Main Description

A basic, 3 ply blank pickguard sheet, available in a section of colours. Large enough to make Tele ®, Jazz Bass®, Strat®, Les Paul or SG pickguards or back plates.

Fender®, Squier®, Stratocaster® and Strat® are registered trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and Axesrus® has no affiliation with FMIC

"Colours" Explained

Ok, even i'll conceed that this isn't the most thrilling of toics at this point, but there is actually plenty of confusion when it comes to the "off white" pickguard colours, so seeing as we're ticking off pearls and tortoise shell varients, we might as well address the parchments, mints and creams too.

So lets get stuck in

Now, to before we get further into colours, i've got a few bones to pick over when it comes to Mint Green, so, if you'll indulge me, i'll try and explain why Mint green is so "hit and miss"

First things first, you've probably spotted that the Mint A and Mint B "real" photos look a bit... false, right? Thats because they are I'm afraid - Cameras really struggle to capture the difference between the colours. Essentially, the camera just corrects the image to something that looks like a fairly washed out Mint A, regardless of the actual colour.

So, before i get lost in this, heres the unedited images of Mint A and Mint B, and i think we can agree that the camera has made a meal of things. They both look identical.

Now, this is useless from my point of view, because it doesn't show the difference, so, you'll have to trust the edited photos above, and, honestly? The swatch image tied to the colour select drop down, gives a very accurate match to what the plates look like in the flesh.

But, i'm showing you this because you must consider, that if I'm having this problem, you can bet everyone else is too, so, a word to the wise? Dont trust photos of guitars with mint pickguards! I can search online now, and i can see 10 subtly different shades of mint pickups fitted to Fender guitars - but i know that Fender always use Mint B (Except Fender Japan) . Its a trick of the camera, and there aren't that many variations of Mint Green - I think, in the 20 years i've worked here, i've seen 4. (B, A, a very bright "snot" green, and a "not unpleasant" green that was close to Mint B, but a shade brighter)

Pearloids Explained

Pearloid plates are similar to the tortoise shells, but theres a little less subtly between them, and they dont really have anything overly interesting in their history - as far as i can tell, they're always been PVC, and the variations in colour and pattern are pretty easy to follow.

Pearloid plates do have a few of their own little quirks, so, i'll do a little more detail here too.

Tortoise Shells

You’ve probably noticed with the pickguards, we do A LOT of different variations in tortoise shells – and even then, we barely scratch the surface when it comes to completing the line-up.

Basically, Tortoise shell, originally, way back when, when it first started (long before the electric guitar was a thing) was just that – pieces of a tortoises shell, fixed together into a shape, and polished until semi-transparent (some of the early acoustic pickguards were actually made this way)

Now, obviously, none of us want to see a return to those practises, but seemingly, everyone liked “the look” – so with the advent of plastic in the early part of the 20th century, science found a cheaper way (it wasn’t until the seventies when trade in hawksbill turtle (the main source of Tortoise shell) shells became illegal!)

The first “plastic” Tortoise Shells were made from Nitrate plastics, usually Celluloid – and, frankly, it’s pretty gorgeous! Its semi-transparent, it’s got a sort of leopard skin look to it, and it soon worked its way onto guitars (again, most acoustics)

The problem is – Celluloid plastics are astonishingly flammable – they have a low point of combustion, and once they’re burning, they don’t go out until the fuels gone, or they flame is deprived of oxygen. As you can imagine, no one really liked working with Celluloid. It was risky to use (cutting = friction = heat) it was dangerous to store, and it wasn’t really suitable for the job at hand ( it changed colour when exposed to sunlight, it warped, it shrank, it was generally, pretty badly behaved!)
Never the less, it did eventually find its way onto electric guitars by the late 50s and early 60s, but was soon replaced for something more suitable and much safer.

Nowadays, you see Tortoise shells in either Polyoxymethylene (more stable as a material, but still very flammable) or PVC (which is fairly bomb proof, but does give off toxic fumes if burnt)

Now, getting to the modern day – Tortoise shell comes in 5 “variants” for us (ignoring the Celluloid offerings, they’re still out there, and great for historical accuracy, but just be VERY careful with them – not only in buying them/storing your guitar once its fitted, but also in actually sourcing the stuff, we’ve yet to find a factory who will even consider making a plate with it (too big a fire risk) and even when we do, its very cost prohibitive (more expensive to buy the things then we could ever dream of selling them for!) – there are guys out there making them though – but as a rough guide, expect to pay upwards of £150+)