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Vintage threads from the first ten years

cutting pg material

4/18/1998 10:45 AM
pkreimer	cutting pg material Hey, Does anyone have a good method for cutting out shapes in 3-ply pg material. I want to put 2 jazzmaster pus in a strat, in red shell. I can't find a blank cut out in that color and am having trouble getting a big apple strat pg from fender. Everytime I cut this material it melts and gets all funny. Any methods work for anyone else? Thanks Paul

4/18/1998 1:20 PM
Steve A.	Paul: Have you tried a variable speed Dremel Moto-Tool with a "disposable" cut-off blade (looks like a miniature sanding disk)? They also have bits which should work to round out the corners. Make the openings slightly smaller than you'd like it and finish it up by hand with sandpaper (the pickguard material will melt a bit at the cut edges so you do need to finish it by hand). I suppose a hot-knife would also work but I've never tried it. Speaking of pickguards, I have a white pearl one on my American-made Washburn vintage strat copy and it smells just like "mentholyptus" cough drops whenever I cut it! Does anybody have any idea why that is? Steve Ahola

4/18/1998 1:20 PM

Steve A.

Paul:

Have you tried a variable speed Dremel Moto-Tool with a "disposable" cut-off blade (looks like a miniature sanding disk)? They also have bits which should work to round out the corners. Make the openings slightly smaller than you'd like it and finish it up by hand with sandpaper (the pickguard material will melt a bit at the cut edges so you do need to finish it by hand). I suppose a hot-knife would also work but I've never tried it.

Speaking of pickguards, I have a white pearl one on my American-made Washburn vintage strat copy and it smells just like "mentholyptus" cough drops whenever I cut it! Does anybody have any idea why that is?

Steve Ahola

4/18/1998 10:24 PM
Bruce	Steve, or anyone for that matter. Any ideas on where I can get some inexpensive pearlesence (sp?) plastic or celluloid sheets? I have an amp project that needs some very "special" looking trim and the fake pearl or tortise shell pick material might do it but I don't know where to get a big enough sheet....it needs to be about 24" long. Bruce

4/30/1998 3:35 PM
Andrew	Hi Bruce, Don't know if this is what you're looking for, but Stewart-Mcdonalds have pickguard material in 12" x 20" sheets. (http://www.stewmac.com) They have tortoise in single ply (0.018" thick), and tortoise, pearloid and black pearloid in four ply (0.100-0.110"). HTH Andrew

4/18/1998 11:13 PM
Charles	Steve, I thought the real celluloid stuff all had that cough drop smell. Charles

4/18/1998 7:55 PM
Daniel R. Haney	Stewart-MacDonald sells pickguards and router templates for this purpose. You can call them at 1 800 848 2273. or get the free catalog by filling out a form at http://www.stewmac.com/ -drh __

5/1/1998 12:11 PM
Doc	Paul: I'm still struggling with this for custom pickguards. I think the store-bought ones are CNC milled. I don't know how WD makes thier custom pickguards from the customer-supplied tracing. Stewart MacDonald sells pg material, router templates, Dremels, and all kinds of router guide attachments for installing bindind and fingerboard inlays. I called them to ask for any router jigs or even instructions for routing pick guard material. They could provide neither. Weird...So I decided to use experimental methods of my own. I was going to get to the bottom of this. I build guitars, including spray finishing, and the stupid pickguard is the problem for me. One method to forget about is the router. The only way you can see what you're doing is to mount the router inverted, bit pointing up. I bought a laminate trimmer for body routing, because it can be grasped in one paw, and I could almost see the guide line to follow. Anyway, the router was mounted about chest-level, so I could keep my eye on the cut line. The pickguard had a pilot hole drilled within the cutout area and dropped over the router bit. The bit is so sharp, and spinning so quickly, that very early in the cutting phase it snagged the workpiece & hogged out a chunk of material outside the line. Ruined. After being extremely careful, I only ruined three pg's. Two were new aftermarket, so it was only the money, but one was an original I was opening up for a humbucker. Stay away from this method. The damage happens so quickly, it reminds me of the sound when a tree trimmer runs a banch through the chipper. So far the best way for the layman in the basement (me) was to chuck a fluted rotary file in the drill press. Drop the head down far enogh to put the cutter down thru the pilot hole in the pg, and lock in place. The drill press spins much slower, and the rotary file kind of melts its way through, but there aren't any surprises. Stop the drill & take the pg out to trim the flash and see where you are, then go back and do some more. Do the final sizing with hand files, using the pickup cover (single coils) or pickup (HB) to see where the last bit of material has to be removed. A rotary grinding stone (cylindrical) can be used with a dremel to grind away pg material. It doesn't leave melted flashing, but it throws plastic "sawdust" everywhere. I used this method to make the beveled edge on a custom strat-type pickguard from tortoise blank material. The hard part was trying to hold the bevel angle freehand. It didn't turn out too bad, but I'd like to do better. The best method for outer edge beveling, I think, would be to have the drill press table tilted at the angle (like a table saw does) and have a spinning stone or file. You move the work piece's edge along the spinning tool. DeWalt makes a laminate trimmer with a tilting base, but I haven't seen one in the store. By lowering the speed with a triac speed control, this might be a manageable method for beveled edge cuts. For your pickguard project, all the cuts are perpendicular, so you could use my standard drill press method. I put masking tape down on the plastic and trace the pattern with ball point ink, using a pickup cover, a similarly cut out pickguard, or a StewMac template. Drill a series of 1/8" holes along a line to make perforations where chunks of material can be cleared out of the way, then use a 3/8" or 1/2" dia rotary file in the drillpress to get close to the line. Finish carefully with smooth cutting flat mill bastard file and rat tail file. Doc

