Metal or wood pickguards

[alex1fly]

Anybody ever play with alternative pickguard material, like wood or metal? There are some pretty neat looking guards out there, particularly on Etsy of all places.

Sometimes it feels weird to have a slab of plastic on an instrument that's 98% wood and metal. Not always. But I'd be interested in trying something different, just for grins. They can get a little pricey though, so I thought I'd throw this out and see if anyone has had any experiences with wood/metal/leather pickguards, good or bad?

 

[Ace Flibble]

Done all three many times.

Metal - Expect the guitar's tone to get a lot brighter, though by how much depends on the type of metal used and the mass of the pickguard. Also you need to be careful to isolate all the electronics from the guard, or don't play anywhere with lots of neon lights and dodgy wiring. It's hard to screw up the construction of metal guards and I wouldn't worry about buying them off Etsy, eBay, etc.

Wood - No discernible change to tone. Make sure it's either multi-ply or a really dense wood like rock maple or walnut, and no matter the wood species be sure get some kind of finish on it, even if it's just a basic furniture wax. Wood's a pain for pickguards if you want lots of small switches drilled or multiple pickups close together, like an 'Elite' config Strat for example, unless you make the guard extra-thick; thin wood guards tend to be on the brittle side. For something like a Tele or a LP Jr it works fine. Poor craftsmanship with wood can obviously be a problem no matter what the object is meant to be, so I'd only buy a wood guard if you can be really sure the supplier knows what they're doing. I've gotten them custom cut by a local furniture repair guy; I don't think I'd trust any randoms online.

Leather - Very slightly dulls the guitar's tone compared to having a slab of plastic there, unless you put it on a stiff secondary guard of some kind (either wood or a plastic), in which case it has no effect on tone. Works totally fine, you just have to be sure it's all locked down tight and all the edges are sealed nicely, 'cause you don't want any raw leather getting grotty (assuming it's real leather) or loose bits flapping about. Any good leatherworker will be able to deliver a guard that is just as good a fit as any plastic one and all properly finished, but as is the case with guitar straps, there are a lot of sloppy leather products out there so I wouldn't buy from any old random or from any faceless mass-production factory using battery-farmed leather. Make sure to buy from an experienced leatherworker, someone who makes it their whole business and only uses quality materials. Personally I only get leather pickguards from Beth Freeman, who is also who the Fender Custom Shop use. She's not cheap (£200+ per guard) but cheap leather is not something you want to mess with.

 

[GuitarStv]

A non-magnetic/metallic pickguard isn't going to do much of anything for the sound of the guitar when plugged in (although it may change it when you're just strumming on the couch).

I had an old Teisco guitar with a stamped brass pickguard. It made the pickups sound much darker than you would expect (they were an odd type of low output single coils). Changing it to plastic brightened the guitar up quite a lot. I'd expect aluminum would probably have a similar effect, depending on the thickness of the aluminum due to eddy currents.

 

[NegativeEase]

Done all three many times.

Metal - Expect the guitar's tone to get a lot brighter, though by how much depends on the type of metal used and the mass of the pickguard. Also you need to be careful to isolate all the electronics from the guard, or don't play anywhere with lots of neon lights and dodgy wiring. It's hard to screw up the construction of metal guards and I wouldn't worry about buying them off Etsy, eBay, etc.

Wood - No discernible change to tone. Make sure it's either multi-ply or a really dense wood like rock maple or walnut, and no matter the wood species be sure get some kind of finish on it, even if it's just a basic furniture wax. Wood's a pain for pickguards if you want lots of small switches drilled or multiple pickups close together, like an 'Elite' config Strat for example, unless you make the guard extra-thick; thin wood guards tend to be on the brittle side. For something like a Tele or a LP Jr it works fine. Poor craftsmanship with wood can obviously be a problem no matter what the object is meant to be, so I'd only buy a wood guard if you can be really sure the supplier knows what they're doing. I've gotten them custom cut by a local furniture repair guy; I don't think I'd trust any randoms online.

