# Burnt Chrome..



## Murmel (Mar 24, 2011)

We all know that BKP makes insanely good looking pickups covers, among them the burnt chrome one.
I was wondering how exactly you accomplish this, I assume it's not as easy as just flaming chrome with a torch/candle/whatever that makes a flame?
Got the idea that burnt chrome knobs would look pretty damn sweet. Hell, why not all the hardware while you're at it


----------



## MaxOfMetal (Mar 24, 2011)

I believe yellowv was messing around with some chrome covers and a torch awhile back. Perhaps he'll chime in. If I remember correctly his results weren't terrible. Not like the picture above of course.


----------



## vansinn (Mar 24, 2011)

There are many ressources on the net about chrome plating; try searching for "how to make burnt chrome plating".

Among answers are topics about platings going wrong, i.e. not ending up as desired in the normal fashion, like this interesting one: Burned-out and Bluish/Cloudy Chrome plating

EDIT: What I mean is that it seems to me these burnt, and other types of alterated, chromes, will happen when the operating conditions (the bath type and strength, anode and cathode materials, voltage and current, when/how electric current is applied) for the chrome plating process aren't met, i.e. those are normally considered errors.
But just like the process can go 'wrong', resulting in weird, ugly, cool or lovely finishes, it's just as viable simply settin up the process to go wrong in a known way, for deliberately ending up with such finishes.
I believe this is what's being done on those cover, more than someone torching them.


----------



## BlackMastodon (Mar 24, 2011)

Maybe a heat gun would work too? Not too sure but that's a good question, I wouldn't mind finding out how to do it myself.


----------



## Louis Cypher (Mar 25, 2011)

I love this look too 
hence this pickguard to go with my burnt chrome warpig





But tbh that's a cheat as the chrome pickguard was airbrushed with that look rather than strategically burnt... Having burnt a few guitars and parts before (see pic above!) gotta be honest and say it all depends on the quality of the parts your burning, every thing will burn different due to minor imperfections in the base material or different % of the base material involved, going by wiki chromite ore is usually mixed with aluminium or silicon so that ratio % will give different results. 

But would definitely suggest you experiment first before you ruin any of your gear, and your looking at probably a slow burning process with a low heat blow torch as your not looking to melt it! 

The other alternative is to have a good paint shop recreate the exact look you want in paint, may be more expensive but you'll get guaranteed results... good luck though dude


----------



## littlephil (Mar 25, 2011)

I've done a few, using an old gas camping stove 
Its far from ideal, the best thing to use would be a gas torch, or an oxy welder.






You need to get the heat on very fast to get the best effect. Heating slowly doesn't work, you'll just end up turning the piece black.
Ideally, you'd get the torch/oxy to a blue flame, and pass over the cover from about 10-15cm. The cover should get red hot pretty quickly, once it does take it away. Heating differently will give you the different colours, but I haven't experimented enough to find how to get certain colours.

Don't just do burnt covers though, experiment!
Here are a couple of others I've done. The first was just plain distressed (dremelled, sanded, burnt quite a lot first, so much so that the cover warped!) and the second was originally a very bad burnt one, that just went black. I then used a file to get a look similar to the BKP Battleworn finish, then I etched it using PCB etchant (ammonium persulfate, but you could use others; ferric chloride etc)


----------



## Jontain (Mar 25, 2011)

Those pup covers are real nice^ something about distressed metal that is just sooo.... metal...


----------



## Louis Cypher (Mar 25, 2011)

littlephil said:


> I've done a few, using an old gas camping stove
> Its far from ideal, the best thing to use would be a gas torch, or an oxy welder.
> 
> 
> ...



Ignore me and follow this for burning chrome covers, phil, your's is fcuking sweet dude!  I figured it would have been slow heating up would give it that effect, but makes total sense super fast but quick heating up... I have never tried it on chrome before so, apologies OP for leading you up the wrong path.... But definitely experiment! I ruined a brilliant Iceman few years ago which a little bit of fcukin around in the shed with some wood and plastic would have saved me selling it for spares n repairs...


----------



## Konfyouzd (Mar 25, 2011)

littlephil said:


> I've done a few, using an old gas camping stove
> Its far from ideal, the best thing to use would be a gas torch, or an oxy welder.


 
in my non expert opinion, this looks just as cool.


----------



## Murmel (Mar 25, 2011)

I'm not looking to do this sometime soon, perhaps in the future. The thought just came to me. If I did attempt it, I'd probably get some cheap knobs and burn them.

Thanks for the answers anyways


----------



## littlephil (Mar 25, 2011)

Louis Cypher said:


> I figured it would have been slow heating up would give it that effect, but makes total sense super fast but quick heating up...


I though slow heating would have done it too at first, and it does, but it doesn't look anywhere near as good, and a lot of the time it will just go very dark (which can look cool for a smoked look too)
I noticed the fast heating worked better because I had the gas cranked right up and I just stuck the cover in there until it started glowing, and pulled it back out. As it cooled I could see it turning blue where it had been glowing.
I've still got to experiment more to find the best way of doing it though.



Konfyouzd said:


> in my non expert opinion, this looks just as cool.


Thanks mate! I guess if you were going for a rougher sort of steampunkish look, those would be better than the neat BKP ones.


----------

