Here are the Steps:
- Your Guitar
- Your Design
- Your RFQ
- Your Down Payment
- Our Magic Process
- Our Ready to Ship Notice
- Your Mind Blown
STEP 1: YOUR GUITAR
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Your first step is to lay your guitar down flat on the floor (because I promise it will fall off a table), and take a flat picture of your gear like this:
This picture serves a couple of purposes:
- It gives us a chance to see your awesome gear. We love guitars.
- It gives us a reference for your pickguard. While it is 100% true that pickguards generally are cut from uniform templates according to guitar style, it never killed anybody to make sure that your gear is not accidentally different than any of us suspect. For example: what is the pickup setup? Is it left-handed or right-handed? Is it modern strat (11 holes) or classic strat (8 holes)
STEP 2: YOUR DESIGN
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Next: we need to collaborate on the design for your pickguard. The first rule here is that WE CANNOT USE IMAGES WHICH OTHER PEOPLE OWN. Yes: Google Image Search is incredible, but for us to use someone else's hard work to create an item we sell for profit is stealing. If you want to send us a cool image you found on the internet and tell us, "this is the vibe I am looking for," we can work with that - but we cannot use that image. We have access to some licensed archives to help us kick-start creativity, but we are not going to use any art for which we are not 100% sure the artist/license was paid.
To that end, you could tell us, "I want my Tele to have a Star Wars vibe," or "I want my Jazzmaster to go Manga," or "I am a huge fan of Stranger Things," and we can work with that and still obey the law and treat other creative people fairly.
STEP 3: YOUR RFQ
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"RFQ" means "Request for Quote." That means you are asking us the question, "what can you make, how long will it take, and what will it cost me?"
To start, SEND NO MONEY. That's right: you start by sending us your RFQ (the picture of your guitar and your idea for design) to orders@sodiumcathode.com. We will probably send you a confirmation that we have received your request within 24 hours, and then we will try to get you our detailed response within 7 business days. Our detailed response will include:
- A proof image of our design idea based on your notes and the picture of your guitar.
- A price quote, which will list the total price (including shipping) for the finished work.
- A ready to ship date -- which is not the date the pickguard will arrive at your house. It is the date it will be ready to ship.
- We are doing the design work for free. We want you to be completely thrilled with your new pickguard, and we don't mind taking a second stab at the design if we can't come up with something in the ballpark on the first pass. But we also can't make one pickguard into a career.
- The process we use for etching has design constraints. For example, lines thinner than 3mm generally cannot translate to the finished work. Intricate details are often swallowed up by the etching process. The process only yields "two-tone" results and cannot support 3 or more "layers" of effects. "Newsprint" effects (images composed of a million black and white dots) cannot be adapted - only black ink line drawings. Those are the major restrictions, and if there are others we will consult with you. Please do not ask us to do something we know by experience will fail.
STEP 4: YOUR DOWN PAYMENT
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Aha! Now we are getting someplace! Once you receive our bid package back, the way to start your order is to send us a 50% down payment via VendMo or PayPal. Follow the links to make the payment. We take 50% down to start the work because we are doing a custom piece of metal work for you, and we are spending money to start the process. It also puts us on the hook to finish your order according to our quote to you. We will of course send you a receipt and also a confirmation of the order which states the estimated readiness date for your pickguard.
STEP 5: OUR MAGIC PROCESS
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It involves a lot of precision cutting machines, caustic solutions, chemistry, and busy fingers. But when you place an order, we make your custom pickguard strictly to order, and we start when we receive the down payment.
STEP 6: OUR READY TO SHIP NOTICE
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When we are finished, we will send you a picture of your new pickguard to demonstrate it is ready. It should look almost identical to the proof we sent with our quote (the proof in the quote is the template for the item we are creating). That's your signal to pay the balance of the order. We will ship the order when you have paid the balance due.
STEP 7: YOUR MIND BLOWN
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When you receive your pickguard, install it on your guitar and get ready to have your mind blown.
