Sorry I was unclear - I measured to the crown of the 12th fret, in my mind that's the "middle of the (fret) wire".
Tonight I got the neck and bridge measured, aligned, drilled, and test-installed. Nerve-wracking, but not too hard. Measurements were all OK and I fit the low and high E tuners and strings (just held in place) to make sure everything was aligned and it went smoothly apart from breaking the (cheap plastic) handle off a (cheap plastic) clamp. Guess I need some new toolsDid the bridge with the pickup in place as I'd read some people have trouble with the fit, but with the bridge plate moved just a bit less than as far forward as the pickup would allow, everything worked fine.
I marked the holes to drill for the pick guard, electronics plate, jack, etc, but then realised that I don't have the right sized drill bit , so I'll have to wait until the weekend to sort that out unless I end up with some spare time tomorrow.
Once the bridge and neck were in place, and I realised I couldn't do any more drilling, I thought I'd throw the strings on and see what happened. Turns out everything's lined up where it should be, so that's nice.
The action seems a bit weird and it makes me wonder if I've mucked something up. The first few frets are fine, but after that the action is quite high. I'll try to attach some pics so you can see what I mean. I tried tightening the truss rod (loosened it about an eighth turn, then tightened a quarter), but it feels like it's at the end of its adjustment without much improvement.
I'm probably just worrying too much and too early, but if there's something I can do at this stage that I haven't thought of (or if it's actually fine and I'm worrying unnecessarily), I'd love to hear about it.
1st fret:
12th fret:
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