Leather - Very slightly dulls the guitar's tone compared to having a slab of plastic there, unless you put it on a stiff secondary guard of some kind (either wood or a plastic), in which case it has no effect on tone. Works totally fine, you just have to be sure it's all locked down tight and all the edges are sealed nicely, 'cause you don't want any raw leather getting grotty (assuming it's real leather) or loose bits flapping about. Any good leatherworker will be able to deliver a guard that is just as good a fit as any plastic one and all properly finished, but as is the case with guitar straps, there are a lot of sloppy leather products out there so I wouldn't buy from any old random or from any faceless mass-production factory using battery-farmed leather. Make sure to buy from an experienced leatherworker, someone who makes it their whole business and only uses quality materials. Personally I only get leather pickguards from Beth Freeman, who is also who the Fender Custom Shop use. She's not cheap (£200+ per guard) but cheap leather is not something you want to mess with.

Ok, I'm your huckleberry -I challenge you to make some tracks and tell me the difference you can hear. I'm interested

 

[JB_From_Hell]

I think a leather pickguard might look cool, but at over $200, I suppose I won’t find out.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

My only experience with a metal pickguard was on a Strat back in the 70s.
I installed a gold anodized aluminum pickguard for a while and the guitar became noticeably brighter.

This was a bright, heavy ash guitar to begin with and the wiring was stock Fender: no tone control for the bridge pickup.
I gigged it that way through a couple of string changes, but the extra treble was a bit harsh so eventually I switched back to the plastic guard.
When I did, the original slightly sweeter tone returned.

Not just my perception - the other guitarist in my band noticed the change in my sound and commented on it.

I've actually considered trying a wood pickguard - people are making some very nice ones.

 

[80's_Thrash_Metal]

I cut my own diamond plate (aluminum) pickguard for a Jackson RR3 one time. It looked way better, I didn't notice any change in tone. Fwiw.

 

[Securb]

My only experience with this would be on the other side of the guitar. I have a metal control cover on my Iceman. It changed nothing. the plan was to put a diamond plate pickguard on the front. The finish came out so beautiful we didn't want to dill into it.

 

[Ace Flibble]

Ok, I'm your huckleberry -I challenge you to make some tracks and tell me the difference you can hear. I'm interested

That'll be impossible to do in a way which showcases anything. The guitars I still have in my possession which have non-plastic guards are unique among my collection in other ways too (mostly pickups, but also scale lengths, woods, set up for oddball tunings, etc) so there's no 1:1 comparison I can make with other guitars in my possession. If I were to demo my metal-guard Strat against my next-closest plastic-guard Strat, for example, the example would be meaningless since the low-wind A3 single coils and all-maple neck on the metal guard are nothing like the overwound A5 stacked singles and mahogany/rosewood neck on the plastic-guarded guitar, rendering the whole sound far too different to showcase anything that could be attributed to (or denied being cause by) the guard material.
The difference is noted when changing from one material to another on the same guitar, and to be blunt about it, I'm not in the business of spending money on new plastic guards and wasting strings just so I can revert a guitar back to plastic for the sake of a demo. I do have a new leather guard ordered that will be going on a LP Jr that currently has a plastic guard and I have no other alterations planned for, so I will have the opportunity to demo that change (since that guard can be changed without touching the strings, too), but the ETA for that guard is two months, so... check in around the end of February.

 

[Dave Locher]

I had an aluminum pickguard on one of my guitars since around 1992. I swapped it out for plastic last year just to change the look. I did not notice a tone change and no noise issues. I have an aluminum pickguard on another guitar right now. Sounds normal.

I like that they are thin, sturdy/stiff, and easy for me to fabricate. (I have plenty of metal working tools).

