(This is my first GH topic post so sorry if I format something(s) incorrectly)
Hello everyone! I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is going to be controversial, or it could be mostly praised or hated. I really have no clue as I don't think anyone has done anything like this to a keyboard before. To be honest, I can imagine how this could be seen as "keyboard heresy", and I don't think I would have done this to any board rarer than the XT, as the XT is still common on ebay and other places, relatively speaking.
Anyway, a while back, I was working on keyboard stuff w/ my friend (Reddit u/BeeSawd - not sure what his GH is or if he even has one) and he half jokingly threw out the idea of (relicing?) my F XT while we were talking about relic guitars. I use the F XT as my daily driver at home and was thinking of doing a custom paint job to it already, so the idea of a
relic keyboard was certainly thought provoking. In hindsight, it was kind of a "**** it" idea, but I really wanted to see how it could turn out - Which I think was was pretty damn well.
The design I was going for was sort of a burnt / brushed metal look, with the beige poking through as marks. In one of the pictures, I have a fire iron for reference to the look I was going for.
The board itself is an XT from 1981, and was in
really good condition when I got it. The foam was seemingly perfect, which made the restoration process fairly easy, as all I had to do was clean out the board chow and clean the keycaps. The left ear for the flip out feet apparently broke off during shipping. I was considering replacing my case for the custom work, but then I thought the broken ear may actually fit the beat-to-**** theme I was going for, so I left that is it was.
The process I took for the relic job is as follows: (I'm a noob when it comes to painting so it took me a while to get it how I wanted and I made some mistakes)
1. I spray-painted the top and bottom part of the case jet black, (The steel bottom plate is still jet black as opposed to the ashy color of the top)
2. I then scuffed the paint of the first coat on the top a bit to give it texture for the second coat. At this point I am done with the bottom part of the case. I used a flathead screwdriver for this.
3. I gave the top part of the case a second coat of paint
4. After a few days I took the top case and started on the "design" --
5. I first coated the entire top case w/ vegetable oil to loosen the paint, and then, using a dish scrubber I scrubbed the top case horizontally. This removed most of the second coat of paint, and gave the top case that brushed look and ashy color.
6. I then took a flathead screwdriver and worked out areas of the paint, revealing the beige while being careful not to damage the case under the paint too much. I also removed the paint on certain edges for a more worn look.
7. Finally, I used a small amount of isopropyl alcohol to fade some of the edges of the marks.
In terms of how it turned out, I definitely think I could have done better, but overall it turned out fairly close to how I envisioned. Of course, the design of the relic is completely subjective by nature. There is no real pattern to the marks with the way that I did it. (Even though they are obviously more focused around the right side of the board)
To my knowledge, I don't think anyone has done something like this to a keyboard before, so I'm curious to hear your guys' opinions / feedback on this.
