Nickel over steel with no copper. Question

[knuckleslammer]

I'm the guy with the steel guitar body. I have 1 more question for you experts. The guys I'm talking to in Detroit are going to do this.

Here's what the company National Guitars does. The finish looks like this.

http://www.nationalguitar.com/nation...elphi_main.jpg

It's called vintage steel. Like a fool I hit it with Ferric Chloride which I did to another guitar once and it came out terrible. So I'm having it replated. Now the main concern is

1. The tone does not be altered.
2. The finish wont have issues with falling off chipping. I always thought that copper had to be used in between the steel and the copper finish. The company I'm talking to says it will hold up fine without the copper but I want to be sure.

I don't know why but the company National does not buff steel. They said it's a horror show to buff and sometimes the grills got caught in the buffer and damn near killed someone. But they do buff brass so I'm wondering what's up with that.

Anyhow, I am wondering what you guys think of nickel over steel and if it will be durable. I don't want too many layers of stuff on here because the guitar sounds unreal as is and I'm concerned that if they use copper it's going to be too thick and the instrument wont vibrate well. The guitar I have is pictured below. I don't believe there is any copper as where the steel is showing through, there is no copper that I can see. So, this leads me to believe that there is no copper.

The guy at national is not sure either.

"Our Vintage Steel finish (which I linked to a pic above) is like this---We glass bead blast the bodies/coverplates/tailpieces then send them out for plating. They go into a few wash baths then possibly into a copper tank to be "flashed" quickly, then into a dull nickel tank. We don't polish, buff, or otherwise shine any steel at the factory, nor do we have them dipped in a bright nickel tank.

Here's the guitar as of now. I see no copper upper left bout where you can see the hazing. This is steel showing through. The shinier portions is still nickel.

http://mysite.verizon.net/kfarrelldba/g1.JPG

The guy who is going to plate it says this. I'm sure he knows what he's doing, but I don't know him personally and I'd like some other opinions on the nickel over steel with no copper idea.

"Our process: Strip the product to the base metal, polish the base metal, copper plate, buff the copper, re-copper, then bright nickel plate"

But this was before we talked about leaving out the copper.

Thanks for helping out an idiot. I really appreciate any help here.

Kevin

[woodjames]

You'll be fine with the copper in there. It's just enough to allow buffing, which it's 100 times easier to buff copper than steel. So to allow a true bright nickel, you need to buff the base - in this case copper to a true mirror shine, then the nickel will be the best it can be.

There was no copper on the piece that you showed. In fact the use of copper will allow a thinner nickel plate if thickness is that big a concern. Bright nickel will be like a reflective bumper finish - only slightly yellow in color, but it'll be very reflective, especially with a good copper base. You'll get slightly better adhesion with a strike coat of copper in there too.

[knuckleslammer]

Thanks James, that's reassuring. I have no idea how thick this stuff is. Seems not very thick if you ask me. Would it be safe to say that paint over steel would be thicker than copper / nickel over steel? I just don't want to compromise the tone is all. Thanks. Thanks as well for the hook up.

Kevin

[woodjames]

The plate at most will be just a couple/few thousandths of an inch, pretty much the thickness of a human hair. Paint will most likely come out just a little thicker, obviously depending on how it's applied. I can't see how plate could affect the tone, as there's nothing in there that would deaden the sound, it really won't be any different than just steel by itself. Obviously a different application, by many many many musical instruments have plate applied - trumpets, flutes...the list goes on. If you didn't notice a change from the area that you buffed/abraded through to the raw steel, then you won't after it's done. Especially considering that they will strip the old plate off, so aside from .001" or so of buffed out copper, you'll be in the same position. However, nickel is incredibly dense and all around tough, it must have been very very thin from the factory. With .00015 thickness of nickel on my parts, it's a task to pneumatically sand through.

Hope this helps! Rest assured my friend, your piece is in very good hands, or I wouldn't have recommended them.

-Jimmy

[knuckleslammer]

Thanks Jimmy, that's what I needed to hear.