"Boots Aged" Vintage Style Fender Jazzmaster Pickguard Celluloid Tortoise Custom Relic'd

Celluloid Tortoise 4 Ply Pickguard for ONLY the Fender USA Original or USA Reissue Jazzmaster. Wide Beveled Edges. This is a 4 Ply Celluloid Nitrate Tortoise/White/Thin Black/White, Made in USA by WD. and hand relic'd by Nick at GaryG's Guitars.

Guard in photos is REPRESENTATIVE of the pickguard you will receive. The material will be the same but the swirl pattern will differ, as the celluloid tortoise top layer is a HAND POURED layer, not a repeating pixelated pattern common on cheap PVC tortoise.

WD SKU: JZ-1405W-WBOur resident
 restoration guy Nicky "Boots" Spagiglione (henceforth referred to as
"Boots") had a project; to recreate to exacting specifications a
pickguard from a '65 Fender Jaguar for a longtime customer. He did all the
normal stuff guys and dolls to do age guards, the widening of the bevels, the
staining of the edges, etc, but the original pickguard had these beautiful
rounded sloping inside edges that Boots couldn't figure out. It wasn't until
the owner told him he'd actually sanded it down about 20 years ago to try to
get rid of some deep scratches that it dawned on Boots. He would need to sand
down and re-polish out the new guard to reproduce that look. So he did. And the
result was glorious. So glorious in fact that I asked Boots to do one like that
for my '73 Thinline Tele. And so he did. And again, the result was glorious. It
didn't just look like a typical "aged" pickguard you normally see,
there was something more to it. These guards had a look and feel to them that
seemed more genuine somehow. It definitely gives it a more authentic look than
the run of the mill "aged" pickguard you see for sale on Reverb and
eBay. He has made about a dozen of them so far for friends and clients. A while
back I convinced Boots to do a run of them and see if anyone else out there
looking for something a little more authentic looking would be into it. And so
he did. Boots made an 8 hole Stratocaster, an 11 hole strat, standard Tele,
Telecaster Thinline, Musicmaster, Precision & Jazz Bass, Jaguar,
Jazzmaster, Mustang,
and one for the Vintage Modified Bass VI. We still haven't thought of a better
name for them than "Boots Aged"; maybe "double aged" or
"Re-Aged." "Twice Baked?" Making them is a time-suck, for
sure, but it's worth it. We couldn't really make a realistic profit on these unless
we charged $130 or more for each one--and that's crazy--so we won't do that. For
now anyway...For now we just enjoy making and offering these up and getting cool
pictures of them installed back from customers.
The Process:
The 4 ply celluloid tortoise guards come in from WD with the wide bevel
option, that saves Boots some time. He scrapes the top tortoise layer on the
edges to get more of a shallow angle to expose more of the celluloid and give
it a jewel-like appearance. He then stains the bevels first, then sands off
some of the stain before using a tinted lacquer to seal the stain and give the
edges that aged amber tint that looks like it's been in a smoky bar for 50
years. Then he set them in the back of the shop in the sunlight for a night and
day, to make sure the lacquer is dry and to impart a little UV on them at the
same time. Then he sets about the sanding down and polishing back out. First
with 1200 with a focus on that tortoise top layer edge, then 1500, and a round
of 2000 before it's finally polished with 3M Finesse It II and then
cleaned. They definitely reflect The Right Amount Of Only Vintage Light
;)