Pickguard

I was very interested in some of the designs online. There are some really nice pick guards for sale by builders, With different materials like wood, metal, and engraved leather, that would make the guitar look even better than it is already. At the moment, it looks pretty good with the standard black pick guard but that comes with the kit. But I saw on YouTube a couple guys making pick guards out of wood veneer. That has some appeal because wood is a more artractive material than plastic and it’s possible to create your own design. Also wood veneer is easy to work with. The Youtubers say it’s cheap and easy to come by, but I did not find that. I found some wood veneer at Michael’s, but it wasn’t as cheap as they had promised. 15 bucks gets you two sheets when really you need 4 to make a pick guard that is thick enough. I bought some walnut veneer, and I want to stain it a dark colour to contrast with The body and the neck. As I mentioned, the basic black looks pretty good, so I am thinking having a wood grain pick guard that is close to black would be pretty cool.

I started by drawing the outline of the body and locating the cavities, so that I could draw a shape that would fit the guitar. This picture shows two potential designs that I was thinking about: the first is a minimalist pick guard that fits in between all the pockets and the electronics; the second is a little bit bigger and I try to go with some nice curves.

I laid it on the guitar body just to see how it would fit. It seems to work well. The current walnut colour doesn’t look very good against the brown body. But I am thinking when it is stained it will look much nicer. 

At the moment, I cut it out so that the grain is opposite of the grain of the body, but I think I would make it go parallel for the official version