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Where are y’all getting your pickguards these days? Up until now, I’ve used Mario Proulx’s firestripe Tortoloid material and been very happy with it - thin, easy to cut and shape, and it looks great. Unfortunately, the price of a small sheet from StewMac has nearly doubled (from $36 to $60) since the last time I bought one.

I’ve begun experimenting with making my own using zPoxy finishing resin and TransTint dye but the results have not been great so far. I found a seller from China on eBay that has some nice looking material in precut shapes, but I haven’t been able to get an answer from them about whether or not they’ll sell me a sheet of the material for custom cutting. I’d prefer to buy a blank and shape my own guards if possible.

Any recommendations of a good supplier? Thanks in advance!


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Are any of these useful?


https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=to ... f4f6e39e58

Hummm... posted this once but it didn't "stick".

I've been happy with celluloid sheet from Rothco + Frost https://rothkoandfrost.com/collections/ ... ick-making. Its normal, reasonable shipping cost.

I've also been very happy with celluloid sheets from Ebay seller Candyhk888 https://www.ebay.com/itm/225826951044?i ... SwQoxdSZyb
Supplied in both .046" and .071 thickness, in larger sizes (think Drum wrap..)

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Thanks for these recommendations. Which rothko and frost did you use and do you have any pictures on a guitar?

I need to see which one I bought from R+F:
EDIT: All my order info is gone, R+F completely redesigned their website sometime back and I apparently did not keep the packing slip. It's most likely the "Vintage Tortoiseshell Celluloid Sheet" https://rothkoandfrost.com/products/vin ... loid-sheet

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

This is from the EBay seller, on a spruce top.
It’s one .046" layer of tortoise over a .046 layer of pearl.
First pic is the plain sheet, with whiteboard background. It has shadows because it didn't lay completely flat for pic.

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

And the EBay sheet, by itself, over Sitka spruce:

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

One last pic for comparison.
Difficult to capture the rich detail or color, here are three side by side to show the contrast between them.
Left to right; eBay, Rothco, Mexican Martin X
Martin is my least favorite

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

try amazon/pickguards

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Mike Collins

Thanks for all your replies. Those are some nice looking guards, although I’m not super interested in using celluloid because of the degradation issues down the road. I found this seller on eBay, I really like the look of this material and the price for a sheet is reasonable so I’m gonna order one up and see how I like it. I’ll report back once I have it in hand.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256400571988?i ... SwlWNkK8Th


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Here is a pickguard I made last week for a Martin. I use West Systems epoxy and Transtint dyes. I make a slightly oversized template of the original guard from 1/8” plexiglass and then cast the epoxy on it to get the poured edge effect.

I made up an epoxy resin pickguard last week using TransTint and some old Zpoxy I had in the shop, but I wasn’t very happy with the results. The color wasn’t terrible for a first attempt, but the guard turned out to be very brittle. It snapped in multiple places (with almost no pressure) when I was removing it from the HDPE backing board with a pallet knife. I’m not sure how much the age of the Zpoxy factored into that but I suspect it played a part. I may give it another try, if nothing else I’ll get a bit more practice with mixing and blending the colors properly.


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Barry, that pickguard looks great! Could you share the colors and ratios you used to get those results?

I used 3-4 drops of Red Mahogany TransTint in 40g of Zpoxy + hardener and I was shocked at how purple it turned out. Deep purple. I added 40g more resin + hardener with no dye, and the amber color of the Zpoxy mellowed it out a bit, but it still had more of a deep wine red with purple undertone than I wanted. I mixed another 40g resin + hardener with 2-3 drops of Golden Brown and dabbed that into the purplish resin I’d already poured, and it gave a bit of contrast but it still looked pretty underwhelming. At this point I knew I wouldn’t be using the pickguard so I figured what the hell and put a few drops of waterproof Bombay India ink into the mix and dragged them around a bit trying to imitate firestripe figure, but the ink kind of dissipated into the resin with an almost smokelike appearance. Hit it with the hairdryer for a few minutes to get rid of the bubbles and left it overnight.

As I said, the results weren’t great, but it actually looked a little better the next day when the resin had cured. But it shattered into pieces removing it from the backing board. Still too purple for my liking but I can see it working with less dye. I’ll definitely mix the India ink into epoxy before adding it next time, instead of dripping it on the pour and dragging it through.

Here’s a piece against the red spruce top of the guitar it would’ve gone on.




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Here are the details. I coat my plexiglass template with a coat of Stoner Urethane Mold Release spray can and let it dry. For one pickguard I mix up 10 grams of West Systems 105 resin and 2.7 grams of West Systems 207 hardener which is for exposed finishes. I add 2 drops of honey amber Transtint and apply this yellow base to the template using about 2/3 of the epoxy. To the remainder I add 4 drops of reddish brown Transtint and swirl in onto the template strings of epoxy trying to avoid large blobs. I do the swirling by dipping a plastic fork into the epoxy and then let it drip onto the template while lightly swinging the fork around. I use a toothpick to drag the reddish brown around to create a pleasing pattern. I leave about a half a teaspoon of epoxy in the cup for the final step. I then add 2 drops of medium brown Transtint to the remaining epoxy and apply it sparingly to create a few dark areas. Hit it with the torch to pop the bubbles and then cover it with something to keep the dust out.

I imagine a YouTube video about that would do quite well…

I received the pickguard material I ordered from eBay earlier this week, and I’m pretty happy with it. Nice color that runs all the way through the material (not printed like lot of the cheaper options available for pickguards) and I should get 2-3 guards out of one sheet. Not sure of the material but it is not celluloid - I snipped off a corner and lit it on fire, it didn’t go off like an angry sparkler. At $20 shipped, I have no complaints about the quality and look of this material and will be happy to put these on my guitars.

The seller has a variety of color styles in precut and sheet options. I can’t speak for any material other than the firestripe, but I’ll be placing a larger order for a few more sheets soon and I’ll likely try out at least one of the other options. I do know that the tortoise colors are thinner (0.45 mm) than the firestripe (0.9mm). I asked the seller if they had any other color options in the firestripe but it appears that the orange is the only one as of now. I told them a redder version would probably be a welcome addition to their product line but they pointed me towards the other tortoise options in response…I believe there may be a bit of a language barrier in the communication I’ve had with them.

TLDR - great looking pickguard material at a reasonable price!






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Hey Zac,
Nice score.
The extra-large images drag the window (and text) way off the screen.
Smaller image size would be welcome.

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

I’m not sure what’s going on with Tapatalk but something is off about the way it’s been working recently. I downloaded it to make posting photos to the forum easier - my understanding is that it automatically resizes the pictures when it posts them, but that’s obviously not the case here. It doesn’t give me any option to resize them when I attach them to my posts. It’s also posting multiples of my first selected photo the last few times I’ve used it. I have searched everywhere I can on my end and there doesn’t seem to be any kind of settings I can access to deal with these issues, nor will it allow me to contact Tapatalk about the issue. I’m not real sure what I can do to fix this.

Anybody else having these problems? And if so, perhaps a separate thread would be appropriate to keep the discussion on track here.


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Zac,

When attaching a pic do you see the following flow:









Brad


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I see the issue now, I’ve been uploading photos as attachments rather than using the photo option circled in your first photo. Thank you Brad, and apologies to the forum for my mistakes!


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