Installing thin wood pick guard

[Quickstep192]

Just an idea...

Would it work to take a piece of veneer, saturate it with epoxy then press it between two cauls to make a dead flat, stabilized piece of veneer? Then you could treat it much like a plastic pick guard. Maybe?

[mirwa]

Yes, that does work, but instead of using epoxy, you need to draw it deep into the grain, a vacuum tank and cactus juice works great, then you can just bake it off, and its forever straight.

Steve

[Quickstep192]

Interesting...

I'm just getting in to using cactus juice to stabilize turning blanks. Building my vacuum chamber as we speak. Cactus juice might be better since I'm guessing it's not as subject to UV degradation as epoxy is.

How would you keep the veneer flat while baking it? (Assuming it wasn't flat before you started)

By the way, when I've used low viscosity epoxy on veneer before, it bleeds right through, so at least on thin veneer, I wouldn't be concerned about saturation so much.

[jared1177]

I actually like wood pickguards that are inlaid flush into the top wood. I had an old 70s ibanez artwood guitar that had that and I thought it looked great. All depends though how thick the top is and thin the guard is or would be asking for trouble.
But since this is your first guitar I'd probably stay away from inlaying the top.

[dekutree64]

Originally Posted by jared1177

I actually like wood pickguards that are inlaid flush into the top wood. I had an old 70s ibanez artwood guitar that had that and I thought it looked great. All depends though how thick the top is and thin the guard is or would be asking for trouble.
But since this is your first guitar I'd probably stay away from inlaying the top.

I've always wondered if that would be a good idea. I do think it would look great, at least until the finish get all scratched up over it. Though since I use French polish, it wouldn't be too tough to go back and touch it up now and then. And scratches might not look that bad anyway with such a thin finish, as opposed to the typical absolutely flat mirror gloss.

It also seems at first that it would be a problem to replace the pickguard if it ever gets too badly torn up, but actually routing it out it wouldn't be any different than inlaying it the first time. And again FP allows spot finishing rather than pulling the bridge and redoing the whole top.

[mirwa]

Originally Posted by Quickstep192

Interesting...

I'm just getting in to using cactus juice to stabilize turning blanks. Building my vacuum chamber as we speak. Cactus juice might be better since I'm guessing it's not as subject to UV degradation as epoxy is.
.

My daughters a chef, so I have made chefs knives for her and her brother and other family members, so I would stabilise the wood blanks for making the handles with cactus juice, then it dawned on me, how cool to stabilise pickguards with the same process.

When baking them of, put the pieces between two plates of aluminium, not an issue for me, as when I heat treat the knives I quench them using aluminium plates and then use the plates again when tempering the metals

Steve

[Quickstep192]

Originally Posted by mirwa

My daughters a chef, so I have made chefs knives for her and her brother and other family members, so I would stabilise the wood blanks for making the handles with cactus juice, then it dawned on me, how cool to stabilise pickguards with the same process.

When baking them of, put the pieces between two plates of aluminium, not an issue for me, as when I heat treat the knives I quench them using aluminium plates and then use the plates again when tempering the metals

Steve

Very cool. I'm finding all sorts of uses for stabilized wood. I'm preparing to stabilize a piece of punky spalted hackberry. It's got a lot of cool spalting; I hope the Cactus Juice can make it usable.

[mirwa]

Guaranteed it will, one of my favorite woods is buckeye burl, love it, I make knife handles out of it, wife makes pens out of it and so forth. Supe light and explodes normally, once stabilised with cactus juice solid and perfect

Steve