mojotone laying around that I wasn't ever going to use so I figure the best way would be to just polish off the gold.
In my research into metal plating, most if not all professional gold plating is done on top of nickel plating. I have found the process is usually bare metal > brass plating > nickel plating > gold plating. This might explain why gold hardware is more expensive since more materials and more plating processes involved.
I found 2 ways to polish off the gold.
The quick and dirty way:
Use a dremel tool with the felt polishing wheel and the dremel metal polish. If I remember correctly, I had my dremel set of 4 or 5 and I got all of the gold plating off in about 5-10 minutes. After all the gold in off, give them a rinse in soap and water to get all of the polish residue off. The only problem with this method was that it did leave some very fine scratches in the nickel plating but you could really only see them if you were up close but all in all they turned out looking pretty good.
The time consuming, perfectionist way.
Use micro-mesh abrasives in the 8,000 and 12,000 grit range. It literally takes forever and a lot of elbow grease but the gold plating will wear right off to reveal perfectly shiny nickel plating underneath with no scratches. I would recommend using water as a lubricant (wet sanding) when you do this and make sure you periodically rinse off the gold residue from the micro mesh.
I have tried this on several pieces of gold hardware and it worked to varying degrees of success. I used the dremel method on some gold grover tuners and it when through the nickel plating down to the brass on the corners and on any raised areas such as the letters on the backs of the tuners.
I also used the dremel method on a gold 5+1 wilkinson strat bridge since wilkinson doesn't offer a nickel version and I already had the gold bridge. The bridge plate and trem arm turned out perfectly, but I didn't even bother with the saddles since I already had some callaham saddles.
Ill post some pics later today.
A while back I converted come chrome hardware on a LP clone to all nickel and all that remained was some nickel humbucker covers. I had a set of gold nickel silver covers from Mojotone laying around that I wasn't ever going to use so I figure the best way would be to just polish off the gold.
In my research into metal plating, most if not all professional gold plating is done on top of nickel plating. I have found the process is usually bare metal > brass plating > nickel plating > gold plating. This might explain why gold hardware is more expensive since more materials and more plating processes involved.
I found 2 ways to polish off the gold.
The quick and dirty way:
Use a dremel tool with the felt polishing wheel and the dremel metal polish. If I remember correctly, I had my dremel set of 4 or 5 and I got all of the gold plating off in about 5-10 minutes. After all the gold in off, give them a rinse in soap and water to get all of the polish residue off. The only problem with this method was that it did leave some very fine scratches in the nickel plating but you could really only see them if you were up close but all in all they turned out looking pretty good.
The time consuming, perfectionist way.
Use micro-mesh abrasives in the 8,000 and 12,000 grit range. It literally takes forever and a lot of elbow grease but the gold plating will wear right off to reveal perfectly shiny nickel plating underneath with no scratches. I would recommend using water as a lubricant (wet sanding) when you do this and make sure you periodically rinse off the gold residue from the micro mesh.
I have tried this on several pieces of gold hardware and it worked to varying degrees of success. I used the dremel method on some gold grover tuners and it when through the nickel plating down to the brass on the corners and on any raised areas such as the letters on the backs of the tuners.
I also used the dremel method on a gold 5+1 wilkinson strat bridge since wilkinson doesn't offer a nickel version and I already had the gold bridge. The bridge plate and trem arm turned out perfectly, but I didn't even bother with the saddles since I already had some callaham saddles.
Ill post some pics later today.
