painting white pickguards...????

[fluffy]

So I keep hearing about "back painting" plexiglass pickguards gold and other custom colors... what about the white ones on my 360/12? would this stuff

and a steady hand work??


anyone ?? anyone??

[jps]

It won't look the same; back painted plexi looks quite different than just painting the front of a standard pickguard.

[fluffy]

I think I see what you are saying...on a back painted plexi , the color is more hmmmmm "subdued" I guess you'd call it.Not as metallic right?

[jps]

No, the colors look great but the plexi add punch to the color giving its high gloss surface. Think of what something placed under a piece of glass would look like.

[fluffy]

ohhhh, ok, now I'm pickin' up what your layin' down

[teb]

...and.... if you polish and round or bevel the edges (takes about 1/2 hour, wetsanding by hand, followed by buffing with a rag and polishing compound) you get some really neat glowing edge effects. Much richer than the pre-colored white plexi. You can do the same for gold or black, but black isn't as interesting looking along the edge.

[j.alderton]

Very helpful post.

Along these lines, what brand/color best fits for creating the vintage gold pick guards? (I seem to recall someone had a particular Testor's spray paint color recommendation that matched well.)

[j.alderton]

...and.... if you polish and round or bevel the edges (takes about 1/2 hour, wetsanding by hand, followed by buffing with a rag and polishing compound) you get some really neat glowing edge effects. Much richer than the pre-colored white plexi. You can do the same for gold or black, but black isn't as interesting looking along the edge.

Those pickguards really look great. Appreciate your posting the photos.

Quick question: did you mask the edges when you painted the backs? Or, did you paint the backs and then sand the edges again to remove the paint?

[teb]

Either can work. If I polish them first, I'll usually get it close, but wait on the last couple of sanding grits and buffing until after the painting, to clean off any overspray. If I paint first, I just have to make sure it's had plenty of time to dry and harden before sanding, to prevent scratching the paint while handling them during sanding. I've also done a couple that are sanded to a flat, smooth, square edge, then back painted, edge polished, and then the edge is painted by hand. Masking tape (or fine line tape) can help at times, but isn't usually perfect, so there is generally a little bit of clean-up polishing needed at the end. These are back painted black and then the edges were painted white.

Wet-sanding and polishing the edges also does nice things for factory plexi truss rod covers.

[Tommy]

what brand/color best fits for creating the vintage gold pick guards?

Duplicolor BFM0351 -- Sunburst Gold Metallic. It's a Ford color, can be bought at any auto parts store.

I wanted my 330 to have a different look, so off to the auto parts store I went.
The final result looks very nice: