i'd mentioned this in a thread a month or so back, so i'm finally getting around to posting the examples:
don't know why there has to be such a disparity between good and bad tortoise shell guards FROM THE SAME GOD DAMNED GUITAR MANUFACTURER, but there definitley is.
here is what i would call crap. it's a squier jagmaster, and this looks like three-day-old, moldy diarrhea. you get thiese for a street price of $280 right now. wow.
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this is better. it's a mexican jazzmaster. it doesn't look quite as sweet as a the real deal, but it at least looks like they did more than use contact sheets to make it. you gotta spend $900 to get this quality, though.
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my avri jag. notice how it actually looks like bits a material mixed together like symphony. $1900? wtf?
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and this is actually where shit gets real: '62 jag. shut your face. $3000 - 5000 and more.
they had a big thread about this on OSG where they ordered samples from all the pickguard makers. I think in the end nothing compared to the vintage stuff but the consensus was that WD Music has the best tort. even better than Fender CS. but whatever the method was they used to make the stuff back in the day, it's long gone now.
i ordered three different samples of tort from terrapin pickguards and their very expensive "celluloid" tort is the only one that looked decent. i went to guitar center and compared it to fender avri tort and it is identical. the other stuff they sell looks screen-printed.
but nothing compares to the vintage fender stuff.
mage wrote:they had a big thread about this on OSG where they ordered samples from all the pickguard makers. I think in the end nothing compared to the vintage stuff but the consensus was that WD Music has the best tort. even better than Fender CS. but whatever the method was they used to make the stuff back in the day, it's long gone now.
I have a lovely red tort guard from WD on my P-Bass... it looks good enough to eat! There's a sticker on the back reminding you not to stick the pickguard on a flame because it could explode or something like that, because it's made of cellulose.
Why exactly does the vintage stuff look so damn good? Is the modern nitrate cellulose somehow different from back in the day? Were there chemicals used then that are no longer permissible?
the good tort is nice and... chunky. less swirled/thin/soupy (good adjectives are escaping me right now) the cheap tort on the vista jag and hotrod's strat look similar and equally poor quality. but the 62 jag and the 65 haze sleeps with have an almost pearloid-size texture, though more blended.
Personally I actually prefer the MIM Tort on the CP Jags and Jazzys to the AVRI stuff which looks a little too speckly for me and more of a dark red shade than brown, but that's just me.
I think we can all agree that the CIC Squier Jagmaster and CV Jazz bass Tort is an abomination and the rest looks pretty good.
To be honest some of the super faded cellulose vintage tort puts me off as well.
mage wrote:they had a big thread about this on OSG where they ordered samples from all the pickguard makers. I think in the end nothing compared to the vintage stuff but the consensus was that WD Music has the best tort. even better than Fender CS. but whatever the method was they used to make the stuff back in the day, it's long gone now.
I have a lovely red tort guard from WD on my P-Bass... it looks good enough to eat! There's a sticker on the back reminding you not to stick the pickguard on a flame because it could explode or something like that, because it's made of cellulose.
Why exactly does the vintage stuff look so damn good? Is the modern nitrate cellulose somehow different from back in the day? Were there chemicals used then that are no longer permissible?
WD's red tort is awesome. The frankensonic used to have it until it got green perloided, and it received many compliment while it had it.
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Mike wrote:Personally I actually prefer the MIM Tort on the CP Jags and Jazzys to the AVRI stuff which looks a little too speckly for me and more of a dark red shade than brown, but that's just me.
I think we can all agree that the CIC Squier Jagmaster and CV Jazz bass Tort is an abomination and the rest looks pretty good.
To be honest some of the super faded cellulose vintage tort puts me off as well.
to each his own, and it's good that you're in love with your guitar. what floors me is how much money one has to spend to go from what we all agree is an abomination to the good stuff you've got on your guitar. i mean, $600 more for a better pickguard and electronics? i actually thought the neck on the jagmaster was decent, every bit as playable as the CP jazzies and jags.
It seems as if somewhere along the way, the meaning of tortoiseshell within the guitar world changed to describe anything containing a swirl. Most of the stuff I have seen used on guitars after the 70s looks pathetic when compared to the real deal. The stuff used on 60s Fender guitars generally looks nice.
This is what genuine tortoiseshell (which comes from a hawksbill turtle) looks like:
The only thing that seems to come close these days is Tor-tis by Greven. It's somewhat expensive, but it's far superior to anything else out there.
I can't remember the name of the guy who did this for me but my custom guard was made from celluloid with the the bottom ply made of regular plastic to stop shrinkage and warpage. It's supposed to be the 'real deal' (in vintage terms) and have a 3D quality but it looks kind of reguar to me. But hey, it only cost an extra tenner from the regular stuff.
I'll add a close up if anyone's interested, it does have a certain 3D quality. It's definitely not a print job like my original CIJ - that was terrible.
absolutely, 100% agreed w/ narco. his examples of tort are what i think of when somebody describes it, and it more closely resembles the old fender and the avri materials. you're right; the whole idea of swirling has become WAY overstated.
I meant like the 50s/60s faux tortoiseshell.
