Pre-war Gibson Pickguard - Ideas Needed

[dilver]

I have a 1918 Gibson L-1. It’s pretty worn certainly not a collector’s guitar. But it still plays in tune and it is a nice piece of Gibson historical novelty. I’ve been wanting to find an original pickguard which is nearly impossible since these guitars are over 100 years old and the pickguards tend to disintegrate and get lost. To make matters worse, the pickguard used these weird metal clamp brackets that are REALLY impossible to find.

But I found one, or at least I thought I did. I found a pickguard and single bracket for a 1917 L4, which I thought would fit since they look so similar (I should have checked).

Here’s my dilemma: the pickguard for the L-1 has a cut in the lower edge to fit around the bridge (see pic). Whereas the pickguard for the L4 sits in front of the bridge. The bracket arm length is fixed - it’s a solid piece of cellulose that’s glued to the bottom of the guard. If I position the guard in front of the bridge like on an L4, the bracket arm is too long. This means I either have to cut the bracket arm down by an inch and glue on the little piece that the bracket screws into, OR I make a cut into the rear of the pickguard so that the whole assembly sits further back and arm is in the right position to meet the clamp.

I’m hoping this makes sense and the pictures illustrate what 8m talking about. I’m leaning towards cutting the bracket arm down an inch or so (see the red lines ive marked in the pic) and hoping that the end piece will hold in place strongly with super glue.

Thoughts?