What exactly puts pits in nitro?

[Banastre]

I was looking over a nitro Les Paul I did in 2008, and was looking at how it's aged.
Where my arm rests over the binding there are pits. Arm sweat...to be expected. No 'wear down to bare wood' yet.
But I noticed something- in between the pickups, where I never touch/rub/whatever, there are basically the same pits, although not nearly as close together as arm sweat would create as on the arm-area. Above and below the strings in that area, and the rest of the top for that matter (even around the controls, which I ride) there is nothing but the usual nick and scratch.
The nickel Seth Lovers also have the same pits, spaced just about identical to the nitro between them.
If I don't 'touch' those areas, and pretty sure my plectrum isn't hitting them either, why do I have pits in the nitro???

[The top coat is Watco gloss, btw, and has held up beautifully. The back however is StewMac cherry red nitro, for what it's worth, and has chipped down to bare wood in many places. I'm not complaining, it's just something I noticed.]

Curious minds could give a rat's ass, but I'm anal.

 

[Banastre]

Maybe I should add that this past year I've played the piss outta this guitar. The pits really weren't there a year or two ago.

 

[Juan Tumani]

Sweat (body oils) and friction. That's my unprofessional answer.

I prefer my LP with the pickguard off but then my hand rubs against the finish. In get what feel like and look like fine pits but can usually clean it with some elbow grease.

 

[CB91710]

The areas you touch are effectively being polished/buffed constantly, it will eventually wear through.

Areas you don't touch can shrink back "unmolested"... what you're seeing is the grain of the wood telegraphing through the lacquer.
Lacquer never really "dries"

 

[Banastre]

Maybe, but this is maple....the black spots (there's actually twice as many but apparently too small for my iPhone to see) are the pits, and don't follow the grain at all. I'd expect shrinkage in ash, pine, whatever, and yeah in maple too, but this is much more...pitty.
Like I said, the pits are on the PAF's too.
As to being smudged smooth by 'where I touch', there's tons of places on an LP that never get touched...around the tailpiece, the horn, etc etc. No pits in those areas.

 

[CB91710]

Ya, that doesn't look like shrinkage. Looks more like some kind of contamination.

 

[Banastre]

Fairy dust from the music I create on it? Fairy-dust is corrosive?

The only possible thing I can think of, is it was some thing to do with dust.
I have dry skin- I can't naturally age nickel if my life depended upon it. But dust, and whatever environment in my house there is, must somehow do the pits. That top was as clean as I could get it when I sprayed all those years ago, and the pits really only appeared within the past year or two or three.
Interesting it is only on the Seth Lovers and the Watco, not on the StewMac cherry red (which has chipped to bare wood here and there!!...plasticizers...).

Well, food for thought.

 

[Banastre]

It may be possible my dry skin (skin-dust) is creating the pits by locally drying out very small areas....causing the Watco to react in a specific way. Localized drying different from the general area. Why it may affect the nickel Seth Lovers...probably the same.
I need a chemist.

Or another beer. It IS Friday after all.

 

[LtDave32]

It's me.

I put the pits in nitro.

Like Santa Claus. I go to every shop and have my elves do that shit.