Anybody wanna buy some Chinese celluloid?

[stubhead]

I'm going to be ordering a few sheets from these guys:
http://www.musiclily.com/pickguards/uncut-pickguard-material

They're going to get me some bigger sheets than the odd 100mmX200mm sizes that could be used for headstocks or control cavities, but not much else. I bought a few samples off of Ebay, and I'll be getting some "normal" 435mmX290mm sheets of the "abalone" and a sheet of the "amber." What they call abalone is also being sold as "colorful" on Ebay, and it's some lovely plastic:
http://www.musiclily.com/musiclily-200100mm-uncut-celluloid-blank-sheet-for-custom-making-guitar-parts-abalone-m578.html

the blobs of color go all the way through the surface. Most all of what's sold elsewhere is a single sheet of basically "painted" acrylic glued to a white/black/white backing. This stuff may still need to be thickened, I may glue it to some 1/8" clear plexiglass, some people put a sheet of aluminum foil in-between for added zippies.

America stopped making celluloid decades ago - it's kind-of, like, sort-of flammable to the point of explosions (I have a neat recipe for making bombs out of celluloid, if that music-career stuff don't work out for ya) and plastics work is pretty evil - all those weird cancers that drinkers get, pancreatic & liver and thyroid, well, if you get them and you don't drink you're likely a plastics worker (or a printer, you know that weird acrid smell inside a copy shop? RUN... )

I-talian celluloid was then prized for a few decades, but the last I-talian shop closed in 2007 so only the Chinese get to grow the three-headed babies from now on. Anyway, look through their selection and let me know. They have some standard green, blue, red, brown pearly stuff, fairly cheap too. They have cut pickguards really cheap too, but I can't vouch for their accuracy (or against it either... :icon_biggrin): For $3-4, I might pick up a tele guard just to see. I'll probably be ordering Wednesday.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

I want a piece of really, really nice tortoiseshell for a pickguard for a Warmoth Jazzmaster. The "brown" on that page you link to looks the part, do you think? They are only listing a 200x100mm size on there, but if you can get a bigger one I might be interested. How much would it be?

Oh and I'd probably ask you to make the pickguard if you can (paid of course) - I like the foil idea, but would rather it was copper. Possible?

 

[stubhead]

I haven't heard back from them about larger pieces yet. She was going to "ask the factory" - but I have no idea what the actual setup is. There are about six vendors on Ebay selling the same stuff, but who's Alpha/Beta/Charlie dog, I have NO-OO idea. :dontknow:

 

[stubhead]

I finally got some humans and ordered up a few pieces, but I want to make sure it works right before I start getting any more - it's taken so long for the A->B->C stuff I don't wanna endorse them until I see. As far as making a Jazzmaster or Jaguar or Mustang pickguard with all those horrible little switch holes, it'd be a nightmare in my Flintstonish "shop." If I wanted one and I knew for sure what plastic to use, I would buy the plastic and them shop around the pickguard sites, including Warmoth's. ESPECIALLY Warmoth's if it's to match one of their bodies. These guys have them on CNC machines. My walnut Jaguar body turned out to be pretty hard to make because there are no rear-route templates for Jags... the guy did nice work but everything has to be measured in isolation.