Custom Pick Guards

[Rich Terry]

Well I wanted a new pick guard for my new Fender American Vintage 60's Hot Rod P bass, Tortoise rather than the black one that came on it. The bass is Natural Ashe and really like the Tort on that combo.

Ok, the new bass has the Jazz pickup also so I have 2 volume pots and a tone pot where the input jack would be on a standard P bass. The input jack is on the bottom edge of the PJ.

I ordered a P bass guard, removed the original and tried to install the new one. Ran into a problem, the standard P bass jack hole is about 1/2" off for the tone pot to fit properly. The tone pot is 1/2" closer to the volume pots because Fender uses the same routing on this one as a standard P bass. The tone pot will not move into the position of the hole on the PG because the routing is not wide enough to accommodate the pot to side into position.

Looks like I have to have one made so I contacted WD Music Products in Fort Myers Fla and they said they had never heard of this and wanted me to send them and tracing of my PG.
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If you need a custom PG check this out. I don't have any affiliation with these guys, just thought it was cool that they were so interested in helping.

Notice how far the hole for the jack on the standard P bass is away from the other pots.

Anyone had this issue?

 

[northbynorth]

Did he, WD make the pick guard for you? I have a hot rod 60 in black that I also wanted to swap the white pick gaurd on and it looks like I am also going to need to do a custom.

 

[Fuzmaster]

Yes, inquiring minds want to know. Did you get a custom guard from WD for the AVHR? How did that work out?

I am keen to do the same thing for my AVHR, though with the Am Special neck swap, mine doesn't look too bad with the black guard. (Like sort of a '70s vintage style.)

Another option that I thought about was getting a custom pickguard, with no pot or jack holes drilled. I figured I could use my factory guard as a template to mark the hole locations, and drill them myself.

Sorry I missed this back in December.

 

[jamro217]

You can buy a sheet of blank pickguard material in almost any color you want and cut it yourself for a lot cheaper than buying a custom guard. Check out stewmac. There are other sources online. Good luck.

 

[Nighttrain1127]

Yes you can buy almost any color material you want but to bevel it properly so you don't have flat edges and to drill the holes for the pots and drill and countersink all the screw holes is time consuming and if you mess it up time to start over.