Tragic pickguard removal on L05

[Danny]

    Ponte if you put the guitar near a window that gets sunlight for an hour or two each day it should speed up the tanning of the PG area. Just be sure to not leave it in the sun on a hot day.
    After doing the initial damage I would have just ordered a PG from Larrivee and put the new one on over the damaged area. Probably would have used superglue as a finish in the small areas and polished out with micromesh and buffed with polish. But that's me.

[ducktrapper]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that fiddles and makes mistakes with my Larri.

Im glad it all went well Pete. Send us a photo

In my case, in 1977 I had removed, successfully, the original clear pickguard due to its curling up and collecting dirt around the edges. I play in such a way that I don't really need a pickguard in the first place. However, one night while I was at work, my room mate's buddy severly scratched the unprotected top with a flat pick. Yeah thanks for that dude. The only thing I could think to do was to cover up the worst of it with a solid pickguard. After several years, that pickguard started to lift up and I tried to replace it with a better one. When I slowly tried to lift it off, it tore a strip out of the top of the guitar. Afer I stopped crying, I glued the piece back in and put the new pickguard on and forgot about it for 25 years. Thanks to Matthew, it's looking pretty good now although sadly, the front crack has reopened despite my best attempts to humidify. Drat and darn.       

[Danny]

In my case, in 1977 I had removed, successfully, the original clear pickguard due to its curling up and collecting dirt around the edges. I play in such a way that I don't really need a pickguard in the first place. However, one night while I was at work, my room mate's buddy severly scratched the unprotected top with a flat pick. Yeah thanks for that dude. The only thing I could think to do was to cover up the worst of it with a solid pickguard. After several years, that pickguard started to lift up and I tried to replace it with a better one. When I slowly tried to lift it off, it tore a strip out of the top of the guitar. Afer I stopped crying, I glued the piece back in and put the new pickguard on and forgot about it for 25 years. Thanks to Matthew, it's looking pretty good now although sadly, the front crack has reopened despite my best attempts to humidify. Drat and darn.       

Ricky with Larrivee told me once that JCL uses a contact wood hygometer. If I had that rare old Larrrivee I think I might invest in one to get a truer reading of the moisture content on that guitar. I have seen cracks close completely just from humidification. I hope this doesn't get worse, I like this guitar and I know it means more to you than all your other guitars.

[ducktrapper]

  Ricky with Larrivee told me once that JCL uses a contact wood hygometer. If I had that rare old Larrrivee I think I might invest in one to get a truer reading of the moisture content on that guitar. I have seen cracks close completely just from humidification. I hope this doesn't get worse, I like this guitar and I know it means more to you than all your other guitars.

I humidify the entire room and have maintained a level between 40 and 50% throughout the winter. The crack was repaired and I gather it's not that unusual for a repaired crack to reopen. Whatchagonnado?     

[Ponte]

Ponte - Before and after shots, can't seem to get a decent colour match as I think the before one was under fluorescent lights in the store (bit of a clue in the reflection...).

Up very close at just the right angle I can see a very slight 'dink' outline in the finish of upper edge the original clear pickguard but that's it.  I have now also been able to justify to my girlfriend why a man with so little hair need's to own a hair dryer 

Pete

Hi Pete. Love the hairdryer argument. I haven't got tht much hair either

    Ponte if you put the guitar near a window that gets sunlight for an hour or two each day it should speed up the tanning of the PG area. Just be sure to not leave it in the sun on a hot day.
    After doing the initial damage I would have just ordered a PG from Larrivee and put the new one on over the damaged area. Probably would have used superglue as a finish in the small areas and polished out with micromesh and buffed with polish. But that's me.

Thanks for the advice Dependan. ill put it near the window

In my case, in 1977 I had removed, successfully, the original clear pickguard due to its curling up and collecting dirt around indoethe edges. I play in such a way that I don't really need a pickguard in the first place. However, one night while I was at work, my room mate's buddy severly scratched the unprotected top with a flat pick. Yeah thanks for that dude. The only thing I could think to do was to cover up the worst of it with a solid pickguard. After several years, that pickguard started to lift up and I tried to replace it with a better one. When windowI slowly tried to lift it off, it tore a strip out of the top of the guitar. Afer I stopped crying, I glued the piece back in and put the new pickguard on and forgot about it for 25 years. Thanks to Matthew, it's looking pretty good now although sadly, the front crack has reopened despite my best attempts to humidify. Drat and darn.       

Nearly did that, Duck. Im glad i didn't have to wait another 25 years

[JamesN]

...Thanks to Matthew, it's looking pretty good now although sadly, the front crack has reopened despite my best attempts to humidify. Drat and darn.