 

[NegativeEase]

That'll be impossible to do in a way which showcases anything. The guitars I still have in my possession which have non-plastic guards are unique among my collection in other ways too (mostly pickups, but also scale lengths, woods, set up for oddball tunings, etc) so there's no 1:1 comparison I can make with other guitars in my possession. If I were to demo my metal-guard Strat against my next-closest plastic-guard Strat, for example, the example would be meaningless since the low-wind A3 single coils and all-maple neck on the metal guard are nothing like the overwound A5 stacked singles and mahogany/rosewood neck on the plastic-guarded guitar, rendering the whole sound far too different to showcase anything that could be attributed to (or denied being cause by) the guard material.
The difference is noted when changing from one material to another on the same guitar, and to be blunt about it, I'm not in the business of spending money on new plastic guards and wasting strings just so I can revert a guitar back to plastic for the sake of a demo. I do have a new leather guard ordered that will be going on a LP Jr that currently has a plastic guard and I have no other alterations planned for, so I will have the opportunity to demo that change (since that guard can be changed without touching the strings, too), but the ETA for that guard is two months, so... check in around the end of February.

It would be a very interesting post if you get around to it.

If you can prove the influence of the pickguard material -it suggests something incredibly interesting about guitar tone.

Since the closed circuit resonant loop created through the body of a guitar via the nut, bridge and tuner influence the wave form rippling off the strings and inducted into the electrical circuit of the pickup is a guitars tone (Pickup plus materials in the resonant loop) if the pick guard influences tone -it means the physical vibration of the pickups themselves (being mounted to the resonant loop) in relation to the waveform from the strings also influences tone. The relationship of the string vibration and the pickup vibration influences tone - It would suggest that the methodology of pickup mounting and material which affects the pickup movement could be adjusted to move sympathetically (or not )in relation to the string waveform to get different tones.

I know all of this to by part of the equation -the question is if it is enough to make an audible difference.

 

[Ace Flibble]

We already all know the answer to how surrounding materials affect tone and you're over-thinking the subject. Think about guitar woods and construction. We know a rosewood fretboard produces a different tone to maple or ebony, a mahogany body sounds different to ash, a thicker body produces a different tone to a thin one, etc. The pickguard is no different. The more dense mass you stick on a guitar body the more treble you get. (Hence why neck-through maple guitars seem to sustain so long and clearly.) The more you take away from a guitar body, or replace with a softer material, the less treble you get. (Hence the warm tone of hollow guitars.) A minor change in materials or mass isn't going to create enough of an audible difference to worry about—a plastic humbucker mounting ring and a metal one don't differ enough to be audible, obviously—but when you change a significant lump, like say... something about the size of a pickguard, you do get a noticeable change in sound.
To come at it from the opposite direction, if pickguard material didn't affect tone then neither would the woods used, the construction of the guitar, the hardware materials, etc. An archtop body of hollow mahogany would sound the same as a solid walnut Strat. Put simply, if it vibrates or is attached to something that vibrates, it's part of the tone. This is why the late 80s and 90s were swimming in bizarrely-shaped guitars with all kinds of 'sustain bows' and it became en vogue to clip big blocks of metal to headstocks for studio recording.

So, yes, how you mount pickups can affect the tone and you can use that to purposefully shape the tone in some way. Just go on a Telecaster forum and ask 'em whether they prefer to mount pickups with plastic tubing or springs, stand back and watch the two tribes go to war.

 

[orpheo]

I do wood pickguards all the time. Don't notice any tonal difference between wood or plastic frankly. I love the look but it's a pain to make 'm (routing the thin laminated layers is just annoying, imho).

 

[GuitarStv]

We know a rosewood fretboard produces a different tone to maple or ebony, a mahogany body sounds different to ash, a thicker body produces a different tone to a thin one, etc.

We do?

I think that what we know is that different materials have differing densities . . . and that this plays some role in the sound of an electric guitar. The most important piece of wood in a guitar appears to be the neck, followed by the body . . . by the time you get into stuff like a maple cap on a body or the fingerboard material there is less and less difference. No species of wood is all that consistent. Nobody can say that a given piece of wood sounds a particular way. You can get bright maple, middy maple, and dark sounding maple. That piece of maple might be brighter or darker than a given piece of mahogany.

I'd imagine that the tonal difference of a pickguard is pretty far down there, and that the variability of species of wood would make generalizations about one near impossible.

 

[Artie]

My only experience with this would be on the other side of the guitar. I have a metal control cover on my Iceman.

That's gotta be the ultimate belt-buckle revenge.

 

[Ace Flibble]

We do?

