Burns traffolyte pickguard

[harrybob]

Hello all,

Does anyone know any methods for flattening a warped traffolyte pickguard. The one on my burns legend is quite wavy, does anyone know what causes this ? I thought traffolyte was heat resistant.

Thanks

Alun

[JimN]

I think that that substance is formed chemically, rather than by heat-moulding.

It's more like Bakelite or Paxolin than it is like nitrate celluloid or vinyl and is not thought of as thermoplastic.

[Billyboygretsch]

Heat will flatten it on a temporary basis but likely to return. I think it’s caused by the laminate shrinking at different rates

[harrybob]

Hmmm I think I’ll leave alone, hopefully as it’s 27 years old it won’t get any worse now - fingers crossed.

Thanks for your input guys

[Billyboygretsch]

Perhaps Eddie Cross might be able to make another - good luck

[harrybob]

It would seem he’s no longer making them

[TIM-W]

remove the pickguard from the guitar and remove pickups and controls.
get two pieces of plain furniture board ,big enough to cover the pickguard.
place the guard in a bowl of "warm" water for a few minutes to soften it,
lay the guard on one piece of board and lay the other board on top.
place a weight on top and leave to cool, that should do the trick.
I have a 1965 Marvin( from new) and a reissue Bison and have used this method on both
with great success.
It was Barry Gibson who told me how to do it.
Best of luck.

[harrybob]

Thanks very much, I’ll give it a go

[harrybob]

Sorry I tried it with what I would call warm water but it seemed to have no effect. Should it be hot water ?

Thanks

Alun

[TIM-W]

the water needs to be hot enough to soften the pickguard so that it just becomes floppy.