Faux? Tortoise? Help?

Hi everyone,
I am building a light weight Precision Bass. I currently have a MIA Fender Deluxe neck, and I am going to be buying a floating ash body from USA custom guitars. (would there be any serious neck dive issues with that combo?) I am also putting on a BAII bridge (would that add serious weight? or is that pretty minimal?)
I want the body to be finished in nitro cellulose white. I want to buy a Tort pickguard to compliment it, but I need some help.
I was on Ebay trying to find a tort pickguard, and all of the ones I see are redish, and not the brown that I have in my mind. They say that they are faux. I am not sure what that means.... Also, is it possible to get a brown tort shell that is not too expensive? What's the difference?
Thanks in advance!

[bongomania]

"Faux" is French for "fake", as in fake tortoiseshell, not made from real tortoises. All pickguards in tort are "fake", even the authentic vintage ones. They are all made from celluloid (oldest ones), vinyl (the vast majority of them), or other plastics.

There are loads of custom pickguard places (just Google "custom pickguards") that have extensive selections of materials, including in some cases several different flavors of tort.

Thanks for the reply, really good explanation. Does anyone have any experience with the Fender Tort pickguards? Are they brown or red? I am trying to stray from red because I don't think it will look all that great with the Rosewood board and white body (sorry if I offended anyone!!!)...

[PJSShearer]

Definitely Red

[leswatts]

I was going to go with white/tort on a new bass i'm making, but I could not find any tort that looked decent. I did order a sheet from Grizzly, but it looked horrible. It was a printed pattern.

Ended up going with sea foam green nitro and pearl/black/white black. Pretty wild looking. I got some great real celluloid pickguard material from Warmoth but it was $$$ expensive. I asked about their tort stuff, but they said it was also a printed pattern.

Just rubbed it out last week after a 1 month dry. Stringing it up today or tommorow!

Les

*bump*

Well just to be clear, I want a very dark brown pickguard with not much red. Any idea where to get one?

[mongo2]

Originally Posted by Da Funk Docta

Does anyone have any experience with the Fender Tort pickguards? Are they brown or red? I am trying to stray from red because I don't think it will look all that great with the Rosewood board and white body (sorry if I offended anyone!!!)...

My most recent Fender tort J guard is brown. The Fender tort P guards hanging on the wall at the store were also brown.