LIVE RUST

[QuasarQuail]

I completed my first Warmoth build back in May, and I used a Fender US Standard Strat tremolo bridge I purchased from Amazon. I'm a little surprised to see that the string saddles are already showing some light superficial rust, and the little height adjustment screws are pretty damn rusty, too.
I live in a very low-humidity area (Southern San Diego), but I definitely play the sh*t out of this guitar, usually while sweating (not much air conditioning in my haunts).
So I'm wondering: is this normal? Is it at all possible I got burned with a counterfeit bridge (seems unlikely). I'm definitely not opposed to a guitar with plenty of patina, but if it's this gnarly after four months, is it going to look like it was pulled out of the Titanic in four years?

 

[Great Ape]

If you sweat when you play, it'll happen-believe it! Fender bridges will/do rust...I have a '65 Strat and the bridge saddles are literally fused in place. So set the thing up just the way you want it, 'cause you may not be able to change it somewhere down the road. (This is true of the vintage style saddles--don't know about the 2 point bridges).

 

[QuasarQuail]

They're 2-pointers, and fortunately I like the setup quite a lot.

Rust ahoy! And thanks!

 

[Cagey]

Rust never sleeps, particularly on chrome. You can mitigate it quite a bit by using nickel-plated parts, but they're not quite as common and some people have allergic reactions to it. If you use nickel-plated strings and don't have any reaction to them, then you can use nickel-plated bridges/tuners/knobs as well. Something to keep in mind for perhaps the next guitar, or if you get to where you want to replace hardware on this one. It's not quite as shiny as chrome, but it's close enough for rock 'n' roll and looks better than rust.

Also, keep in mind sweat contains a great deal of salt, and it tends to build up on your hands even when you aren't actively sweating buckets. So, washing your hands before you play could slow down the corrosion.

 

[Re-Pete]

Live Rust? Any excuse to put this up.  :icon_biggrin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KxiEjPCXA8