Best place for custom pickgaurds?

[Christian Jones]

Hey.. can anyone recommend the best place online for custom pickgaurds? I'm building a strat-tele hybrid and may like to get a custom guard made for it, maybe some cool design or something.. what places should I be checking out? They'd have to be willing to copy the Warmoth strat-tele guard.

 

[TBurst Std]

I’ve had good success with pickguardian

 

[Kostas]

Ι have no experience with him (yet) but I have been checking his work for a few years.

https://decoboom.com/

 

[NedRyerson]

Ι have no experience with him (yet) but I have been checking his work for a few years.

https://decoboom.com/

My wife would fall in love with these!

 

[ragamuffin]

I had WD Music do the custom pickguard for my Suprocaster build; it was pricey but the did a great job with pretty quick turnaround.

 

[Schneidas]

Ι have no experience with him (yet) but I have been checking his work for a few years.

https://decoboom.com/

Totally awesome!!! Thanks for the link!!

 

[mayfly]

Ι have no experience with him (yet) but I have been checking his work for a few years.

https://decoboom.com/

Totally awesome!!! Thanks for the link!!

yea those are really great!

 

[Fat Pete]

I'll add a mention for 'Scratch-It - The Original Scratchplate Company'

 

[swarfrat]

THAT is purty!

 

[rlefty]

I've had WD do a few pickguards from a tracing. Turned out really well.

 

[Lbpesq]

I don't believe they do custom shapes, by Gilroy Guitars in Australia does absolutely incredible wood guards for Fenders.  Here's one I put on my "Telembic".  It's a 2011 American Standard Tele with Alembic pickups and electronics with an added Q switch, and a Babicz full contact bridge.

Bill, tgo

 

 

[Ace Flibble]

http://www.terrapinguitars.com/ will do you anything, with more options already available on the site than most companies. (And of course effectively unlimited options if you can mail-in a template or drawing.) Got some guards off them with options other companies refused to even try, like back-to-back single coils (something Fender themselves are now doing on a Squier model) and triple covered humbuckers on a 7/8 pickguard (for some reason Warmoth insist a middle humbucker can only be uncovered).

 

[TBurst Std]

http://www.terrapinguitars.com/ will do you anything, with more options already available on the site than most companies. (And of course effectively unlimited options if you can mail-in a template or drawing.) Got some guards off them with options other companies refused to even try, like back-to-back single coils (something Fender themselves are now doing on a Squier model) and triple covered humbuckers on a 7/8 pickguard (for some reason Warmoth insist a middle humbucker can only be uncovered).

Hmm. Back to back single coils
Like the old PRS 512?
That’s a build I’ve been considering

 

[Verne Bunsen]

+1 for Terrapin. I've been buying pickguards from them for 10 years. They are very accommodating and do great work. Good service too, I received one pickguard with a defect and they sent me another no-questions.

 

[Ace Flibble]

Hmm. Back to back single coils
Like the old PRS 512?

I'm not familiar enough with PRS to verify that specifically, but attached is the cutout via their Wide Range adapter pdf, you can clearly see how the two pickups are fitted together.
If you look at the Squier Contemporary Stratocaster Special, you can see how they're doing pretty much the same thing (juust a slight gap between the picups) at the bridge there. The Robbie Robertson 'last waltz' Strat also has this configuration and the old Wide Range humbuckers were also made in a similar fashion, two bigger bobbins with 12 separate magnetic poles. Seymour Duncan's Stag Mag, Swineshead A.M.P. and Oil City Brassknuckle achieve a similar thing in standard humbucker forms.
The big advantage of getting this sound by shoving two separately-made singles together, rather than any of the premade humbucker versions, is of course you can mix-and-match different types of singles to get pretty much any tone you want. I like combining one bar magnet single (e.g. Seymour Duncan Hot Stack or Vintage Rails) with a slightly overwound traditional A5 single. (E.g. Fender Texas Special.) That way in series they're more like a normal humbucker thanks to the smoothness of the bar magnet and in parallel they can be quite like a P-90, but split you have that standard single coil sound waiting for you. No compromise on any of the tones like you do when trying to get a normal-size humbucker to do both series and split tones well, instead you just have the problem of routing the guitar and/or pickguard to accomodate them.

 

[Christian Jones]

Thanks for the tips guys on where to get a guard. And great, now I need a guitar with back to back single coils.