so after virtually a full day of installing the wiring harness, and an extensive setup (levelled and dressed the frets, set the action on the nut and bridge) the guitar is complete. It sounds amazing - the stock pickups are really good. Their construction is el-cheapo, and I assume they use ceramic magnets, but they've clearly been voiced to approximate the sound of a PAF. They have about the same output volume as my Tonerider AC2 classics. At this stage I feel no desire to upgrade them, even though that was my initial plan.
The other thing I'll mention is that the Bigsby I got was a cheap B700 from Alixpress ($80 for the gold version). It is also very good after giving it a good setup - I oiled the moving parts, trimmed the string pins and cut the spring down a bit, and now it floats very easily and holds tune. the only real downside is that the Bigsby logo is just a sticker, which started lifting almost immediately. No big deal, I took it off.
I cut a pickguard out of 3mm plywood by printing a template at 1:1 scale, and jigsawing the shape. I stained it the same as the back/sides of the guitar for a nice contrast. I have a gold bracket coming in the mail, but I installed it using a chrome bracket for now.
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