if I went with a tortois shell type pickguard, gold would look amazing on the guitar. But, I prefer the white pearl/pearloid. plus gold hardware has a tendancy to loose it's gold color over time, so I'm going to stick with all chrome hardware. I'm also going to get some chrome knobs with white pearl tops. Since pau ferro isn't a very dark brown, I want to try to have the transparent brown finish be matched as close as possible to whatever shade of brown the fretboard is. Either that or leave the swamp ash body natural with a clear gloss so it will be closer to the maple neck.......I've got such bad GAS right now over this guitar it's awful! Also, I'm leaning towards abalone dot inlay's on the fretboard, but then again, the pickguard and knob tops will be pearl, so I should probably go with MOP inlay's to be more uniform.........this is driving me crazy! but I'm enjoying it so much, especially since this dream guitar is so close to becomming reality....