It is pretty hard to go against the flow.... so the black guard won the election....and now the battle begins...
Disassembly of the white guard revealed a substantial issue. The pots used on the white guard all have thin shafts, and the black guard has holes sized for large pots... A search through my parts boxes came good with two 250k CTS pots and a suitable cap for the tone control, and that itch I have for soldering was satisfied....
BUT,... I was hugely disappointed with the black guard when I found the stock pickups from the kit would not fit in the holes designed to accommodate them.. Seriously Mr man in China ?!? .. Pbass pickups only come in one size, and you got that wrong. I suppose I should blame myself for taking the cheap eBay option from China instead of getting a Fender branded one at huge cost from some other vendor, but damn, something so basic and you cut the hole too small. The fun doesn't stop there, Mr China man got the shape wrong too, and put the holes in slightly the wrong place. End result, is the routing hole in the body is visible beside the jack, and with the CTS pots fitted you can't just push the guard over to cover it as the volume pot fouls on another part of the routing.... Buggar!!
Out with the Dremel.... and adjust the routing to accommodate the CTS volume pot, which was the easy bit. Moving the guard to cover the hole beside the jack was easy, however it also moved the pickups to one side and left no meat fro the screw beside the volume control to hold on to... A compromise had to be found, which was to leave a tiny portion of the hole beside the jack to remain visible. It is there if you look but not too noticeable on a quick glance.
After a light buff to the body on my feather buff wheel the rest went together easy. Wilkinson tuners, bone nut from PBG, Kit bridge and PU's... Strung up to tension and for testing using the kit strings, Full setup and intonation to come when the stainless steel flat wounds arrive, and hopefully I will do a better fix on the gaps around the pickups at the same time. Still weighing up the options on pickups, stay with the kit ones or lash out for a Seymor Duncan set or a Fender original set.
I'll take some better pix in daylight tomorrow.
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