thanks for the ideas Waz and Andrew, the idea only happened about 8 hours ago so there's heaps more research for me to do.

Pablo said his laser cutting machine can cut metal plate soon so the bridge plate, jack plate and control plate could be cut by him. I'll look for some oval head bass tuners.
Hardest part will be the bridge saddles but think the 2 saddles per screw would be much easier to make than individual saddles.
At this stage I'm leaning toward a tele shape