Time for an update.
I'm feeling like this guitar is telling me to quit. Nothing seems to be going right, and I've just been very frustrated with it.

I was able to hide the chipped paint with silver and black markers. It's not perfect, but if I keep trying to fix it, I'll make it worse, and just end up stripping the thing back and starting over, something I'm in no mood to do, and prefer throwing it in the bin.

The pickups been frustrating because of the size of the cavities. I got the cavities shielded, however the Copper tape from the green shed does not have the sticking power of DB's quality stuff. It's on there now, but there was a lot of cursing going on!
I tried some foam from a yoga mat, but that was too fiddly, and too thick. I ended up getting some superglue, and putting a little around the bottom of the spring I locked them in place. This was my first idea, and I can recommend it to anyone in that position again in the future.

The small height adjusting screws on the Humbucker just kept getting stripped, so I ended up ditching that pup, and using the second Humbucker that Waz sold me. This is an 11.5 versus the 12.1 I was originally going to put in, but it should still do the trick. I'm not a heavy player, so I guess this will be the softer Humbucker to use.
I will have the 9.7 split-able Hot Stack in the middle, and the 5.7 Magnum in the neck which should give be a good variety of sounds.

So, as it sits right now, the pickups are mounted, and the wires are run through the body. I've applied three coats of primer to the head stock, and tomorrow I'll hit it with a couple of coats of satin black. Then, once that is dry, I'll apply a decal, and some clear coats, then finish the neck in clear Dingotone neck stain.




In regards to the decal, has anyone used adhesive contact? In case there is a difference to what you Mainlanders call stuff, I'm referring to the stuff you often wrapped books in as a kid for school.
It would be curious to see if this is workable, or will it be too thick?

Next big job, will be tackling this nightmare of Weirdy's!!