Unwarp a Pickguard?

[groucho]

Anybody ever have any success with this?

I am going to try and fix up this Vox Panther a
bit - the original guard has a nice bit o' etching
on it - but is seriously warped!

Was wondering if you can clamp it between two
metal plates and heat it up a bit(well short of
outright melting it) and let it sit...

[Turnaround]

You might want to try what I used to do to flatten LP's. I got two pieces of heavy glass, sandwiched the LP between them, and set the whole thing in the sun for a few hours.

Definitely not a good idea to put the thing in the oven though. Tried that once. Took hours to clean the melted plastic off the oven.

[SuperSnake2012]

Originally Posted by Turnaround

Definitely not a good idea to put the thing in the oven though. Tried that once. Took hours to clean the melted plastic off the oven.

You put plastic in an oven?

[PilbaraBass]

I sometimes make felt picks from felt, craft glue, and plastic Coke bottles.

To get the plastic flat , I place the plastic pieces inside a damp cloth and run a steam iron on them...it works great...

I don't know if this will work with a pickguard, though...

if the sun/plate glass method has been tried and proven, I'd probably try that first

[groucho]

Pilbara Bass and Turnaround - thanks for the inspiration

[Turnaround]

Originally Posted by SuperSnake2012

You put plastic in an oven?

Yup. Only did it once.

[JimmyM]

Just to add on Pilbara's suggestion, I would consider putting a piece of uncoated wax paper over the pickguard to keep fibers in the towel from melting into the plastic.

[Webtroll]

I love the search function (I almost posted this same question). I'm going to try the "leave it between 2 flat objects in the daytime heat" trick for my Precision picguard that arrived with a 45 degree warp. Anyone else have any tricks that address this issue?

[Pilgrim]

I like the plate glass idea, as well as the wax paper note. However, I would suggest that you expose it to the minimum amount of heat needed to get the job done. Old pickguards can have shrinkage problems when heated.

[Webtroll]

Too late to make changes, but fortunately it's not an old pickguard. It's in the backyard right now. Will update when I have results to report.

[Webtroll]

All righty. A white pearloid 2-ply that was badly warped was left between 2 peices of frosted glass from an entertainment center in the backyard with the black backside up. It probably had a good 3+ hours in the sunlight due to trees and house shadow. Came out flat as can be. I'm gonna say this method worked great for me. The panes were actual glass and reasonably weighty so I didn't add any extra weight; there was a bit of gap when it was placed in the back yard but by the time I got home it had flattened quite nicely.

[Pilgrim]

Great! Gotta put that one in the official "bag o'tricks".

[scotch]

Originally Posted by PilbaraBass

I sometimes make felt picks from felt, craft glue, and plastic Coke bottles.

To get the plastic flat , I place the plastic pieces inside a damp cloth and run a steam iron on them...it works great...

I don't know if this will work with a pickguard, though...

if the sun/plate glass method has been tried and proven, I'd probably try that first

DON'T USE THE STEAM IRON METHOD on a pickguard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just tried this out to fix some slight warpage on a 3 ply tort pickguard. Luckily, I started at low heat & worked slowly - if I hadn't my pickguard would be totally ruined!
a) even after about 1 second on low heat, there is a lot of hazing in the top layer that I'm having a really hard time buffing out
b) again, after only a second on low heat, the whole pickguard began to shrink considerably

Go with the weight/glass option folks - don't use an iron!!!!