Help! Mariposa gold plate corrosion/string breaking issue

[quan yeomans]

Hi all,
I've owned and gigged with a Imperial White Deluxe Mariposa for the last 2 years, and absolutely adore this guitar, however the gold plate on the bridge corroded awfully fast imo and I seem to be breaking a lot more strings due to sharp edges on the actual bridge saddles appearing as a result of corrosion. Has any one else encountered this issue?
The Trem cover degradation, while a bit disappointing doesn't bother me overly but I have been considering a brass replacement option for the saddles themselves. If any one has any suggestions/tips for this it'd be super appreciated.

Cheers

 

[Ted]

Yikes! That is pretty severe. Looks like it's been gigged on the Titanic. Haha.

I hope the gold hardware on my Valentine and my brother's new Mariposa Deluxe never end up that way. I'd also hope that EBMM would offer replacement bridge parts/ cover and not charge an arm and a leg for being out of warranty. I've seen occasional pics of chrome bridge covers severely corroded like that so I'm not sure it's just an issue with gold hardware. But that is a bummer.

Maybe you could at least switch to non gold-plated bent steel saddles to counteract the string breakage situation.

 

[quan yeomans]

Hehe well I guess by the end of some shows I’ve sweated about half the North Atlantic, so that may account for the ‘Titanic-like’ condition. It’s probably just a ‘me’ problem.

I’ve contacted the Aus branch to see what they suggest. Steel may be all that’s available but I feel like brass would suit the look of the gold hardware and maybe even ‘sound better’?

 

[tbonesullivan]

Are the strings breaking right where they go over the bridge, or behind? Sometimes they can break if they are hitting the tremolo plate.

 

[dibart77]

Besides being an EBMM guy, I'm a car guy. We call that "driven hard and put away wet." You gotta wipe your guitar down before you case it after the gig!

 

[quan yeomans]

Haha ‘driven hard - put away wet’ Nice. Not really a likely thing in this case as my tech is very experienced (decades in the game with plenty of big bands). That seems like a rookie error to me…

Not ruling out the fact that my sweat may be particularly nasty though.

 

[tbonesullivan]

Besides being an EBMM guy, I'm a car guy. We call that "driven hard and put away wet." You gotta wipe your guitar down before you case it after the gig!

Could also be a case of "acidic sweat". I have a friend from HS, and even with hand washing his strings pretty much turn black after 30 minutes.

 

[Vadauco]

well I guess by the end of some shows I’ve sweated about half the North Atlantic

Could also be a case of "acidic sweat".

It's called hyperhidrosis, and that's exactly what I was thinking. However, while there are treatments for this condition, one must clean the guitar after playing, no matter what... guitar metal parts are susceptible to corrosion, and the cleaner they are, the longer they last.

 

[quan yeomans]

Ok ok guys, I’m starting to get a complex now. First of all, my band’s show is fairly high intensity so I do sweat a lot but it’s from quite a bit of bouncing around with just a mic and not actually on my guitar about 25 percent of the time. Secondly and I will stress this again: my stage tech ALWAYS wipes everything after every show so it ain’t just me and my sweat rain.

My EBMM St Vincent Goldie shows absolutely no sign of wear at all (admittedly only six months old but still)

Anyway. I’ve been in contact with the Australian distributor and they are going to talk directly with Ernie ball to see what might be up and what might be done. I’ll update this thread when I get a closer to a solution.

Thanks for all the gross sweat talk though!

 

[Sweat]

OK my name is sweat, that is caused by acidic body sweat and other atmospheric conditions and well no offense but improper care.

Gold plating seems to be the worst, how often do you change your stings?

 

[quan yeomans]

I’m calling AI bot on this one

 

[Sweat]

I’m calling AI bot on this one

????????????????

 

[tbonesullivan]

Ok ok guys, I’m starting to get a complex now. First of all, my band’s show is fairly high intensity so I do sweat a lot but it’s from quite a bit of bouncing around with just a mic and not actually on my guitar about 25 percent of the time. Secondly and I will stress this again: my stage tech ALWAYS wipes everything after every show so it ain’t just me and my sweat rain.

My EBMM St Vincent Goldie shows absolutely no sign of wear at all (admittedly only six months old but still)

That's got Chrome plated hardware, which should be much more resistant to corrosion. Gold hardware is and has been the least durable finish on guitars pretty much forever. Nickel is better but still slowly oxidizes and will flake away. Chrome is great but many don't like the "blue" color it has compared to the "warmer" nickel color.

If it's a high intensity show with a lot of sweating, yeah that can happen even if you don't have acidic sweat, and wipe it down carefully, especially with gold hardware.

 

[DrKev]

That's got Chrome plated hardware, which should be much more resistant to corrosion. Gold hardware is and has been the least durable finish on guitars pretty much forever. Nickel is better but still slowly oxidizes and will flake away. Chrome is great but many don't like the "blue" color it has compared to the "warmer" nickel color.

Yeah, chrome is one of the hardest wearing metal coatings and gold is the softest and least durable. For "gentle" home users gold usually "fades" away gently to the metal underneath. But with heavy duty use, like regular gigging, I would expect to see wear showing quite quickly. But it depends on the substrate material being plated, and the thickness of the plating, and a bunch of other plating process stuff.

Looking at the photos, notice the bridge plate itself, see how sweat has affected just the portion adjacent to the low E string? That's what I expect to see on the bridge cover too, but we're not. We're seeing a more generalized damage instead. What that means, if anything, we're all just guessing.
Let's just wait and see CS has to say about it.

Quan, if you need help getting a response, drop me a message.

 

[Podicle]

Quan is frontman with legendary Australian band Regurgitator, so it's safe to say he’s well acquainted with normal guitar wear!

No advice other than to say I had a Maton with gold tuning pegs that did this very quickly. I avoid gold hardware for this exact reason.