12 String Telecaster - Polishing and Pickguard

Finally got some time to spend in the man cave today, and that meant getting some work done on the 12 string Telecaster. In terms of the body work, the finishing was almost complete. All I needed to do was apply some elbow grease to polish up the acrylic clear coats. As per usual, I got going with the 1500 grit wet sanding to level off the surface and then straight on to the 2000 grit to remove all the scratches. It was then on to the Meguiars Ultimate Compound to really bring the shine. It took two applications of Meguiars to remove all the cloudy areas left over from the wet sanding, but in the end - with arms burning - a really satisfying shine was achieved.

Polishing finally complete and time for the hardware.

With polishing done I played around with some hardware configurations to see what I really liked. While it's a real shame to hide this nice flame maple cap under  pickguard, I've always loved the classic black Telecaster look. Even though the body has come up so nicely I think I will still go with the plain white pickguard.

No pickguard. I would probably use a chrome humbucker mount.

White pickguard on black. Looking classy me thinks.

What do you guys out on the interwebs think? Am I crazy?? Well maybe. But I'm pretty happy with the combo of black body yellow fretboard and white pickguard. Can't wait to see this all put together.