Pickguards

[Dennis in Anola]

What do you guys do for pickguard material? One place wants an arm & a leg for their piece of "plastic" and the other place wants only one arm (relatively speaking of course). Many reviews on the cheaper source are not very encouraging.

Inquiring minds want to know.

[Kevin in California]

I've been making my own from interesting wood. I have trouble putting plastic on an all wood guitar that I just spent so much time trying to make attractive. Usually a piece sized for a headstock overlay is about the right size for a Martin look a like.

Kevin

[TonyinNYC]

I use the clear pick guards from stew Mac. All the protection with none of the distraction!
They are in all of my guitars.

[Dave Bagwill]

+1 to what Tony said. I like the look of wooden pickguards, but after all the work I put into getting the right amount of flex and stiffness into the top and braces, I would be concerned that more wood glued to that top would rob it of some fraction of its ability to move correctly.
I could be wrong.

[Kevin in California]

You are probably right Dave but I do make them thin. I wonder how much difference there really would be from a plastic guard.
I prefer none at all, but on a strummin dred and a wild player, you got to have one.

Kevin

[Dave Bagwill]

I heard you on that, Kevin - my nephew borrowed an old but good dred from me a number of years back - I'd taken care of it, I thought 'what harm can come to it in one gig" - well, in one gig he had picked THROUGH the plastic pickguard and into the top! I kid you not. A wood guard would not doubt have stopped some of the damage. I loved my nephew and I still feel bad about tying him down in the desert where the dingos roam.

I think for a small bodied guitar the wood guard issue is more important, because the type of music will probably not be acoustic thrash, and the player might be trying to squeeze everything he can out of that smaller box.

[John Parchem]

The only concern I have for making a nice wood pickguard is that I would want to protect it from the picks.