Hardware Oxidisation

[Dem Jolie-blues]

hi folks,  having just bought a (Ahem) new and unused Gibson off Ebay,  its about eight years old and been stored in a damp environment for at least some of its life apparently, the hard ware is all gold in colour and lightly pitted. No, it didn't look that bad on the pics,  but i did see that the pole pieces on the pickups where a little rusty, but I've dealt with that before.  The last time i tied to polish out the pitting on gold coloured hardware was a disaster,    anyone got a cunning plan ?,  yes i will be touting for a rebate,  no it wasn't mentioned in his listing description.  Many thanks.

[Manton Customs]

You can’t unfortunately on gold hardware, even if it’s extremely minor. The playing is so thin any kind of polishing compound takes it right off and you’re left with the Nickel under plating. So bad news if you want gold hardware, good news if you fancy changing it to Nickel... as it doesn’t take long to get all the gold off.

Edited May 16, 2019 by Manton Customs

[itu]

Many goldsmiths have the equipment to plate metal stuff, so consult by phone first. May be a tad pricey, but if you didn't ask... They may have colours, too: red gold, yellow gold, rhodium... Red is the rarest, so called Russian gold. Colour comes from copper.

[BassThing]

Brasso or Silvo wadding? They aren't abrasive but are both good removing patina.

[Dem Jolie-blues]

Pretty much sorted it by using turtle-wax car polish on earbuds,   auto-gym car polish   was too fierce and instantly tried to "lighten" the gold plating.  Dismantled the  bridge and did each part separate,  scraped the fine rust off the pick-up poles with a jewellers screwdriver and polished them with solvol autool chrome polish , again using cotton buds.  It's a lot better, and I got a £100 refund,  why don't folk look after stuff that they have paid for  ????       Thanks for  replying.