How to distress your mm mandolin for $20

[Randy Linam]

Why pay thousands of dollars to have your Gibson MM distressed when you could do it yourself for a little time and approx. $20 worth of materials.

While researching How To Distress a Mandolin I came across these highly detailed instructions. Evidently they were written by either a world renowned luthier, a neuro-surgeon or a mental patient with access to the internet.

Enjoy the read. You will need a pen and paper because I'm sure you will want to take detailed notes.

http://www.ehow.com/how_8590547_distress-mandolin.html

[High Lonesome Valley]

CO2 to the finish. Wonderful crazing.

I actually used to get $$$ for this.

[sunburst]

"Don't be afraid of damaging the mandolin; the goal is to make it appear old and well-used."

[Drew Egerton]

It is important to set your mandolin on a clean work surface prior to destroying it LOL

[MikeEdgerton]

Or you could save yourself some money and let me borrow it for 6 months or so. My F5G didn't start out distressed but I'm getting it there by simply playing it.

[Hudmister]

Thanks for the information. I always wondered how it was done.

[Kowboy]

I promised my parents that I wouldn't!

[Michael Weaver]

I like how under references it reads "Mandolin Cafe: Home Page."

[Joey Anchors]

I get the whole relic/destressed thing but I'd much rather let mine age naturally with years of me playing it.
Sure it takes much long, but the journey is much more rewarding for the owner.

[OldSausage]

With a bit of distressing, you can make a cheap mandolin look like a valuable antique.

Bear this in mind next time you're tempted to waste time playing one of these potential conversation pieces.

[Petrus]

Play a banjo really loud in front of it.

[Tom Coletti]

In the retail and collector's business, they have another word for "distressed/artificially-aged."

Fake.

--Tom

[Timbofood]

Mike beat me to the offer! You are just too quick!

[allenhopkins]

Sorta interesting that mandolin was the instrument picked to "distress"; I'd guess that distressing an electric guitar would result in a more salable instrument -- assuming that increasing the sale price was the object of the process.

Fender, for example, has been actively promoting distressed instruments -- their "Road Worn" and "Relic" series, e.g. -- and Gibson Custom Shop's Tom Murphy has a seven-part YouTube series on producing "Ultra Aged" electric guitars (simulating lacquer checking with razor blades, that kind of stuff).

My take on "distressing," despite Big Joe Vest's eloquent defense in an earlier thread, is that it's largely a stupid poser way to add "vintage vibe" to just another new instrument. If you do it at home on the kitchen table, or other "clean work surface," to your $79 Rogue mandolin, you're making my point, I think. And good luck turning that Rogue into a "valuable antique."

[jim simpson]

I like so many others prefer natural distressing. Here are 2 examples (20's Martin and Harmony Patrician) that show player wear.

[kkmm]

I followed this procedure, got my mandolin really looked distressed, only to find out I did that to my brand new mandolin , not the old one !!! Then I waked up, lucky that's just a night mare

[Bertram Henze]

Then I waked up, lucky that's just a night mare

A mare in the night
in the wake of a dream.
Those mandos just might
not be what they seem.

[Ivan Kelsall]

I can't help but feel that having a pre-distressed mandolin gives us a perverse pleasure in that we can have a mandolin that looks exactly the way we'd like our well loved & cared for instruments to look. None of mine will ever look 'distressed' to me,i won't live long enough,so owning a pre-distressed mandolin would be really nice, as long as it was built that way from the start. My Weber & Lebeda are in almost pristine condition & they are well used. My recently aquired 'used' Ellis's original owner was less than careful, as it shows a few dings here & there,but even so, it's far from 'distressed',unlike myself on finding a strap pin big enough to tie a ship's hawser to,screwed into it's neck,
Ivan

[Petrus]

Faking antiques was a common practice back in the day, even utilized at least once by Michelangelo.

Michelangelo showed the Cupid to his friend Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, to whom in the meantime he had delivered the Young Saint John. Struck by the quality of the work, Lorenzo convinced his friend the sculptor to "age" it and send it to Rome where it could be sold at a higher price, passing it off as an antique piece. Buonarroti took up the suggestion and, probably in March 1496, sold the sculpture for thirty denari to Baldassarre del Milanese. ... Having taken the marble to Rome, Milanese then buried it in a vineyard to "dirty" it and give it a more antique look. He then managed to sell it for two hundred ducats to Raffaele Riario, Cardinal of San Giorgio. However very soon, already in early May, Riario realised that he had purchased a "fake", albeit wrought with extraordinary skill. Consequently he returned the sculpture, asking for his money back, at the same time sending a trusted confidante, the banker Jacopo Galli, to Florence to meet the artist.

http://www.palazzo-medici.it/mediate...miente_(1496)_

[Polecat]

$20 is WAY too expensive. I accused my mandolin of being a closet banjo which cost me nothing and distressed it to a near-suicidal level.

[Bertram Henze]

Another easy approach is to distress your audience with your mandolin, then they might distress your mandolin for free.

[journeybear]

Or you could save yourself some money and let me borrow it for 6 months or so.

I could do it in half the time. But who has the time? People want what they want when they want it - now!

Another easy approach is to distress your audience with your mandolin, then they might distress your mandolin for free.

But they might express their distress directly upon you!

I'm so glad he included a link for "clean." I wasn't sure just what that meant.

[Cheryl Watson]

Everything is so easy these days-- That was funny.

[High Lonesome Valley]

In the retail and collector's business, they have another word for "distressed/artificially-aged."

Fake.

--Tom

Tell that to this guy.

[Gene Summers]

Distressed mandolin? Just ask Marty Stewart, he might have some ideas for ya...