Hello! Welcome back to Mod Garage, and our “Tonewood Teardown” series. After finishing our work on the body of our Telecaster, let’s move on to the hardware and electronics, starting with the pickguard.The factory-stock pickguard on this guitar is a 3-ply mint green one, and as they say, there’s no accounting for taste! In my book, a greenish pickguard on a green body isn’t an appealing look, so it had to go. Because I want to transform the guitar to Esquire specs, I had to replace it anyway, and this is a perfect field to let creativity flow and create a custom look: There are countless choices when it comes to materials, from plastic to metal to wood to acrylic glass to leather and beyond. Find the color and pattern you like best, or simply leave the original pickguard with the neck pickup removed for a serious DIY aesthetic. You can cover the hole for the neck pickup with some tape (maybe in a third green color, like neon green!) or simply remove the pickguard for the ultimate outlaw look, exposing the neck pickup routing.I decided for a classic vintage look, with a twist. After comparing several different pickguard colors, I decided to use a 1-ply nicotine-white guard, which perfectly matches the now-matte look of the surf-green body. The color is also often referred to as parchment, offset white, eggshell white, or vintage white—not white, not cream, but somewhere in between. (Wow, an accidental rhyme!)You can buy replacement pickguards from plenty of companies, but if you want to keep it strictly DIY, you can purchase an uncut sheet of the material. I already had some nicotine-white blanks in my storage room, so I used the old pickguard as my pattern and a simple jigsaw with different saw blades to carve out the new one. For the curvatures, I like to use a superfine round saw blade, and a standard straight one for even lines. Put some self-adhesive foil on the surface to keep you safe from any accidents. An Esquire pickguard without the neck pickup opening is easy to fashion, and a perfect beginners’ project for pickguard-making—so be brave! It took me about 20 minutes, plus a few more minutes to drill and countersink the holes for the pickguard screws. After another 10 minutes with some sandpaper and files, the new pickguard was ready, and it looked so much better on the surf green body compared to the stock mint green.To give the new pickguard a custom-shop twist, I decided to break the shine and make it matte like the body, which was done in just a few minutes by using some fine 0000-grit steel wool and abrasive cloth. This easy step makes it look slightly used, and by applying different grades of steel wool and pressure, you can decide on your own exactly how “used” it will look. I decided for a moderate used look that Fender would call “closet classic.”“Do yourself a favor and replace the tiny screws with heavier ones—better safe than sorry!”To take it the extra mile, I decided to round all the edges to give it a rolled-edge feeling—very smooth and a pleasure to touch. I thought this would be done in no time, but I was mistaken; it took me almost an hour to look and feel great! That said, rounding the edges isn’t a complicated task, since all you need is some sandpaper wrapped around a wooden rod. The hard part is getting all of the edges totally even, so if you decide to give it a try, prepare some strong coffee and take your time. It was absolutely worth the time, effort … and swearing. I found that the trick was to always get the same angle with the sandpaper, and to stay away from rotating tools like a Dremel.Now, for the rest of the body. In general, I have a problem with all the screws used on this guitar. The diameter is always smaller compared to the standard, and the material is very soft, which is flirting with stripped-screw-head disaster. Besides this, the chromed surface is super shiny, so I decided to replace all screws with stainless-steel screws in standard sizes. I really like the typical matte look of most stainless-steel screws; they appear a little bit worn right out of the box and are easy to work with. All you need to do to give them the “closet-classic” look is rub the head of the screws with some sandpaper to produce artificial scratches. You can buy matching stainless-steel screws in any guitar or hardware store.Next, let’s take a look at the factory-stock strap buttons. They’re chromed and standard Fender-sized, so no need to replace them if you want to keep the classic ’50s look. The stock screws are tiny, so I’ll replace them with thicker stainless steel ones. Here, too, you have plenty of options to customize your guitar by using the strap buttons you like best, or, alternatively, removing them. You can use smaller Gibson-style ones made of aluminium, locking buttons, custom buttons made out of wood, graphite, etc... it’s your guitar, and you decide what to use. But do yourself a favor and replace the tiny screws with heavier ones at this spot—better safe than sorry! The stock strap buttons came with a small ring of black felt to protect the body from any imprints, so it’s your call whether you reinstall or remove them. For a more classic look, I decided to remove them.To break the shiny chromed surface of the stock strap buttons, you can again use some steel wool, abrasive cloth, or go the chemical route. Here are two other easy techniques you can use on chrome or nickel guitar hardware.1. Alternative mechanical methods Collect a nice mixture of nails, metal parts, broken glass, gravel, sand, little stones, etc., and put this mixture into a small box or a bucket with a lid. Put the hardware inside, close the lid, and shake the hell out of it for a couple minutes to create some nice random scratches, dings, and bumps on the metal parts. The longer you shake, the more weathered it will look. Check the result after a few minutes, and if you want more scratches, keep on shaking.If you don’t want to shake by hand or plan to do this regularly, I recommend a small stone tumbler like we have in the shop. Usually, they’re used for polishing, which is exactly the opposite of what we want to do, but loading it with our mixture from above will work perfectly for relic’ing metal hardware. When you’re pleased with the result, take the hardware out of the box or tumbler tube, and use a soft brush to clean off any dust.2. Alternative chemical methodPlace the hardware on some old newspapers, put on some gloves and goggles, and put iron (III) oxide (ferric oxide) liquid on the hardware with a Q-tip. Watch carefully, and if you like what you see, stop the process by wiping the liquid off the object with a wet cloth or paper towel, or run it under cold water.Next month, we’ll work on the rest of our Telecaster’s hardware. I calculated $25 for a new pickguard and another $10 for the stainless-steel screws, so our budget is down to $305 for future investments. Stay tuned, and until then... keep on modding!
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