[:project guitar:]

I’ve now got most of the assembly done and a lot of the electronics, as I now have the final bits I needed to start on the electronics (capacitors and extra wire!)

All the parts that can be put together have been now, so we can get an idea of what it looks like overall and just work on a few details later. The tuners that come with the kit seem quite cheaply made (!) and I’m not sure if they will be any good yet, but will try them out for a while before replacing them given the amount of money I’ve already spent replacing other things in the kit! (mostly for personal preference, but still…) These can be put on the neck either once it’s on the guitar, or before putting it on. I did it once it was on there as it was already partly assembled last week!

The transparent pickguard (which I got to replace the white one that comes as stock) is also on now. To get the neck pickup under this, the neck pickup has to go in first, and holes need to be drilled in the neck pickup cavity to mount it using the screws. There’s a pair of springs that go between it and the body, over the springs, to mount it correctly.

As the pickguard is transparent you can see part of the wire going from the pickup to the control cavity. This could probably be moved around a bit so it was less visible if you wanted – I quite like it as it is!

The bridge pickup can’t be installed yet though as there is more work on the electronics to do first.
Holes needed to be drilled for the pickguard, as it comes with none (presumably because they think you will want to put a different one on there… as the stock white one isn’t that good IMO!) – this was done by having a “test run” of assembling everything (without the electronics: bridge, control plate and with the neck on, to determine exactly where the pickguard should go. Then holes can be drilled using a very small drill through the holes of the pickguard. I tried marking it with pencil first but it wasn’t visible on this paint job!