BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR FENDER ANTIGUA PICKGUARDS
 

Hi everyone...

Just a heads up...

Be very careful when removing the screws from the pickguards of the recent Fender Antigua re-issues. When you remove the screws, it seems no matter how careful you are, the paint wants to lift right off of the pickguards-not only in the beveled screwholes, but also up to 1/8" around the perimeter of the screwholes. It just cracks right off.

I recently purchased a new Precision, built in May 2012. It doesn't appear the pickguards were installed while the paint was wet (that would be silly) but the paint does have an adhesion problem on the plastic pickguard in that it is very brittle and eggshell-like in the screwholes and immediately surrounding them. Whatever the cause, no matter how careful I was, on no less than 4 screwholes did the paint lift and crack right off.

I found this out since I've purchased a Warmoth Antigua pickguard that has the correct exposed ply pickguard edges (Fender was too cheap to trim the paint off the edges...probably because the paint chips too easily) and it doesn't have the holes drilled for the thumbrest (which I don't like). The Warmoth pickguard fits perfectly and matches the color. But, Warmoth has discontinued the Antigua finish due to problems with the finish, and I believe it was in direct response to the horrible quality of the first pickguard I received from them, which had countless bubbles, drips, pinholes, fisheyes, and trash in the finish. When I asked about a replacement, I was told I could get a refund and that the finish was being discontinued because of this. I begged and pleaded, and they made me a new pickguard, which is PERFECT. Kudos to Warmoth...too bad for the death of Antigua.

Anyhoo, back to the point. Be careful removing any screws on factory Fender Antigua pickguards. Getting a replacement is gonna be a bit difficult.

You could try CAREFULLY going around the edges of the screws with the point of an Xacto knife to break up the paint before removing them.

I took mine right off without any issues *shrug*

I'd spray a clear sealer on it, and then put a spot of wax around the screw holes. I love antigua.

(edit: "clear sealer" means "artist spray fixative" from Michael's. Might not be great, but it should be better than nothing.)

I had no prob with mine.
Although I swapped it for a red tort guard that I found on ebay.
Love it!

Why anyone would think painting a pick guard is a good idea is beyond me.