Matching pickguard holes
When I put my black pearl pickguard on my free black affinity, I lined up the holes so as many as possible would fit and screwed some in. Then it was apparent that some of the holes were not lining up right. I took some wood chips and super glue and partially filled in the significantly offset holes and let that dry while I drilled the new holes were the old holes didn't even show. Then I drilled out the new holes in the patched hole areas and put the new screws in.
Everything turned out great, with no exposed holes showing anywhere. The new pickguard covered everything. I, personally, don't care about drilling the new holes. The guitar looks better and didn't, in my opinion, decrease in value. I'm not selling it and wouldn't get much anyway. So I want my guitars to look the way I want them to look; not the way the next guy wants them to look.
I want my jobs to look professional though.
I was thinking if I ever wanted to get a guitar body painted I would try to bring it to a car collision shop and see what they would charge to do a professional urethane, or whatever, paint job. I bet it wouldn't be much and you could get the paint mixed at an auto paint supply house and select any color you wanted, metallic or otherwise. I heard even some of those auto paint supply places do some small paint jobs like motorcycle plastic parts. You would probably get a really nice paint job. Like candy black cherry metallic or a real cool sea foam green metallic or just plain sea foam green. They'd be able to do it.
Just some thoughts. Hope they help someone.
Duffy