Tortoloid Pickguard Material

It took 2 tries to get it right. I found it better not to heat the tortoloid but mark and keep scoring the material with an exto knife until it cuts thru, final scrape and dress and it looks factory. Thanks Stew Mac

I have a classical with cedar top that I lent to a student. It returned with a Willie Nelson hole. I used the self adhesive pick guard sheet and shaped it sort of like a flamenco golpeador (tap plate). Easy to use, easy to trim, and I like the result. Picture is slightly distorted and shows flash glare.

Hi,
I used a hair drier and heated the sheet several times while cutting. I also practiced a lot around the edges of the sheet and found it still cut OK with no heat... but heat it anyway and use sharp scissors. The fun part was scraping and polishing the bevel to perfectly match the vintage martin look. I haven't used a better product! Thanks Mario.

BTW, the Stew-Mac 3M adhesive also worked well.

Cheers
T

The swirl looked like someone had dragged a broken comb over the plastic in this material before the dye had set. Didn't look like any vintage tortoise I've ever seen.

A great product and a huge improvement on the other materials available today. I found it easy to cut (slightly warm as per the instructions) and more importantly, it sands/polishes up beautifully. There were some small abrasions on the underside but after applying to the top with the adhesive sheet, you certainly don’t notice any markings.

Perhaps if you were using a pattern which was more translucent on a new top you might want to polish the underside, but the material abrades/polishes so easily and quickly, it is certainly not an issue (and I would test the material on the top before going to the trouble). More important, the material is thin and light and I found no acoustic impact on the tone/output of the instrument.

Having worked on many Martins of all vintages, I found each of the available styles to look “correct” in terms of colour and pattern. It’s very subjective, allowing for the fact that each piece of Tortoloid is unique (just like the original materials) and that the original materials are half a century plus old with the requisite amount of aging from light/smoke etc., but If you’re looking to simulate an old pguard, the Tortoloid is as close as you can get.

Highly recommended.

Buffs out very nicely. Looks good.

I bought one piece of the dark brown tortoise intending to make 3 small pick guards for flat-top mandolins. There was enough material for my project but I only ended up with 2 guards due to damaging the material while cutting it. When they tell you it will "chip out" they aren't kidding- we're talking big hunks, not chips! I followed the directions about heating it in hot water before cutting, but it cooled off quickly and the damage happened. I found I had to dunk it in the hot water multiple times, cutting with scissors only a little at a time. I feel like this product needs better and more detailed instructions. They just tell you to "warm before cutting" and you can use a hairdryer or hot water. But how hot? Soak for how long? Is hot tap water ok? or should it be hotter than that? How do you know it's hot enough before you start cutting? How about it, Stew Mac? Better instructions, please!

Also, I found those scratches on the back have to be sanded out. They don't just disappear like they say. I know because I practiced on scrap. Using micro-mesh in steps 1500 through 4000 grit worked well for me. Ultimately, though, I did manage to get 2 really nice looking pick guards out of it- much nicer looking than the printed plastic I think. This is a great product, it just really takes getting used to and needs better instructions. With the price of the material, trail and error is expensive!

I Totally agree with Judd H. Knoxville, TN In fact, If Judd returned his Tortoloid I could probably have received the same pieces that he was so unhappy with. In no way do the two sheets that i received give the impression of tortoiseshell - rather it looks like ugly brown blobs on yellow plastic with abrasive scratches on the reverse of the material. In my view this makes it unusable without spending many hours polishing out - even if I was inclined to polish the scratches out I wouldn't use it - it really is very cheap looking and would defer from the quality of my guitars.

This material is expensive, especially with the added shipping costs and import costs to England - I wouldn't even value a sheet at one English pound - I think Judd is being very generous with his valuation.

We ordered it for an unusual shaped pickguard replacement on a customers guitar. It was very flimsy. It gets unusably thin about 1/3 of an inch from the edge all around. The colors were weak and way off what the photos show. The underside of the pg is heavily scratched all over from them scraping it up off whatever they pour the resin on to make the thing. Its so bad you can clearly see it through the top. The only way to fix that would be to sand and polish it out. That is total BS for something that costs $30. I would pay $5 for this at most.

Excellent product. I decided to add a pickguard to my Martin Backpacker travel guitar. It doesn't come with one. The Tortoloid material really did the job. It is easy to work with and cut to size.