As my nephew will not be doing this build I figured that I may as well make a start.
Pulled it all out of the box and did a mock assembly so that I could get a better Idea on how it should look. I'm liking the colour of the natural wood against the Black hardware so I'm very tempted to do a solid colour of Cream on all the Maple and Basswood. The spray cap shows the intended colour. And then somehow try and darken the fretboard to something closer to Black. Thinking that Black stain might get me there but keeping it on the fretboard and not have it come off on my fingers will be the issue.
The original PU's have been replaced with Alnico 5 Belcat's that have a 'blackout' style finish. For the time being sticking with the original hardware everywhere else.