I have a custom guitar with a vintage blues humbucker set. I made a pickguard out of an old tin sign and I don't want to mess up the grapics on the tin with cutouts for the humbuckers. What's the best compromise between sound quality and pickgaurd graphics?

a) Cover the pickups and forget about it.
b) Drill holes in the pickgaurd to uncover the 6 adjustable screw poles in each pickup.
c) Drill holes holes in the pickguard to uncover all 12 poles in each pickup.

If I drill holes for the adjustable poles, I assume they should probably be screwed out pretty far to get within about 1/4 inch of the strings. Is this recommended and if so can they be damaged by adjusting them too far?