After purchasing my new Charvel Pro-Mod So-Cal I noticed that the pickguard was warped near the bridge. Had I inspected the photos taken by Sweetwater I would have noticed this before buying it.

Before Replacement

I was initially going to just deal with the warped pickguard simply because after set-up the guitar played perfect. After a couple weeks the warping had gotten so sever that I had to lower the bridge pickup substantially to keep it from touching the strings.

I thought I’d be able to just order a new pickguard online and swap this out for the new one. This proved to be difficult. While there are almost endless options available for the Floyd Rose version of this guitar there are almost none for the hardtail model. Luckily, there was an individual on a Charvel Facebook group that had just finished a remodel of their guitar and had the original pickguard. The pickguard still had the protective film on it.

Removal of Old Pickguard

Before putting the new pickguard on I of course had to take the old pickguard off. I made sure to take plenty of pictures to make sure I didn’t get anything out of place when installing the new one.

Once I had swapped the pickups, pots and selector switch onto the new pickguard I started to screw it onto the body. That’s when I noticed an issue I didn’t fully expect. The screw holes didn’t line up.

I noticed that when trying to line the holes up that I had only two choices. Either line the lower holes up or line the top holes up. The could be due to improper drilling of the holes at the factory but with the fact that the warping got worse over the course of a couple weeks after getting the guitar this issue may actually be due to the body shrinking. I’ve never had this issue before but the shrinking body theory is backed up by the fact that if you hold the guitar under light just right you can see a rippling effect under the clear coat just behind the bridge. I attempted to get a picture of this effect under the clear coat but was unable to capture it with a camera.

Repair

I decided to line the bottom holes up for the pickguard and then fill the top holes so that I can drill new ones. To fill in the original screw holes I super glued toothpicks into the old holes.

After the super glue had dried for about 5 minutes I cut the toothpicks flush with the body using a razor blade.

The next step was to drill out new holes using a 1/16″ drill bit. After drilling the new holes I’m happy with the results.

End Result

It’s been a week since the pickguard was replaced and it’s still lying flat. As you can see from the photo below the old pickguard had become extremely warped.