Aluminum Pick Guards

[Discö Rice]

Are they worth the money? Do you like them? Are they awful? Is there a different material you'd recommend? Whatcha think?

[VOLVO)))]

Garish, ugly things. Wood 4 lyfe.

[Lumpy]

I don't like the brushed aluminum pickguards that Fenders have... I just don't like the looks. Is it supposed to make any other kind of difference (shielding?). I like the look of painted, poly-coated guitars, and plastic pickguards.

[VOLVO)))]

Excellent shielding, good point, but they look awful. Only reason i would buy one is for a template.

[AgentofOblivion]

I made a diamond-plate aluminum one for an Explorer.  I liked the looks of it but it became cloudy and hard to clean after years of sweat, etc.  I didn't notice any differences in the sound/hum or anything like that.

[Discö Rice]

I've heard aluminum really helps with shielding, which is great, because the guitar I was thinking of putting it on will have two fairly hot single coils. I do like the idea of a wooden pick guard, though. Just had a good chuckle imagining a bright green stained birch pickguard on my sunburst Jaguar body.

[VOLVO)))]

Easy to do, Gabe.

[Mr. Foxen]

Ali sucks. Stainless steel is trve.

Made these for some mate's Ricks, since the shitty single ply ones crack if you remotely rock your bass:


Black powder coat one too:

[Discö Rice]

Isn't stainless steel conductive though? I thought that was supposed to be bad.

[Mr. Foxen]

Ali is conductive too, as is shielding. Only possible issue that occurs to me is you get some effects from being a big flat surface, but its not an issue, especially not compared with the rest of the electronics of a rick.

[Lumpy]

Get whatever pickguard looks best to you, you can always shield the pickup cavities using copper tape or there's even paint that has shielding properties. Tutorials online. You can also sandwich a layer of copper tape between the pickguard and the body (but I don't think it will do a lot, I think maybe the pickup cavity is more of a factor.)

[Chovie D]

they sell sheilding tape so yeah...

I have an aluminum guard on my black 79 strat. why? I dont know  ...its been on there since the late 80's.