Pickguard questions for anyone well versed in swapping them

Iron1

Iron1

AmbassaDOOM of Red VVinter
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I bought an old 90s era Hamer Slammer SSS guitar recently to give myself some clean tone variety I wasn’t getting with humbuckers. Having never been a fan of pickguards, this is the first guitar I’ve owned with one. I decided to swap it out and ordered a replacement one in early December.

That one hadn’t arrived by last week, so I cancelled the order and bought a different one (Amazon). The second one arrived Wednesday and the original one showed up Friday. Ha.

Sat down this morning to swap in the new one, but only one screw hole lines up. Same number of holes on all 3 pickguards, but only the one hole lines up.

My question is: should I just run the screws in anyway and chalk this up to it being a Hamer oddity? Or, did I just get the wrong style pickguards?

All three are the same shape, have the same number of holes, etc. But the mounting holes just don’t line up.

TIA!
 
Iron1 said:
I bought an old 90s era Hamer Slammer SSS guitar recently to give myself some clean tone variety I wasn’t getting with humbuckers. Having never been a fan of pickguards, this is the first guitar I’ve owned with one. I decided to swap it out and ordered a replacement one in early December.

That one hadn’t arrived by last week, so I cancelled the order and bought a different one (Amazon). The second one arrived Wednesday and the original one showed up Friday. Ha.

Sat down this morning to swap in the new one, but only one screw hole lines up. Same number of holes on all 3 pickguards, but only the one hole lines up.

My question is: should I just run the screws in anyway and chalk this up to it being a Hamer oddity? Or, did I just get the wrong style pickguards?

All three are the same shape, have the same number of holes, etc. But the mounting holes just don’t line up.

TIA!
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Just a brief question man: the pickguard, was it for a Slammer and OEM or was it an aftermarket? Often, 3rd party builders get it wrong by as much as an 1/8th in or just miss holes altogether
 
Clockworkmike said:
Just a brief question man: the pickguard, was it for a Slammer and OEM or was it an aftermarket? Often, 3rd party builders get it wrong by as much as an 1/8th in or just miss holes altogether
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Both were listed as Stratocaster pickguards. I couldn’t find a Hamer listing, which doesn’t surprise me since the guitar is 20+ years old.
 
Iron1 said:
Both were listed as Stratocaster pickguards. I couldn’t find a Hamer listing, which doesn’t surprise me since the guitar is 20+ years old.
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Unfortunately that might be the issue man. Everyone of those companies augment the pickguards to avoid issues with Fender. Sometimes its the screw lay out and the amount, other times its the shape.

Are you looking for a specific color pickguard? Might be able to help ya out
 
Iron1 said:
Preferably black with the white stripe/layer.
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Ive been digging here, no factory pickguards i can find online. Something you might be able to do is to trace out your existing plate like @mcblink touched or, compare the one you bought to your existing and check the differences. Worse for worse, is if the pickguard fits and covers right on the body and neck, you COULD just fasten the screws down into the body if you're ok with that?
 
The best thing to do is have a pickguard made from scratch, based on your guitar and the old pickguard.

Pickguard Material - Materials + Supplies

luthiersupplies.com.au luthiersupplies.com.au

I realise that you are not in Australia but there has to be a place in the USA that stocks sheets of pickguard material (Stew Mac maybe?). Any decent luthier can make you a new pickguard from these sheets. My man Steve has made four for me and one for one of my friends. The one for my friend was an oddball long one for a Washburn bass that had been converted from a Precision style pickup to a soapbar. It was really long so he had to source a longer than normal sheet, but the regular size sheets are fine for SGs, Strats, Teles, etc

Steve made two pickguards for my Schecter Stiletto 6-FR, the first one to convert it from HSS to HH and the second one to delete some switch holes that I didn't want any more. Those were three-ply black / white / black.

He recently made new pickguards for my Gibson SG Junior and Squier Jim Root Telecaster. The SG Junior's white pickguard had yellowed and had a couple of pickguard screw holes that I didn't need any more, so he deleted those. The Jim Root Tele had a scratched pickguard but it was done mainly to fit a Strat style pickup in the neck position instead of a humbucker.

In all cases he bevelled the edge and countersunk the mounting screws.

IMG-8063.jpg


IMG-8087.jpg


2018-6534.jpg


RJSL2187.jpg


IMG-8130.jpg


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IMG-4100.jpg
 
Iron1 said:
I bought an old 90s era Hamer Slammer SSS guitar recently to give myself some clean tone variety I wasn’t getting with humbuckers. Having never been a fan of pickguards, this is the first guitar I’ve owned with one. I decided to swap it out and ordered a replacement one in early December.

That one hadn’t arrived by last week, so I cancelled the order and bought a different one (Amazon). The second one arrived Wednesday and the original one showed up Friday. Ha.

Sat down this morning to swap in the new one, but only one screw hole lines up. Same number of holes on all 3 pickguards, but only the one hole lines up.

My question is: should I just run the screws in anyway and chalk this up to it being a Hamer oddity? Or, did I just get the wrong style pickguards?

All three are the same shape, have the same number of holes, etc. But the mounting holes just don’t line up.

TIA!
Click to expand...
So what you need to do is get a strat pick guard with no screw holes.

Take the parts off the pickguard.
And then use the hammer pickguard to trace the hole pattern.
Then you can drill the holes to line up w/ the guitar.

I wouldn't want to make more holes in the guitar, to change a pick guard. But since the holes are hidden under the pickguard, maybe it doesn't matter ?
 
Thanks everyone. Since I only paid $100 for the guitar, I decided to just run new holes into it with this pick guard. After moving it around a bit I was able to get a second hole to line up, then just went for it.

This is what it looked like originally with the yellowed out "white" pick guard.

IMG_4930.jpeg

And this is it with the black one. I have black pickup covers on the way too, and black knobs/selector tip will go on as well. Although, after putting the black pup oovers on, I might go back to the white ones... kinda like em.

bQT0JiV.jpg
 
You already did what I was going to suggest...it looks great by the way. As long as the holes are hidden, it makes no difference. If it were an expensive guitar I would maybe say something different, but it's not, and the holes aren't exposed anyway. I really like that pickguard on the black guitar! I hope it plays and sounds as good as it looks.
 
jtees4 said:
You already did what I was going to suggest...it looks great by the way. As long as the holes are hidden, it makes no difference. If it were an expensive guitar I would maybe say something different, but it's not, and the holes aren't exposed anyway. I really like that pickguard on the black guitar! I hope it plays and sounds as good as it looks.
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Yeah, if it was an expensive guitar I would be all over one of those custom pick guards linked above. But, this is just a project fiddle so I can have some SSS tones to contrast my heavy stuff.

Got a set of Hipshot locking tuners for it today, then had to drill out the peg holes to get them to fit. Put a few tiny splinters on the face of the headstock, but really don't care. Been debating about taking a scroll saw to the headstock to change the shape, and now my mind is made up to do so. :ROFLMAO:
 
Iron1 said:
Thanks everyone. Since I only paid $100 for the guitar, I decided to just run new holes into it with this pick guard. After moving it around a bit I was able to get a second hole to line up, then just went for it.

This is what it looked like originally with the yellowed out "white" pick guard.

View attachment 78616

And this is it with the black one. I have black pickup covers on the way too, and black knobs/selector tip will go on as well. Although, after putting the black pup oovers on, I might go back to the white ones... kinda like em.

bQT0JiV.jpg
Click to expand...

I remember buying strat PGs that had no pre drilled mounting holes....it is a lot of trouble to copy the hole pattern.

But the guitar looks way better w/ the black / white trim PG, that was a good call.
 
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