New (newbie).

[EsquireEsque]

Sounds good! 1-2 mm is pretty easy to deal with with a shim--if you need it. I learned here (Thanks, Simon!) to keep some veneer around just in case. That said, there may be enough adjustment in your saddles without a shim. This is what I love about Fender style guitars. The range of adjustment that you have available compensates for a lot my inadequacies as a carpenter

I have never shaped aluminum. Will look forward to seeing how you approach that. Will you be chroming it?

There's also the benefit of routing rather than drilling - and shielding and perhaps chambering to reduce weight... but I didn't think of using a shim or of keeping some veneer for that purpose (I'll keep that in mind now though)

I've read that DIY chroming is possibly rather dangerous (made more probable given I don't have any background knowledge) and should only be done with pre-prepared "kits".... the cost of which is probably more than having it chromed by a firm - If I can find one that does such small jobs....... otherwise I'll try to Electroplate it with nickel. and see how that turns out... aluminium offcuts are rather cheap (the laminate knife will be many times the cost!) so I'm not worried about bad results, If need be, I'll simply drill a hole for the output jack where the slot for the switch is (I've already repositioned the volume and tone knobs).