Pickguard Hardware Damaging Finish

It is a " tell " for Chinese fakes ! :hee

Seriously, I have seen very few PLAYED Les Pauls that did not have this.

It does not affect the value or the tone.

It's mojo baby ! And, it is a Gibson, play the sob, loudly. :yah

I was searching for something & saw this thread.

I took my pick guard off to check out the top without it & noticed this would be a problem.

I took the Styrofoam donut from a black cd spindle, & taped that with a piece of microfiber cloth over the screw on the back of the pick guard. Easy enough & a decent buffer to protect against scratches.

I'm sure there are a bunch of usable materials close at hand, but this worked just fine for me.

Gibson did install mine, and it has the dent. The cure is to bend the arm. The real thing to do is get the pickguard with no screws. Gibson could have fixed this problem years ago, but like most other things, they're asleep at the wheel.