Recently I cut an ebony tremolo back cover & electronics cavity cover on my last project guitar body. It looked great & felt very sturdy. i went on to add an overlay of abalam (real abalone in thin 1mm sheets). It really adds pizzaz to your project & makesit look like a 20K fender custom shop model.
As for wood pick guard - heres an option. try converting your exisiting pickguard (or get a repacement if you wanna keep the original) but overlaying thin sheets of wood on it.
Art supply shops like Art friend have very thin sheets of wood (real wood - dontgetbalsa) which I use ocassionally to shim loose fiting necks to bodies or rebuild damaged control areas.
Try epoxying these thin wood sheet to your pick guard then use a sharp blame to trim the edges flush with the pick guard. Finish with either matt, satin or gloss laquer.
Some shops also sell thin sheets of assorted wood types including rosewood eboby etc ... though the shops I used to buy themm from before now dont carrythem anymore..
cheerz
