Making a Custom Pick-Guard on the 1612 Pro Engraving Machine

Click link to watch our Making a Guitar Pick-Guard Video.

We finished machining the Guitar Body in Part 4, now in Part 5 of our Making a Telecaster Guitar Body Blog, we are making a custom pick-guard using the 1612 Pro Engraving Machine. The material we are using is a piece of 1/32 inch thick engravers brass, laminated on to a 1/16 inch thick black plastic. Typically pick-uards ranges from 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch thick, the black plastic will help get the thickness within that range.

To hold down our material for engraving, we first mounted it on to a sacrificial using the same method we used in Part 2. We then used push down clamps with the 1612 Pro’s T-Slot Table clamp down on to the sacrificial, so as not to damage the engravers brass.

We created the cut file for the pick-guard in Vision Software placing the mounting holes, pickup cavities and neck pocket to align with our Telecaster Guitar’s design.

A Queen of Hearts motif will be engraved on the pick-guard for a custom look.

We used a .015 rotating diamond and a burnishing adapter for the engraving.

A 1/8 inch end mill was used to cut out the pick-guard.

Here is the Queen of Hearts Pick Guard made on the 1612 Pro Small Engraving Machine, laying on the Telecaster Guitar Body we made on the 2550 CNC Router/ Engraver.

We could have easily made the pick-guard on the 2550, but thought we would showcase the smaller 1612 Pro Engraver and it’s capabilities.

To read other post on making a Telecaster Style Guitar Body, click on the links below.
Part 1-Making the Guitar Blank
Part 2-Attaching Blank to a Sacrificial MDF
Part 3-Bits & Cuts
Part 4-Machining the Back
Part 5-Making a Custom Pick-Guard

Videos
Click the link to watch a short video of the
2550 CNC Router machining the front face of the Telecaster Guitar.

Click the link to watch a short video of the
1612 Pro engraving a Pick Guard for the Telecaster Guitar.

Author: Luke Davis