TWANG Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 This will be a little pic heavy.. and not all great pics.. but they serve to illustrate the diffrences between what appear to most as identical shapes and sizes for epiphone pickguards. We start with four guards.. two tort sheris, one with my sons pic on it, one black dot, and one custom in cream. the two torts.. one reversed.. to show differences at the point and some differences at the lower portion another two at the point and again at the lower portion still another compared to mine at the point.. notice shapes.. screw holes and again at the lower portion and again two more at the point and finally a tortoise color comparison.. by the way, one of the torts came out looking black. but it was nearly transparent compared to my tortoise.. very thin material, one ply.. a bound style. the tort below is three ply.. So I think I've made myself clear here. Epi guards from dots and sheris, same model or different, often have different screw hole locations, different material thicknesses, different pickup spacing, and even different lengths. Making a new guard that really fits requires a trace and even a good look at your own fit to see just where it fits well and poorly, so a new one can be made to fit tight, right, and cool. This is not an advertisement for my stuff. It's meant to show you that sometimes things just dont add up and you have to watch out. One size does NOT fit all. Once you start modifying your guitar, you find out even more. Pickup mounting rings, same brand same size, are often slightly different, too. Pickguards sometimes have to be modified because epi controls don't match gibson controls.. switch postion being farther toward the guard on epis. So watch out when customizing.. you can get a guard that just doesn't improve much at all. I have, and I admit it, had to learn the hard way.. and I'm sorrier than the customers for those times I've discovered that screw hole wasn't right.. or that the fit at the neck was farther on some than others... Of course I redo them and eat the difference, looking at the long term and figuring once I know what to look for I'll not have to do that, and wanting nothing more than the player being happy. My Twangthang photobucket albums are open to the public.. so you can see my work and get ideas of your own about what you might want to do yourself. They're pretty messy right now, but eventually I'll get them better organized and add a facebook page that's seperate for my business.. that way you can all check out the stuff, and not feel like I'm just hawking goods or services. I don't care where you get what you want.. just get what you want! There will be a better tutorial on pickguard building for those of you who'd like to try yourself. And another on making wiring harnesses. The two most common changes epi players make, along with tuners and pickups. And eventually I'll do some bridge tail stuff so you can all see how to do that safely and effectively. We've learned in this forum, that while Epis have some inconsistencys, these problems can be overcome, and the guitars can be improved quite dramatically for sound and for cosmetics. Hope I didn't take up too much of your time on this. Happy Pickin! TWANG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWANG Posted March 17, 2009 Author Share Posted March 17, 2009 Just got a pic of a black one I made in so I thought I'd share it. black and chrome sure works on these sheris.. and as you can tell by butchcassidys .. black OR chrome works well! http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3656/3363356956_c76d095c74_o.jpg TWANG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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