# Wanted help finding someone who makes custom pickguards in Canada



## eveready (Nov 29, 2009)

Help!

I have a 1965 Gibson Melody Maker. It has the stock piokguard and it is unrouted for other pickups etc (in otherwords the guitar is stock and unchanged) I currently have a Diuncan Little 59 in it, but have a Lollar MelodyMaker-sized P-90 for the guitar. Does anyone know some one who can make me a custom pickguard like lollar sells but custom to my guitar? I'm hoping for fun to get one in single ply tortoise shell exact same size as my MM guiard just with the pickup route for the Lollar MM-P90 pickup.

Let me know. But I'm hoping to find someone within canada only.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Good Luck. I'm sorry I can't help, but somebody will.

Those old Melody Makers are really cool little guitars.

I think mine is a 62. I still have the stock single coil, but I managed to find a nice P90 made by Curtis Novak in the same size as the original pickup.

I'm no P90 fan but the stock single coil was pretty anemic. This is definitely better IMO.

Good luck, have fun!














MM-90


P-90 pickup made to fit in a Melody Maker.




www.curtisnovak.com


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## nnieman (Jun 19, 2013)

eveready said:


> Help!
> 
> I have a 1965 Gibson Melody Maker. It has the stock piokguard and it is unrouted for other pickups etc (in otherwords the guitar is stock and unchanged) I currently have a Diuncan Little 59 in it, but have a Lollar MelodyMaker-sized P-90 for the guitar. Does anyone know some one who can make me a custom pickguard like lollar sells but custom to my guitar? I'm hoping for fun to get one in single ply tortoise shell exact same size as my MM guiard just with the pickup route for the Lollar MM-P90 pickup.
> 
> Let me know. But I'm hoping to find someone within canada only.


There is no Canadian source for 1 ply tortoise shell.

Brio music sells a nice 4 ply but it’s really red.


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)

eveready said:


> But I'm hoping to find someone within canada only


@markxander may be able to help?








CNC laser etched pickguard


I've posted about this before in the what's on your workbench thread, but here's a new one. My neighbours have a CNC laser that they use primarily to burn stuff on wood and sell as keepsakes/tchotchkes/etc (Birchplease.ca) I wanted a new pickguard for my G&L ASAT special, and they're tough to...




www.guitarscanada.com


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## nnieman (Jun 19, 2013)

You can buy this on eBay.com
The seller will ship to Canada.
It’s effing expensive.
$80-100 a piece.
It needs to be wet sanded and polished (it’s pretty rough).

Lewis @ east city guitar co in Peterborough could cut the pickguard for you on his cnc.

Nathan


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## markxander (Oct 24, 2009)

Anyone with a CNC could do it (my neighbours could definitely do something like this on their laser cutter), and this template looks pretty good to me: Gibson Melody Maker Guitar Templates | Electric Herald

The big problem as Nathan said is materials. They're tough to get at the best of times. I have been doing clear acrylic for my pickguard needs and either etching or back-painting.


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## eveready (Nov 29, 2009)

markxander said:


> Anyone with a CNC could do it (my neighbours could definitely do something like this on their laser cutter), and this template looks pretty good to me: Gibson Melody Maker Guitar Templates | Electric Herald
> 
> The big problem as Nathan said is materials. They're tough to get at the best of times. I have been doing clear acrylic for my pickguard needs and either etching or back-painting.


 I've used that template for a 62 I had before. Problem is I have a '65 MM. It has wider shoulders at the cutaways.  So this one wouldn't fit. I need to supply someone with an accurate tracing of mine, or my actual one. so they can then also route it for the Lollar MM-90.


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## eveready (Nov 29, 2009)

Milkman said:


> Good Luck. I'm sorry I can't help, but somebody will.
> 
> Those old Melody Makers are really cool little guitars.
> 
> ...


I've tried the MM-90 and found it (although really good) not to be quite a 'true' P-90 tone compared to my real ones in my R4, 55JR and custom double cut JR that I currenyly have a '57 Dogear in. The lollar is supposed to be much closer in design as it has the wider bobbon, and the pickup poles are screws as opposed to slugs like the Novack one.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

eveready said:


> I've tried the MM-90 and found it (although really good) not to be quite a 'true' P-90 tone compared to my real ones in my R4, 55JR and custom double cut JR that I currenyly have a '57 Dogear in. The lollar is supposed to be much closer in design as it has the wider bobbon, and the pickup poles are screws as opposed to slugs like the Novack one.


I guess we were going for different results. I would have preferred a humbucker if one was available that would fit without routing or altering the pickguard.

I wasn't so much going for authentic P90 tone because as I've mentioned, I'm not a P90 fan. I just wanted a little more output and a fatter tone.

Best of luck with the project.


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## JesseB94 (Feb 11, 2021)

Not sure about tortoise, but if you by chance had interest in a leather pickguard, Get in touch with @TVvoodoo. Great leather worker. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he knew how to dye it to look like tortoise (or atleast in that realm), then you’d also get the look you want.


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## DaddyShred (Aug 11, 2019)

I used Cala custom woodwork for my pickguards. They're just outside of Ottawa. Not sure they could help unless you were in person, but I'm sure an email or phone call couldn't hurt. 

Great guys in there and I'm sure they'd do what they can to get a solution for you

Attached a pic of the pickguards they made me, not custom cut, but custom work for sure. They came out great.









Sent from my SM-N986W using Tapatalk


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## THRobinson (Jun 29, 2014)

I tried to get a Facebook group started for this stuff and posted here and a few other forums but after about 2yrs I have I think 15 members. 

Was hoping to have a place where people could swap templates and possibly people with cnc could make them. I bought a cheap desktop cnc for making those parts but not much experience yet.


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## nnieman (Jun 19, 2013)

THRobinson said:


> I tried to get a Facebook group started for this stuff and posted here and a few other forums but after about 2yrs I have I think 15 members.
> 
> Was hoping to have a place where people could swap templates and possibly people with cnc could make them. I bought a cheap desktop cnc for making those parts but not much experience yet.


I joined!!

Nathan


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