When JCL recently visited Wildwood Music, I showed him the top crack on my L-41. He just smiled and shrugged and said "yeah...guitars will crack, especially older ones. They're made of wood, and wood will crack." He also said that even meticulous humidification is no absolute guarantee that a guitar won't crack, because all it takes is once instance of a drastic temperature or humidity change. He told us that it's best to keep guitars in their case, properly humidified, in winter, and out of their case in the warmer months. This then segued into a story about Peter Yarrow's stolen/recovered guitar, which JCL said has over 20 body cracks, but Yarrow wouldn't trade it for the world.

[ducktrapper]

When JCL recently visited Wildwood Music, I showed him the top crack on my L-41. He just smiled and shrugged and said "yeah...guitars will crack, especially older ones. They're made of wood, and wood will crack." He also said that even meticulous humidification is no absolute guarantee that a guitar won't crack, because all it takes is once instance of a drastic temperature or humidity change. He told us that it's best to keep guitars in their case, properly humidified, in winter, and out of their case in the warmer months. This then segued into a story about Peter Yarrow's stolen/recovered guitar, which JCL said has over 20 body cracks, but Yarrow wouldn't trade it for the world.

Well yeah, crack or no crack, it still has the voice of an angel.   

[Mikeymac]

A Larrivee with the gorgeous traditional rosette should NEVER have a tort or dark pickguard on it... 

[Mikeymac]

Also, Pete, yours must be from the same era as my '92 OM - I don't see many with that refined traditional rosette...

[hatofthecat]

A Larrivee with the gorgeous traditional rosette should NEVER have a tort or dark pickguard on it...  

I got the guitar for a great price and it was absolutely immaculate except for the god awful pickguard.... its taken me 2 and a half years to finally pluck up the courage to peel it off.

Also, Pete, yours must be from the same era as my '92 OM - I don't see many with that refined traditional rosette...

Yup. I really prefer it to what was then the abalone "upgrade"..... every other guitar on the market has abalone and I've never been a fan of it as it just looks like a bit of plastic to me ...uh oh, gonna get really flamed now  

....and round the back its a subtle Koa  

Pete

[MPrice]

Really fantastic before and after photos guys. Pretty brave. I don't understand the point of the pickguard. I think it's to guard the top from the pick. For those of you who don't know me I'm really sarcastic. I miss the clear ones. 

[L07 Shooting Star]

Really fantastic before and after photos guys. Pretty brave. I don't understand the point of the pickguard. I think it's to guard the top from the pick. For those of you who don't know me I'm really sarcastic. I miss the clear ones. 

Depending on how they play, some people need them and some don't.  Different strokes for different folks.

[ducktrapper]

Depending on how they play, some people need them and some don't.  Different strokes for different folks.

Very true but remember, in my case, you can't always control who plays your guitar. The idiot who played mine sure needed one.

[L07 Shooting Star]

Very true but remember, in my case, you can't always control who plays your guitar. The idiot who played mine sure needed one.

I was thinking of you and your recent post about that incident when I advised the newbie, clairelynchfan, about not letting anyone touch her guitar without her permission in another thread she started.

In the band I'm in right now, our mostly keyboard player, but also an excellent guitar player, has this bad habit of grabbing my L-07 off it's stand and slamming away on it whenever he wants to try something or demonstrate how something should be played to the rest of us.  And I literally mean "slamming" the guitar.  He is left-handed and plays it upside down and tries to play it as loud as he can.  He is a bull-in-a-china-shop kind of guy who truly has A.D.D. issues and in spite of me constantly reminding him to not just grab my guitar like that, he does it anyway.  I even put another cheap guitar on a stand near his keyboard so he would grab it instead.  At our last practise, he used that one once, but the next time he grabbed my Larrivee again.  I finally blew my top and told him "Tony, don't ever use that guitar again unless you ask me first.  It's very precious to me."  After the practise, he apologized to me so I hope it finally sunk in.

[ducktrapper]

In my case, I was working and my room mate and his buddy got a little lit up and the buddy, a spoiled brat of a doctor's son who had never played a guitar that sounded so good, caused some serious damage flailing away at it. I didn't discover it until a day later when I opened my case. Never even got an apology. My room mate was aghast, although why he let his friend play my guitar I don't know and, of course, he never offered to pay for repairs and, of course, the friend never came by the house again. He should have required dental work.
A couple of years later my former room mate borrowed my Twin Reverb, dropped off the back of a truck causing some serious damage. I don't see him much any more. Heh.