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Tortoise Pickguard Material
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i-4414 Updated 03/04
Our plastic tortoise pickguard materials are supplied ready for shaping and polishing in your shop. Once you’ve cut and shaped the material, it will be necessary to level and polish the edges and the flat surfaces.
We recommend two methods for polishing plastic, depending on the tools and materials available in your shop. The fastest and best method requires a large stationary buffer (such as our #2080 Buffing Arbor) and dry buffing compounds. Use the coarse (#3165) and fine (#3163) compounds with the soft cotton buffing pads (#3161). The arbor should be rotating at 800-900 rpm for optimum performance.
You can also achieve a high-gloss polish using ColorTone Polishing Compounds (#1202 Medium, #1203 Fine, and #1204 Swirl Remover). These compounds can be applied by hand with a lint-free, soft cotton rag, or by using a hand drill or hand buffer with a foam polishing pad (#3414).
Before polishing, you’ll need to level-sand the plastic. Like nitrocellulose lacquer and other “plastic” guitar finishes, plastics can be level-sanded using a flat, rigid backing pad and progressively finer grits of sandpaper. We recommend the 3M Gold Fre-Cut® Sandpapers (use dry) and Micro Finishing Papers (use wet).
Use 600 - 2000-grit sanding papers. This will level the plastic and then bring it through progressively finer scratches to achieve a uniform satin luster. Then, using ColorTone polishing compounds, polish the pickguard to a high gloss. Be sure to dedicate one soft cotton rag or foam polishing pad to each of the compounds. Otherwise, you will introduce coarse scratches in with the finer compounds.
Using a buffing arbor, you can generally sand to 800 or 1000-grit and go directly to the coarse wheel. Follow up with the fine and you’re done. Be sure not to touch or wipe off the surface of the plastic just after polishing by hand or with a machine. The plastic is soft due to the heat of friction from the polishes, and the smallest contaminant will cause a very visible scratch!
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