Shadowrunner
Tele-Meister
How would I go about cutting a piece of wood thin enough to be a pickguard, out of a body blank? Or, who sells such pieces?
Wood pickguard
- Thread starter Shadowrunner
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links like Ebay, Amazon, and others.
RodeoTex
Doctor of Teleocity
I made some using various veneers from Rockler. I laminated them to 1/16" plexi to keep them from warping. Color and/or clear lacquer to finish.
You resaw a 3/4 x 4" x12" wide board on a bandsaw into 3 pieces. Then you joint the edges, glue it up, and have somebody send it through their thickness planer or sander. You now have a 12 x 12 panel thicknessed down to 1/8 or so.
Or get something like this
https://www.woodcraft.com/products/padauk-1-8-thin-stock-pack-2-sq-ft
The website won't take you directly to the paduak...but you can now search for thin wood and the choices will come up!
Or get something like this
https://www.woodcraft.com/products/padauk-1-8-thin-stock-pack-2-sq-ft
The website won't take you directly to the paduak...but you can now search for thin wood and the choices will come up!
Last edited:
I make wood pickguards, usually either ebony or rosewood, for a lot of my arch top and jazz guitars. If I don't have a scrap from a back or side the right size I just buy a head plate from one of the wood suppliers. They are typically about 9 by 5 by slightly less than 1/8.
I almost always run some surgical gauze tape on the back and flood that with thin CA to make them less prone to cracking. I often bind them to match the rest of the guitar.
Rosewood bound in maple
Ebony bound in white plastic with a little personal inlay
Ebony comes out so dark black it almost looks like plastic. I make sure that it doesn't.
I almost always run some surgical gauze tape on the back and flood that with thin CA to make them less prone to cracking. I often bind them to match the rest of the guitar.
Rosewood bound in maple
Ebony bound in white plastic with a little personal inlay
Ebony comes out so dark black it almost looks like plastic. I make sure that it doesn't.
cleanheadsteve
Tele-Meister
hey Freeman Keller, thanks for that gauze/ca tip. i've made several wood pickguards but always worry about them holding up. i really worry about the screws being too tight and cracking the wood there. i've thought about maybe using some kind of rivet or hollow metal rod to glue into the screw hole as to prevent the screw from squishing the wood too hard, thus breaking it. but havent spent much time on the idea yet
Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk
I use the gauze/CA trick to reinforce lots of thin pieces - for example I put it on the back of f-holes since you often see cracks forming there. Also on a guitar like that 335 clone I usually make a wood truss rod cover to match the p/g and I'll put the gauze on the back of it.
cleanheadsteve
Tele-Meister
yep, i built one Stunningly Beautiful (to me) speaker cab once with walnut, maple, and cherry. all glue, no screws. 1-12" EV speaker. sold it to my music store buddy and it flew out his door too.
2 weeks later,
cab returned to store,
reason: solid wood splits, plywood dont
Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk
2 weeks later,
cab returned to store,
reason: solid wood splits, plywood dont
Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk
bgmacaw
Doctor of Teleocity
I made this pickguard to fit this oddly shaped GFS closeout guitar body using Hobby Lobby 1/8" birch plywood.
A very cool approach would be to cut a pickguard from a piece of clear plexiglas and then laminate a sheet of wood veneer to the underside.
Wood is not very durable as a pickguard and soon wears. Gluing it to underside of a clear plexi guard would look great and last much longer.
Wood is not very durable as a pickguard and soon wears. Gluing it to underside of a clear plexi guard would look great and last much longer.
I did a couple of pick guards with veneer laminated onto wood. Makes a really nice hygrometer - the different rates of expansion turn it into an absolute potato chip.
Plastic might be better but then you have all the issues of laminating veneers
stratisfied
Friend of Leo's
LOL! Those were mine. That was a hoot, Freeman. I pressed them flat, mounted them multiple times and they just curled and split every time. One time, a few days after pressing the Strat pickguard flat and doing a CA repair on the split, I heard a "crack" from the direction of the Strat in my guitar rack. Yup. split again.
I picked up a matched pair of Walnut guards made by Electric Church pickguards. The maker uses some kind of black composition backing that is very stable. I like the one on the Tele but not the Strat, The search goes on.
Peghead veneers by Freeman Keller:
I did a thinline "remodel" project and used a thick, solid Walnut Cabronita guard I found on eBay. Also did a matching peghead veneer (don't even know what kind of wood it was, just some random scrap I had!). I stained and grained it to match the pickguard. The pickguard alignment was kind of funky as I was trying to hide some existing holes in the body and had just so much latitude on placement.
Added a black streak to match the pickguard. It almost looks like it was cut from the same piece of wood!
Last edited:
Its a small world. The beer was good however.
Last edited:
stratisfied
Friend of Leo's
Glad you enjoyed the beer. You made a valiant effort on the pickguards but it just wasn't meant to be. I'm still knocking around putting together parts-casters together, they all have their challenges.
No one else will understand a word of that but it really doesn't matter, eh?
For a no problem wood pickguard, laminate a piece of whatever veneer you prefer onto a piece of garolite.. then make the pickguard as normal.. finish with lacquer, polish and rock on..
r
r
