How well should the pickguard adhere?

[Shortfinger]

I still have the pickguard blues after getting a new one as part of a big overhaul of the old D-18. It was lifting off on three edges. I could press it flat and it would stay for a little while, then curl again.

So I took it to a shop where the owner says he can do the work of removing it and putting on the new one I bought. It was a test visit. I just wanted him to look at the instrument.

He said, yeah, that's a problem. Let me just see if it'll come right off. Without applying heat or anything, he just peeled it up, and it readily came off.

That does not seem right, as I have watched every YouTube video I could find about pickguard work, and they all had to be worked off with quite a a bit of heat using a hair dryer and prying tools.

[Wade Hampton]

Gene, over the years I’ve removed and replaced more than a dozen pickguards, but only needed to apply heat from a blow drier ONCE. The fact that so many people online and on YouTube just casually tell everyone to aim the heat from a hair drier onto their guitar tops makes me shudder, frankly. It’s very easy to apply too much heat for too long, and that can affect the stability of the glue holding the braces to the top.

My strongly held opinion is that blow driers should be used only as a last resort when removing pickguards. It’s much easier to cause unseen damage with one than most players realize.

So you should be glad that the dealer removed the pickguard without applying heat. It’s truly unnecessary most of the time.

Hope this helps.


Wade Hampton Miller

[Rodger Knox]

If you can get some dental floss under an edge, you can cut through the adhesive with the floss. Sometimes it works.