Yes, we do.

You can get bright maple, middy maple, and dark sounding maple. That piece of maple might be brighter or darker than a given piece of mahogany.

Now that's just pure gibberish, unless you want to explain how you're uniquely clued-in to a different version of physics that the entire rest of the human race has not simply failed to notice but somehow have all, uniformly, for the entire history of the species, misunderstood without exception.

 

[Securb]

Now that's just pure gibberish, unless you want to explain how you're uniquely clued-in to a different version of physics that the entire rest of the human race has not simply failed to notice but somehow have all, uniformly, for the entire history of the species, misunderstood without exception.

There are a lot of variables that can have an influence on the density and properties of a species of wood. The water table, minerals in the soil, the type of minerals, sunlight, and seasonality. A Sugar Maple growing in Alabama that pretty much has a year-round growing cycle is going to be much different than a Suger Maple in NH that sheds it's leaves and shuts down every winter. This without a doubt affects growth patterns (grain) and the density of the wood.

So while I am not taking a side on this argument I can clearly see the point Steve is making.

 

[NegativeEase]

We already all know the answer to how surrounding materials affect tone and you're over-thinking the subject. Think about guitar woods and construction. We know a rosewood fretboard produces a different tone to maple or ebony, a mahogany body sounds different to ash, a thicker body produces a different tone to a thin one, etc. The pickguard is no different. The more dense mass you stick on a guitar body the more treble you get. (Hence why neck-through maple guitars seem to sustain so long and clearly.) The more you take away from a guitar body, or replace with a softer material, the less treble you get. (Hence the warm tone of hollow guitars.) A minor change in materials or mass isn't going to create enough of an audible difference to worry about—a plastic humbucker mounting ring and a metal one don't differ enough to be audible, obviously—but when you change a significant lump, like say... something about the size of a pickguard, you do get a noticeable change in sound.
To come at it from the opposite direction, if pickguard material didn't affect tone then neither would the woods used, the construction of the guitar, the hardware materials, etc. An archtop body of hollow mahogany would sound the same as a solid walnut Strat. Put simply, if it vibrates or is attached to something that vibrates, it's part of the tone. This is why the late 80s and 90s were swimming in bizarrely-shaped guitars with all kinds of 'sustain bows' and it became en vogue to clip big blocks of metal to headstocks for studio recording.

So, yes, how you mount pickups can affect the tone and you can use that to purposefully shape the tone in some way. Just go on a Telecaster forum and ask 'em whether they prefer to mount pickups with plastic tubing or springs, stand back and watch the two tribes go to war.

I am not referring to how all materials affect induction of signal into the pickup from the strings -It's already well established that any material on a guitar has some affect to the absorption, diffusion and transmission of the guitar mass and changes the modal properties slightly -it's just that most things are not easily audible

But I'm talking about the pick guard material affecting the physical mechanical vibration of the pickup itself in relation to the already well established affect of tone through the resonant loop and inducted via the strings.

That is what interests me.

 

[GuitarStv]

Yes, we do.


Now that's just pure gibberish, unless you want to explain how you're uniquely clued-in to a different version of physics that the entire rest of the human race has not simply failed to notice but somehow have all, uniformly, for the entire history of the species, misunderstood without exception.

No laws of physics broken. Maple is wood. Wood is highly variable. Depending on the tree that your piece of wood is cut from, you can get very different properties from the same wood.

As an anecdote, acoustically the brightest guitar that I own has a solid mahogany body and the darkest guitar that I own has a one piece maple neck.

Conventional wisdom is that mahogany is mid-rangey and maple is bright. But variability in wood means that that's not always true . . . so generalizations are prone to error.

 

[NegativeEase]

Yes, we do.


Now that's just pure gibberish, unless you want to explain how you're uniquely clued-in to a different version of physics that the entire rest of the human race has not simply failed to notice but somehow have all, uniformly, for the entire history of the species, misunderstood without exception.

Anyone who has ever worked with natural materials in any capacity would know different. Maple growing on the riparian side of my house is nothing like the identical Maple species growing 100ft away on the hill side with a 20' ASL delta.