Back in the 80's when Ric was making guitars with black hardware, did they ever make black Toasters?

My '86 620-12 has black Hi-Gains and if I swap one or both of them for Toasters I'd like to use black Toasters. I'm just not sure if black Toasters were ever made.

Thanks!

Yes, they were made but they also were pretty rare. Black parts were powder-coated, so you could send out your covers to have that done.

Thanks John! Good to know.

Many years ago, before black was offered in our line, I had excellent results making a few blackout parts by spraying them myself with a spray can. The trick was to use an epoxy-based finish and I had to experiment with several brands to get it right. Now this was many years ago and no doubt finishes have changed but the brand I ended up using was Zynolyte.

I recently saw a guitar that I did this way and after years of abuse actually still looked pretty good.

You wouldn't have much to lose as it would be pretty easy to strip the covers back to chrome if it didn't look right or wear well. No stripper would bother the underlying chrome.

Mr. Hall,
I recently purchased a blacked out 78 azureglo 4001. Having found this thread, I disassembled it to see what I could see. The pickguard is black plastic but looks sprayed underneath, the TR cover looks like black plastic, but has some black spray on the back, as well as a finger print, the black hardware has rubbed off areas showing chrome, sometimes onto the blue, and the odd fingerprint (no discernible print, just recognizable as a fingertip), so I wondered if this could be one of yours? Wasn't sure how careful your spraying would be if it was a rare one off request, no booth, no instruments to hold the pieces, etc. The other interesting thing is, there are small amounts of blue paint on one tuning peg and on one piece of hardware, but under black light, the bass was never touched up with blue, unless it was very early on, and with the exact blue. The letters on the TR cover are blue, one the black, and very well done, if an amateur was doing it, they for sure would have messed that up, that blue has a different look under black light, but that may be the case as it's on plastic.
So, here are some pictures, love a good mystery love solving them even more!
https://imgur.com/gallery/GgvD9D0
Thanks!
Hal Cooper