Celluloid 'Yellow Tortoise' PG Material

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I thought others might find this interesting. The celluloid 'Yellow Tortoise' that Warmoth carries is a unique looking material. When I first got my pickguard and trem cover, I was a little disappointed by how dull and matte they looked. The material is also more translucent than I expected, and the routing was visible through it. I had read that others had backed theirs with manila folders to make it more opaque, and a few people mentioned the idea of using copper foil.

Anyway, I had a bunch of copper foil around, so I tried that out and polished up the surface with some high-grit wet sanding and some Meguiar's Ultimate Compound. I'm pretty pleased with the results. Below you can see the copper-backed & polished pickguard next to the trem cover as it arrived:

Yellow-Tort.jpg
 
You did a beautiful job! I've seen a couple of these Warmoth Yellow Tortoise backed with copper foil and it really makes a huge difference. I'm in the process of replacing my Strat's pickguard. I got a "tortoise" pickguard from Axetreme Creations. It was a great approximation of actual Hawkbill tortoise shell, but it turned out to be contact paper on a white nylon pickguard. So, out with the old and in with the new.

I hope you don't mind, I used your image as part of my imgur post about tortoise shell pickguards. < >
I really think yours is the best looking one there. I wonder, did you ever polish the trem plate? Might be cool to have it polished on both sides and left so that you can see the springs through it. I think I might try that with my Strat.
 
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