How to age white button tuners?

[wproffitt]

Hello all!
I got some Gotoh Duo Sonic style tuners for my upcoming Jazzmaster build and am trying to knock the whiteness on them down a bit before I install them. I’ve soaked them for a couple of days (just the buttons) in coffee. I’m not sure much has changed, though or perhaps I just haven’t seen them by the light of day yet. Any tips? Here they are after the coffee treatment:

[Larry Mal]

Nicotine? Buy a cigar, make a strong soak.

[Larry Mal]

Nicotine? Buy a cigar, make a strong soak.

[Gordon]

Coffee's not the best, in my opinion... Shoe polish may work better. However, if you can, a thin layer of tinted varnish/lacquer would look even better (if it was me, I'd look into nail polish, it may be possible to find something appropriate for cheap).

[parry]

I put the same tuners on my JM. These suckers are BRIIIIIIIIIGHT; and hard to "age". Whatever will stick to the surface tends to come off after a few weeks. Mine discoloured a little better after I took some 00 steel wool to the buttons and broke the surface. Even after that though, they started to clean up with use. I suspect tinted lacquer will get the best results and would last longer than the other methods.

[wproffitt]

Thanks for the replies! I’m going to install them in the next couple of days so I can send the guitar off to the luthier, but once it goes off to paint, I should have a bit of time to experiment with things like lacquer. Alternatively, I could just live with some WHITE tuners, too, and have that be part of the experience of a new guitar. I should probably just think of it like the All Star sneakers I wore as a teenager: you just had to deal with them being REALLY white for a while!

[sporeleki]

Try Strong tea, brew up a bunch of bags. Boil it on the stove to get a nice concentrated batch. I have had better luck with Tea over Coffee.

[wproffitt]

Tea seems easy enough (man, I’m being lazy!) to do. If you don’t mind me asking, how many bags of black tea should I use for a particular measure of water?

[UC3]

I'll second the tea.

Steeped a Fender brand, white Mustang pickup-cover in hot water with a Turmeric tea bag and the resulting color was a very funky shade of yellow.

I imagine that with more experimentation with steep-times and tea-types, you may be able to achieve what you had in mind.

If I remember correctly, I took the shine off the plastic with a few swipes of 1500 or 2000 grit wet/dry I had laying around before steeping.

Coffee grinds and shredded cigar tobacco had no effect what-so-ever. Would like to have tried chewing tobacco, but lost interest.

On a side note. I did try a few alcohol-based artist's pens, but the color did not go on as uniformly as the tea-soak, and it seemed to rub-off with little effort. However, the artist's pen thing may be worth more exploration because many of the pens utilize a different diluent/solvent, and that may be the key in the end.

Nothing beat a trial but a failure.

Good luck.

[sporeleki]

I like to hold a piece of "white" or "grey" scotchbrite pad tween the forefinger and thumb and twist the the tuner key 20-30 times. Then stick it into a 6 bag Black Chinese gunpowder tea. Soak for 24 hours. Buff to desired grot.

[wproffitt]

It’s really hard to tell in this crappy photo, but I tried the tea and feel that it did a great job at taking the edge off the whiteness of these tuners! Here is the headstock of my JM project next to the trem arm. I feel like I’ve achieved a nice bone white, which is what I was going for.