Inhancing strip pickguard???? HELP
 

How is this acheived? Is the underneath of the guard painted tan or just clear coat on sound board under guard?
Anyone know the method to acheive this look.
http://www.pbase.com/esquire/image/140628064.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/esquire/image/140645112.jpg

It is done in a plastic factory. The pickguard will likely have opaque or semi-opaque colors as you see in the photo.

The coloring is mixed and molded into the pickguard. The lighter colors are translucent



http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/headerim...SHAPESzoom.jpg

This fellow did his own at Stewmac

http://www.stewmac.com/tsarchive/ts0088.html

Both of the above pics are of recent L00's from Gibson - not the standard "Blues King".
Thanks for the reply's but I have some of these materials and if you put one over a sunburst you get a darker color under the pickguard where the sunburst is and the firestrip pops better where there is no sunburst.

With the ebony top the firestrips really loose their pop.
Maybe they use an undercoat that is lighter to make those firestrips really show.

I put the firestrip pickguard on a manila folder and it looks pretty close to the pictures I posted. If you place the firestrip material on natural top it looks pretty close.

Would they actually mask off the where the pickguard will lay so no color goes on the soundboard to acheive the look.
Or use an extremely thin layer of tan or white plastic on the underside of the pickguard.

Someone must know the process they used on these.

The mystery continues.........

Gibson actually left the underneath of the pickguard natural so the firestrip would show.
At least that's what i found out.
This link in the comments below state that.
http://pickinparlor.nationalguitar.c...518/51645.html

......The pickguard looks lighter because Gibson always installed their pickguards over the sunburst finish, but on the black L-00's they left the pickguard area a natural wood underneath so they really pop out at you....

this is correct on the old ones,,,not sure about the new ones

here's a pic of my 1933 before refinish

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/...r/IMG_2114.jpg