Why would anybody buy a new guitar that looks beat up? Is it the cool factor of having a guitar that looks like your favorite guitar slinger's axe? Is it the worn-in feel of the fretboard? Is it the lower profile of the frets and rounded fret ends? Is it the smooth natural feel of an unfinished neck? The answer is an emphatic "Yes!" to all of the above questions.

Nothing beats a classic car, a worn-in pair of shoes, or a vintage guitar. Unfortunately a lot of us can't afford a dream vintage guitar priced in the thousands, and even if we could, we sure don't want to take that kind of investment to the local bar on Saturday night. Consequently, having the option of purchasing a new guitar with custom pickups, worn-in neck feel, and an aged look at a fraction of the cost of a genuine vintage guitar is ideal for a lot of players today.

Fazio's Frets and Friends (www.faziosmusic.com/) in Manchester, Missouri has been able to not only take existing guitars and customize them, but using replica bodies and necks, plus photo resources we can build exact replicas of original vintage pieces and artist guitars as well.

Fazio's began aging guitars, first as a way to deal with dings and scratches from general handling by customers. We noticed that some of the guitars with satin finishes, like the Fender Highway One Strats and Teles- were getting chips and dents from customers handling them in the showroom; so we began our research by looking at hundreds of pictures of vintage guitars.

To get a realistic aged look you have to really think about how a guitar is treated through the years. I remember taking a Dremel tool to the first guitar I aged. I had perfect little swirly marks etched into the guitar in a matter of seconds. I soon realized that I would need to invest more time working by hand to authentically transform a guitar. Aside from The Who and Jimi Hendrix, not too many artists would intentionally damage their instruments. More often than not it's a case of accidental damage or natural wear and tear, on the order of what was occurring in our showroom.

Using scrapers, razor blades and sandpaper, I carefully wear down the finish of the body. The goal is to make a new guitar look naturally worn, as though it belonged to a working guitarist. I look at all the points of the guitar that would come into contact with other objects. In the area where your arm lies I try to feather the finish out with scrapers and polish over to create a smooth worn look and feel. If it is the edge of the guitar, I try to be more aggressive with it. I'll do everything from dropping the body a short distance to banging it against a brick wall to get the desired effect.

To insure the neck has the proper feel is a huge undertaking. I scrape the finish off by hand until I just begin to touch wood. I want the guitar to feel worn from a player's hand so I spend lots of time polishing and rubbing the neck to give it a smooth feel. I work in a mix of lemon oil and dirt to get a dark aged look, and help keep the neck sealed. I also pay close attention to the headstock and heel of the neck, feathering away the finish to create a natural worn appearance. Hardware areas like the tuning machines, knobs, pick guard and bridge assembly are given appropriate parallel aging treatments so the overall effect is uniform. You can't have an aged body with gleaming chrome.

Once the neck and body are complete, and the hardware is aged, I can focus on setup. I really want the guitar to feel used so I spend a lot of time dressing the frets. I scrape the edges of the fretboard with a razor blade, and file off the edges. I usually do a fret leveling job to insure a good setup later.

At Fazio's we have the system pretty much down at this point and can age a guitar from start to finish in a day.

The aged guitars at Fazio's have been a huge success; they have even opened the door to allow us to build custom pieces. We cannot take a commercially produced guitar with a Polyurethane finish and age it. It wouldn't come out right. It's not cost effective to build bodies and necks from scratch, and we don't have the facilities to spray nitro. I buy the replica bodies and necks made to my specs and have them finished locally. Once the bodies and necks are completed we replace the stock pickups with custom-wound pickups from Rio Grande, Lindy Fralin, or John Suhr. I then age them, put them together, and set them up.

In the future, if we ever have a larger shop with more tools, we could build one-off pieces and custom items. The current new models from other companies like Fender that we age are either vintage reissues or Highway One models. We recently built a copy of Robben Ford's '61 Fender Telecaster, and we are currently working on a copy of Steve Kimock's early 60s Fender Strat. The possibilities are endless in terms of what a customer can have custom built at Fazio's Frets and Friends!

Dave Anderson has taught guitar privately and worked in music retail since 1992; he has played professionally since the age of 15. In 1998, Dave apprenticed himself to master luthier Bill Moll of Moll Custom Instruments in Springfield, Missouri. There he gained experience in building archtop, flattop and electric guitars and contributed to the development of Moll's "John Pizzarelli" signature guitar, one of the premiere models in the Moll line.

Dave began working at Fazio's Frets and Friends in Manchester, Missouri in the spring of 2002, first as a private instructor, but he soon found his forte in sales and repairs. He currently works on the sales floor specializing in acoustic and electric guitars, pick-ups, and amps, as well as working in the store's setup and repair shop.

In his spare time, Dave plays lead guitar and pedal steel in local St. Louis bands Cumberland Gap and Tenement Ruth. To learn more about Dave Anderson and his music and instruments, please see the bands' websites: