How I straightened out an old warped tortoise pickguard.

Gav Haus · Post by **Gav Haus** » Sun Jan 03, 2016 4:47 pm

The jaguar in the corner of shot looks might pretty with its slab neck

will · Post by **will** » Sun Jan 03, 2016 5:10 pm

Gav Haus wrote:The jaguar in the corner of shot looks might pretty with its slab neck

...thanks! (I just listed it in the for-sale section.)

JoeySlush · Post by **JoeySlush** » Sun Jan 17, 2016 12:40 am

Did anyone else try this?

UlricvonCatalyst · Post by **UlricvonCatalyst** » Sun Jan 17, 2016 2:29 am

Not that I have any old warped celluloid guards that need straightened out, but I'm wondering if it would work just as well between two mdf boards clamped together without all the screws being used. Obviously your experience says otherwise, but don't you think the screws heating up has the potential to cause problems?

mcjt · Post by **mcjt** » Sun Jan 17, 2016 1:59 pm

that's cool! however....
i bought a flattened guard from Fullerplast.
I installed it on my JM and it was great!
About a year later, i removed the guard and over a few weeks did some work on the guitar.
When i went to put the guard back on, it had VISIBLY starting warping again. it was retaking the warped curves it had before.
SO, flatten the guard, but fix it flat soon after. The warps WILL come back if you let them.

will · Post by **will** » Sun Jan 17, 2016 3:10 pm

UlricvonCatalyst wrote:Not that I have any old warped celluloid guards that need straightened out, but I'm wondering if it would work just as well between two mdf boards clamped together without all the screws being used. Obviously your experience says otherwise, but don't you think the screws heating up has the potential to cause problems?

I was a bit worried about the screws heating up too, but I thought that the plusses of the greater and more even clamping pressure outweighed the minuses - plus I wanted to be totally certain that the guard wouldn't shrink, and I didn't have a bunch of clamps that I thought would fit into the oven.

...and as to the other comment - this old pickguard material is totally flaky and unstable, and heating/flattening a guard won't prevent warping in the future - always keep these guards screwed down to something flat.

I always thought that it was kinda amusing to see how many screws were used in Fender pickguards over time. ...a '54 Strat uses eight screws, and an Electric XII uses SEVENTEEN!! -so warping was a problem that Fender has been doing battle with since these guards were just a few years old... now some of these slabs of tort are old enough to join AARP!

mcjt · Post by **mcjt** » Mon Jan 18, 2016 7:57 am

i didn't mean to sound negative, i was just adding extra info for people reading this thread. i think you did great work.

will wrote: ...and as to the other comment - this old pickguard material is totally flaky and unstable, and heating/flattening a guard won't prevent warping in the future - always keep these guards screwed down to something flat.

Spellcaster · Post by **Spellcaster** » Mon Jan 18, 2016 1:13 pm

Years ago when I was managing a record store, I used to hear about people putting warped LP's between two pieces of plate glass, then put in the oven. Never tried it, but it's purported to work. Nice to hear that there's a place in the guitar field that the principle works so well. Nice job.

will · Post by **will** » Mon Jan 18, 2016 2:20 pm

mcjt wrote:i didn't mean to sound negative, i was just adding extra info for people reading this thread. i think you did great work.

No problem - you brought up something important that I forgot to mention!

itstooloudMike · Post by **itstooloudMike** » Tue Feb 09, 2016 6:47 am

Whoa, that's a great tip for sure. I've had several old SGs with warped guards, and wish I would have known about this. Thanks for sharing.

will · Post by **will** » Thu May 12, 2016 1:17 pm

Okay, time for another experiment - Mustang basses have been getting super expensive lately, so I decided to put together a bargain-basement version. I found a decent Musicmaster neck and a Squier Mustang body that was routed for a P-Bass pickup. An original pickguard seemed pretty expensive, so when a cheap old busted pearloid pickguard popped for not much cash, I figured that I could give it a try.

It ended up being pretty potato-chip-shaped, so I'm going to try flattening out the pickguard before I graft on a chunk of busted telecaster.

...anyone out there have a recommendation for a good glue? I'm hoping to find a solvent-type glue to melt the pickguard graft in place.

Sonichris · Post by **Sonichris** » Thu May 12, 2016 5:19 pm

I think straight acetone would work best. It melts that stuff like crazy, but it's super thin, so you could clamp/screw everything together then hit it with the acetone thru a small siringe.

Pacafeliz · Post by **Pacafeliz** » Fri May 13, 2016 12:36 pm

...meanwhile, the crackwhore is melting with envy.

she's warped.
thru time and space.

will · Post by **will** » Sat May 14, 2016 2:08 pm

Yup - this technique works for pearloid too - I tried it out this morning, and I'm not on fire.

I set the oven to 200° and baked the pickguard/MDF sandwich for an hour.

When I pulled the sandwich out of the oven, I saw that one edge wasn't clamped down quite enough to get rid of the waviness...

...so I clamped the heck out of the sandwich and popped it in the oven for another half-hour.

Results? The Mustang bass guard went from noticeably wavy to just about perfectly flat, and the scrap of Tele guard went from potato-chip-shaped to slightly curved.

Bronco Billy · Post by **Bronco Billy** » Sat May 14, 2016 2:29 pm

Love this thread.

OffsetGuitars.com

How I straightened out an old warped tortoise pickguard.

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