If it’s on your 2018 Martin, the spruce top might not have started darkening with exposure to sunlight quite yet. That will depend on how much you’ve taken it out and played it outdoors, or left it out on a stand for extended periods.
If you took off the pickguard and there is either no “tan line” or one that’s barely discernible, you can expect to get the entire top to reach visual equilibrium. But if there’s a clear, obvious shape of the pickguard with lighter wood where it used to be, then getting the entire top to reach a uniform color will be difficult, because the darker exposed wood will always remain darker than the wood that was previously unexposed. It keeps getting darker at the same pace that the lighter wood darkens.
The only way that I’m aware of that can make the lighter wood catch up is if you were to make a cardboard template with the shape of the pickguard cut out, which you’d then tape to the top with painters’ masking tape, leaving the pickguard area exposed to light while you leave the guitar out on a stand.
Do that and eventually the pickguard area might darken enough to match the rest of the top.
That’s more work than I’d ever want to go to, though, so it would be your decision as to whether you’d want to expend that much energy on “correcting” what is only a cosmetic issue, and nothing more.
Hope that makes sense.
Wade Hampton Miller
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