Aging nickel: controlling rust

[Brian H]

I'm trying to age some nickel Strat saddles and am wondering how to do rust/pitting in specific spots. Like this real set:

http://cgi.ebay.com/1956-ORIG-5-56-F...3286.m20.l1116

You can see tiny dots of rust/pitting accumulated in certain spots, especially towards the front of the saddle where it bends up the height adjustment screws. Anyone have any tips on doing this? Do you need to take a pin and hammer little "pits" through the finish before hitting with muriatic acid/vinegar/etchant?

thanks!
brian

[Mesotech]

Try coating the areas you want the least amount of corrosion to show with some candle wax. You could take some simple birthday candles and rub the surfaces as you would with a pen, or you could heat the wax and apply with a toothpick to certain spots.

After the initial treatments, remove the wax with heat, then a pensil eraser, and then do one more corrosion treatment to slightly dull the previously protected areas.

The areas with multiple treatments will corrode more than the other areas.

[Pennalizer]

Here is a thing I do when aging hardware. It may control rust to a degree but it will definitely give a sort of pitted, used look. After I treat the hardware to the desired level of corrosion I take all the hardware and put it in a ziplock freezer bag. then put the bag of hardware in a small box about 8" cube or so. Then I shake the living crap out of the box. The end result is tiny nicks, scratches and abrasions that are VERY random and do not look fake at all. Try shaking for a little bit at a time to get it to where you like it.