How to touch up gold on Dearmond Pickups

[CosmicArkie]

Greetings, all,

I've recently acquired a Dearmond M-75 and am attempting a minor restoration. Both gold faced pickups have peeled a little bit.

Any suggestions as to how to touch up or redo them without altering the performance?

TIA

Jim

 

[lcjones]

After reading your post, I remembered years ago we used to have folks come in to a Lincoln dealership I worked for to gold plate the nomanclature on the cars. I don't know how they did it but it didn't take them long at all to do it. So I checked Youtube and there's a lot of videos and tutorials about gold plating in general. Not much on repair work though.

Just FWIW

Chap

 

[AcornHouse]

When I first got my (now former) X-170, I asked my luthier about replating the worn gold pup covers. He advised against it because a thicker plating would hamper the pups output. So, tread carefully.

 

[dtw927]

CosmicArkie: Try http://www.caswellplating.com/electroplating-anodizing/gold-plating-kits.html . I used their gold plating kit on several sets of gold plated tuners, and the kit works well. Also replated worn (but not pitted) pickup covers. Had to polish out some minor corrosion first on a cloth wheel with fine abrasive. Don't try to plate over pit corrosion, it won't take. Best to replate over an existing polished gold finish, as any scratches and marks will show through: Take the PU out of the guitar, polish, use an aggressive degreaser like acetone, then follow the kit instructions. Protect the guitar body from the degreasing solvent and plating solution if you don't remover the PU(s) from the guitar. The gold solution is expensive but goes a long way, but it only lasts a few months before going bad (the gold compound precipitates out of the solution), so try to save up a lot of parts before buying the kit to make the cost worth while. Good luck.

DTW927