Pickguard adhesive

[Doug Shaker]

I'm close to done with a multiscale baritone and, with the player for whom it is intended, I should probably put on a pickguard. I bought a sheet of "pickguard adhesive" from LMI. What I received was a sheet of 3M 467MP adhesive film. One removes one backing layer, attaches it to the pickguard, trims it to size, removes the other backing layer, and attaches the pickguard to the guitar. All well and good and very convenient. A thin, strong, transparent adhesive.

However, as I look as the datasheet for the adhesive, I can find no way to remove the pickguard later. This worries me. Eventually this pickguard will go the way of all flesh and some repair guy is going to have to figure out how to remove that pickguard. If I don't know how to do it now, how's he or she going to be able to do it in ten or twenty years (if this guitar lives that long and it's still wanted). I'd hate to think of the repair person trying to pry it off and gouging the spruce underneath.

Any advice or thoughts on a good way to attach a pickguard?

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

The transfer adhesive is a good way and the industry standard (though being industry standard is not, in itself, proof of infallibility).

A pick guard so installed is removable by judicious moderate heat and naptha. I've had to reaffix several pick guards where the transfer adhesive has given up on its own.

Not that you haven't already spent enough time on your build, but maybe you'd feel better if you included a brief description of your building techniques (adhesives and finish used, where not to put a strap button etc.) with the instrument.

This might help the future fixer (or owner) who assumes the best way to remove the pick guard (or anything else) is with a belt sander.

http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luthier ... guard.html

[Clay Schaeffer]

"A pick guard so installed is removable by judicious moderate heat and naptha."

If you are using naphtha, definitely "moderate" the heat - it is rather flammable.

[Bob Gleason]

I've used that adhesive for many years. It is available on Amazon in lots of sizes. Extremely useful around the shop wherever a thin strong adhesive is needed. I use it a lot for holding inlay pieces and for applying labels to instruments. It never lets go, at least not in the 35+ years I've used it.

[richard kacsur]

I have an LJ 50 (?) gibson that had the pick guard fall off. After much searching I finally used a 3M product core series 2-0300.
The roll I have is many years old and may be referenced by other numbers now.
Its a thin adhesive all sides sticky (and I MEAN STICKY).
The pick guard has been on since the late 1970's and is fine. Play around with it a bit. Its a one touch and your done product.