Pickguard Hell

 Called it!

I told you, I told you, I told you. Or maybe I just told myself. Regardless...if you EVER, EVER, EVER need a pickguard for a guitar or bass, buy one pre-made. If you can't find it, take the guitar to a luthier type and pay the big bucks for a custom made. If the guitar isn't worth the cost, just keep it next to your bed to use as a weapon to fight an intruder.

I just want to say, I haven't exactly slacked off for no reason. Yes, I knew the pickguard thing would be miserable, I've done it twice before, but I haven't done it when it was 1 degree Fahrenheit outside, and not feeling much warmer in the garage. Then, this:

I did my first open mic! It is quite different going solo compared to getting up with a band, even as a former front-person (shout out to Welfare Soldiers!) I want to thank the G-Man for the encouragement. I plan on embarrassing myself again soon. 

So, this pickguard thing. You take a piece of plastic, and no matter how you cut it (literally) it is going to be a big dusty smelly mess. 

A few years ago, I remember reading a news story about a cop whose department got the funding and war weapons handed down from the military or some such, I don't remember the details. Regardless, he took a machine gun to the station's indoor firing range and fired himself off a few hundred (thousand?) rounds. He wore ear protection. However, somewhere in the middle of the night, lying next to his wife, he unfortunately expired due to lead poisoning. 

And that was all I could think of while my Dremel was cutting away, plastic debris flying about. Was I aerosolizing the lead in the plastic enough to due harm? Why am I doing this for this dumb guitar in the first place? Why am I, or any of us, here in the first place? What is here? What is existence? 

Whoa. So the tracing came out all right. Then the rough cut.

However, I had thought that getting a thin single ply would be easier to work with, but it is brittle and hard to shape. Now here's the problem, demonstrated by an old Squier Strat pickguard with the same size pickup cutouts.

As you can see, there is maybe 2 mm between the cutout for the pickups and the hole for the adjustment screws. I see no way I can manage, based on what I cut already, to be that precise. I haven't tried yet, because I only have so much patience on a daily basis, and I like hitting the drums. There is a saving grace. I found a website that sells the pickguard for $40. Now, based on already spending $16 on the blank (goddamned dummy) the total for the Harmony would go up to @$126.

Here's a wacky wildcard: I know these things are known for their pickups, but I think I could manage to cut one hole, and have it be a one-humbucker axe by adding this from the old Squier HSS Strat parts I never planned on using again:

So, help me out here. Leave your vote in the comments section, or if that's not working because I don't know how to adjust the settings, vote by text. Options:

1) Buy online pickguard, preserve sanity.

2) Try to cut the pickup holes in the blank, and just make it work as best I can when it sucks.

3) Humbucker for now, save OG pickups for later.

How she sits now.

I plan on lying awake most of the night worrying about lead poisoning.

Next Up: Pickup Purgatory