Flattening old Bakelite pick guards and source for new guards?

[Kerry Krishna]

The old axes I am constantly working on have a few things in common, and the warped guars are one of them. Have any of you any ideas on how exactly to flatten these things? And I would love to get a sheet of this somewhere also so I can start making my own.

[Frank Ford]

Same deal with celluloid - limited life, and unpredictable at that.

[Bart van Weperen]

Hi Kerry,

 

Like others I don't believe the pickguards are real bakelite.... The real bakelite was used to make lots and lots of different things like wall-sockets, doorhandles, radio's, telephones etc. etc. I found a website with lost of info, including a bakelite-test (3 tests). Fortunately the site is in English.

http://home.planet.nl/~kockpit/  Also have a look at their "history page" for info on bakelite...

Good luck!

[Kerry Krishna]

Paul , of course was 100% correct. It is NOT Bakelite. Thanks for everyone's help. This certainly was a learning thread, and I am certain that I am not the only student. Thanks for persisting with me Paul...

[Kerry Krishna]

As a last gasp to this, when I was working in the soil Science laboratories at University of McGill in Montreal, they were cleaning out a section of a vera old lab. The Prof had died a few years before and he was truly ancient. I got a LOT of stuff that was going to the garbage, and one of the pieces is a slab of bakelite 1/2 inch thick 16 inches wide and 24 inches long. Perfectly flat , and that little piece weighs a ton! The bakelite was used in the science labs,I was told, because it is relatively inert to most chemicals and it does not burn. I just did the \hot pin test on it to, and id didn't leave a mark. I have cut small sections off of it too, and it is brown and reeks of chemicals and is SO hard to cut. It was a good score, but currently I only use it as a flat sanding surface.

[Paul Hostetter]

Bart, thanks for that link, the history page is good, as are some of the other pages. Tangram another similar one I've had bookmarked awhile that goes back in time before Hyatt. The Plastics Historical Society has some really good info as well.

 

From the get-go, I was reasonably certain Kerry's guards were celluloid because 1) that's what almost all old guitars used, and 2) he began by saying the guards were distorted, which is not a typical state for Bakelite. ABS guards (the black ones Martin used) also warp, but the ABS era doesn't quite qualify as "old axes"—or does it?

 

Gibson used styrene in the late 60's as their Kalamazoo era was crashing and burning. And Martin and Lyon and Healy briefly used ebonite for raised guards on mandolins in the 1920's.

 

I have an old National Duolian with a solid Bakelite neck that never holds still when there's a temperature change. It looks cool though.

[Kerry Krishna]

 You are a food man Paul, and if folks like you were not hanging out here and on the Cafe, the world would be a poorer place. Thanks again