“People always say Rory Gallagher and Stevie Ray Vaughan had acidic sweat – but this is what I think”: Why some of the most famous Fenders are so heavily worn, according to a Custom Shop Masterbuilder

Dale Wilson & Andy Hicks in Conversation: Talking with Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilders! - YouTube

Watch On

One of Fender Custom Shop’s leading Masterbuilders has shared his theory as to why some of the most legendary Fender guitars of all time are so heavily worn.

In guitardom, there are few sights more iconic than a battered and bruised Fender. Rory Gallagher’s legendary 1961 Stratocaster – which sold earlier this year for more than $1,000,000 – was stripped bare through wear. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Number One was equally relic’d. Mike McCready’s Strat can also be added to that list.

There have been a few theories as to why these guitars ended up so heavily weathered, from natural wear and tear caused by spiky jewellery and belt buckles, all the way to the acidity of a player’s sweat.

Custom Shop Masterbuilder Dale Wilson – who’s mastered the art of artificial aging through his relic builds – has a different theory, though, and it doesn’t have anything to do with acidic sweat. But it does involve sweat in general.

“I have a theory. People always say Rory Gallagher had an acidic sweat, right? Or Steve Ray Vaughan. [But] this is what I think,” he says in a new interview with The Music Zoo.

“It's probably wrong but I think they put their guitars in the cases wet, and then they closed the cases and went to the next show. Then it just stewed in that wetness, in that sweat – because they both perspired quite a bit – until the next gig.

“I mean, Mike Campbell's guitar. You've seen the fretboard on that. It just is globbed with [dirt], and he doesn't want that cleaned off. I think it’s the same with heavy touring musicians that are just going from one place to another.

“They put it away wet. So it's not necessarily buckle rash or them hitting it on something – which it is, of course – but on top of that, it's just the paint getting loosened over time, sitting in a case.”

Andy Hicks – another legend of the Fender Custom Shop – agreed with Wilson’s theory, pointing out that vintage guitars are especially susceptible to such aging.

“The sweat gets through the natural checking,” he adds. “We’re talking about vintage guitars, so it’s lacquer paint. It checks, the sweat seeps in through that, and then kind of festers underneath.

“It’s not that your belt is a particularly spiky belt, it’s just more abrasive than jeans or whatever. And the paint is now hanging on for dear life because it’s had this water underneath the finish. Something like that is just going to take it off.”

“And if you like at some of the checking, there’s the bleed through,” Wilson agrees. “It almost looks like there’s oil in the checking running under the finish. I think that’s exactly what it is.”

Mystery solved? Well, Hicks and Wilson are leading experts when it comes to all things Fender, so they might have just hit the nail on the head.

Though Hicks is known for ultra-relic’d builds, he also has a few more out-there Fenders in his portfolio. Last month, he unveiled his latest Custom Shop design: a Godzilla Stratocaster with a built-in Roar button.