5/1/1998 12:11 PM

Doc

Paul:

I'm still struggling with this for custom pickguards. I think the store-bought ones are CNC milled. I don't know how WD makes thier custom pickguards from the customer-supplied tracing.

Stewart MacDonald sells pg material, router templates, Dremels, and all kinds of router guide attachments for installing bindind and fingerboard inlays. I called them to ask for any router jigs or even instructions for routing pick guard material. They could provide neither. Weird...So I decided to use experimental methods of my own. I was going to get to the bottom of this. I build guitars, including spray finishing, and the stupid pickguard is the problem for me.

One method to forget about is the router. The only way you can see what you're doing is to mount the router inverted, bit pointing up. I bought a laminate trimmer for body routing, because it can be grasped in one paw, and I could almost see the guide line to follow. Anyway, the router was mounted about chest-level, so I could keep my eye on the cut line. The pickguard had a pilot hole drilled within the cutout area and dropped over the router bit. The bit is so sharp, and spinning so quickly, that very early in the cutting phase it snagged the workpiece & hogged out a chunk of material outside the line. Ruined. After being extremely careful, I only ruined three pg's. Two were new aftermarket, so it was only the money, but one was an original I was opening up for a humbucker. Stay away from this method. The damage happens so quickly, it reminds me of the sound when a tree trimmer runs a banch through the chipper.

So far the best way for the layman in the basement (me) was to chuck a fluted rotary file in the drill press. Drop the head down far enogh to put the cutter down thru the pilot hole in the pg, and lock in place. The drill press spins much slower, and the rotary file kind of melts its way through, but there aren't any surprises. Stop the drill & take the pg out to trim the flash and see where you are, then go back and do some more. Do the final sizing with hand files, using the pickup cover (single coils) or pickup (HB) to see where the last bit of material has to be removed.

A rotary grinding stone (cylindrical) can be used with a dremel to grind away pg material. It doesn't leave melted flashing, but it throws plastic "sawdust" everywhere. I used this method to make the beveled edge on a custom strat-type pickguard from tortoise blank material. The hard part was trying to hold the bevel angle freehand. It didn't turn out too bad, but I'd like to do better.

The best method for outer edge beveling, I think, would be to have the drill press table tilted at the angle (like a table saw does) and have a spinning stone or file. You move the work piece's edge along the spinning tool.

DeWalt makes a laminate trimmer with a tilting base, but I haven't seen one in the store. By lowering the speed with a triac speed control, this might be a manageable method for beveled edge cuts.

For your pickguard project, all the cuts are perpendicular, so you could use my standard drill press method. I put masking tape down on the plastic and trace the pattern with ball point ink, using a pickup cover, a similarly cut out pickguard, or a StewMac template. Drill a series of 1/8" holes along a line to make perforations where chunks of material can be cleared out of the way, then use a 3/8" or 1/2" dia rotary file in the drillpress to get close to the line. Finish carefully with smooth cutting flat mill bastard file and rat tail file.

Doc

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