Guitar Reviews 4U adding Quickguards Flames Truss Rod Plates
to the Gretsch 6120 Brian Setzer Hot Rod guitars
Quickguards Truss Rod Cover Plates in Silver SparkleThe new Brian Setzer Gretsch 6120 Hot Rod guitars look pretty amazing and I've upgraded mine with Pickguards as this make them easier to play I have found - recently I found a site called Quickguards in the USA offering a great variety of pickguards and truss rod plate covers.
I could see the truss rod plates listed on the website would look great upgrades over the stock black and white sandwich type fitted as stock to the Hot Rod guitars. So I purchased some silver sparkle ones for my Hot Rod 6120s. The beauty of these guitars is that they can be easily upgraded to your own taste.
Back in 2015 the Brian Setzer Hot Rod models changed specification and lost the square Brian Setzer Hot Rod model label, replacing it with the engraved truss rood cover.
I liked the 2015 truss rod cover idea, but I felt they should have also kept the square plate on the headstock too, the Hot Rod pickguard was also dropped around that time. I prefer a pickguard as I find you can use to brace the fingers for precise playing.
The 2015 Hot Rod models dispensed with the metal Brian Setzer model plate - The replacement was an engraved Truss Rod cover - they should have put both on!
The Quickguards Truss Rod covers in Silver Sparkle, appealed to me as I had already on my 2022 guardless guitars, added genuine Hot Rod Pickguards - see below.
Paint removed Gretsch Hot Rod pickguard on the Green Sparkle
Gretsch Hot Rod flames pickguard added to the Blueburst
I test painted Tamiya clear X-23 Blue and clear X-25 Green acrylic paint as test finishes onto a clear plastic carton lid -
The overlay of the lid gave me a test view of the final finish
without having to put paint onto the Silver Sparkle guard at this stage
I ordered two of the silver sparkle plastic Truss Rod covers from Quickguards. They are busy people there and the guards took a while to be made and to arrive, but they are very good. When fitting, they advise to just tighten down the guard onto the surface of the guitar lightly and not to overdo the screw pressure.
The Hot Rod selection 2022, 2005 and 2022
The guards have round ferrules where the screws sit and if you tighten down too much on the plastic sheet material it can split. Just for guidance here.
The clear Green acrylic - I tinted some clear Acrylic with small amounts of Green.
This just toned down the silver slightly, without darkening the guard too much
On the guitars I used for this project - a 2022 Blueburst Hot Rod and a 2022 Extreme Coolant Green Sparkle Hot Rod, I laid the new unpainted guards over the originals to see how they looked against the paint finish on the guitars.
The finished guard has some contrast to the paint finish -
and looks better than the stock plain finish black and white guard -
the Hot Rod name and flames are not lost under a 'too dark' coated finish
To get the right shade on the guard, I first test painted onto a clear plastic lid some Tamiya Acrylic Clear X-25 Green and X-23 Clear Blue sample swatches and tried the guards under the samples to see how they looked.
The blue looked a bit too dark, so I left that for the moment, for the Green I tinted the green colour in small doses into clear Tamiya Acrylic to get the right amount of colour hue, without losing the transparency or having the Green colour too dark and overpowering the sparkle on the guard when painted on.
The plain silver sparkle works nicely here -The guard contrast is good against the blue, but guard could be blue tinted blue -
however, as this guitar has a silver pickguard fitted, this is now a matching 'set'.
On the Blueburst Hot Rod, I found that the clear blue used neat would be quite close to the guitar colour, so I left the guard on that guitar just silver for now, as below.
This really works nicely and matches the silver pickguard on the guitarOn the Extreme Coolant Green guard against the guitar finish, the silver looked very bright, so to tone it down I tinted some clear Tamiya Acrylic with some clear Green.
As the Green is quite a strong colour, the idea was to have the clear Acrylic with a hint of added green to show off the silver but to tone down the harshness and darkness of neat Green clear tint.
The silver / Blue theme on the Blueburst 6120 guitar -
a difficult colour to photograph but to the eye is amazing!
Nice if it was blue sparkle!
The Green Sparkle finish on that guitar is quite vibrant so the toned down guard looked good.
As I have a clear guard on the Green Sparkle guitar, the toned down Truss Rod plate fits in nicely.
For the final touch, on the Green guard I clear coated the paint with X-22 Clear coat, giving the guard two coats to finish off, all the colours and clear coats were applied with a soft paint brush by hand.
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