Hi!
I just bought a 2015 J-35 (pics attached) from a friend of mine, and I really love it so far. I restrung it with Ernie Ball aluminum bronze lights, and it really sings.
The previous owner had replaced the stock fire stripe pick guard with a similarly-shaped dark tortoise shell guard. It's a nice pick guard, but it doesn't quite fit right—the round part at the bottom end doesn't look like it quite reaches where the old one did, so there's a small light crescent-shaped area below it, and the radius is a little too small so the point encroach on the rosette. Because of that, I have a few questions:
1) In your opinion, does it look good enough that I should just leave it be? (see picture attached)
2) I'm thinking about replacing it with a redder J-50-style batwing guard, if I could find one. I saw in a thread somewhere that someone had replaced their j-35 guard with one of those, and it looked great.
3) If I were to replace it, where would I find such a pick guard for a reasonable amount of money? I checked out Fox Guitars and they had the shape I'm looking for, but it was over $100 and a) I'm not looking to spend nearly that much, and b) I don't really feel the need for it to be real cellulose, which theirs appear to be and which seems to be the reason for the cost.
What are your thoughts?