What kind of pickguard would I need for this concept Tele?

[RockStarNick]

So here's my concept tele that I'm knocking around.

Hum-Sing Telecaster Custom - Usually, they have a single-coil tele bridge plate, and a bucker in the neck. I want to reverse that setup, and do a bucker in the bridge, and a single coil in the neck.

What Warmoth pickguard could accomodate the Gotoh Tele Humbucker bridge?  I'm NOT a fan of the weird cutout shape on the normal Tele Custom pickguard.  It just looks ugly and out of place to me.

Should I just get a Tele DELUXE pickguard, tell warmoth to leave the bridge pickup route blank, and do the routing myself for the bigger bridge?

 

[Nando Vallart]

What is the weird cutout that I have no idea?

 

[RockStarNick]

This... it's the cutout that was originally meant for an ashtray cover, I believe...

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

You're on the right track.  It looks like the '72 Tele Custom PG, but a wider cut for the Tele-Hum bridge.  The Strat flatmount and bridge hum in the PG not gonna cut it?

 

[-CB-]

FWIW, its pretty easy to cut pickguard if you're CAREFUL.

For that one, I'd mount the pickguard, and bridge.... lay tape on the pickguard as a guide for marking and cutting.  If you can, I've found that transferring the markings to the back is best... that is... you gotta take 1/8 inch off... carefully tape off, then using a ruler and scratch awl... scratch a line to stop at.  Do that for all your proposed relief cuts.  Then you can SLOWLY dremel off the material until you get it very close to the line.  The sanding drum works ok for this.  At that point, you can use a flat ruler or metal strip or even a flat file and wrap it in sandpaper and begin to fine fit things.  Dont worry about the corners yet.  Get it all to the lines you want, then finally, wrap sandpaper on a dowel to finess the corners to a nice radius.  Its sounds hard but its not really all that hard to do.  Use a medium sandpaper - 220 is fine, then go to 320 when you get REALLY close to being just right.  Thats about it really.  I've done a lot of those, Tele's, P90 openings from a famous pickguard maker (ahem) that all come out too frikkin small, LP guards.... ES-335/333 guards.  Any tweakage... not hard to do.

 

[RockStarNick]

Thanks CB... if I decide to go this route, looks like I'll just cut it myself...

 

[-CB-]

No I mean... just the special bridge cut, not the whole thing.  Doing the whole thing with the bevels... considerably harder to do.