Please tell me you did something to enable you to remove the pick guard. It looks like it's painted right on there! 
no crashwig its not painted on looks like it though

how i did it was brushed the entire top (minus gaurd) then copied the bits the gaurd was gonna cover

.
danny id love to see ur boats man! i just used clear gloss over the top, i didnt spray the gloss on though, my freind works in a spray shop sh he did that in his booth at work, id have loved to use nitro on it, but its awfull to work with (mabe next time

)