Thanks Cork and Frank (hope you don't mind me using shortnames!). Great ideas and advice from you both. I have done a complete mock up of the kit (more like a collection of related parts than a kit but more on that later) and decided to go without a preamp for now and have seated the bridge pickup the same as Cork, nice and neat. First up the bridge was a full 5mm (nearly a 1/4 inch in old money) and the neck heel was at a very jaunty angle so trimmed it and straightened the cut and the scale is now spot on. I also had to cut out the bottom of the cone routing so the cone would sit properly and flatten out the wobbly edges of the aluminium. The spider casting is a bit rough so cleaned the dags off that too. Any work on the body needs to be very carefully done. The 'wood' is very soft and light and the ply is like biscuit - think more SAO then Gingernut! The routing for the cone is a bit over 1/4 inch to the right side of the body so the neck was never going to properly line up so I have massaged the neck pocket to fix most of it and will put up with offsetting the bridge a couple of mm so the strings line up properly. I also had to enlarge the rout to move the neck pickup back 3mm so the neck seated properly.

My thoughts so far is that this kit is made to a basic cheap plan but most of the routing is done by hand or with very basic jigs not really up to the job. As a first kit it would probably remain unfinished and stop any thoughts of trying anything else. Definitely one for the experienced and determined builder. Having said all that, it won't beat me and I will put up some pics when it has moved on a bit. Cheers everyone, T.