Well, the guitar is now playable, and the wiring nightmare is over!
I wound up using the original Warhawk all roasted maple neck I had purchased when I purchased the body. I LOVE the look and feel of the Tiltback Strat neck with ebony board, but wow, massive tuning issues when using the trem. Aaron had mentioned I would run into that, but of course, I'm one of those people that learns not to get burnt by sticking my hand in the fire. I'll just have to build another guitar for that neck!
Very happy with the way the electronics came out, and also the aesthetics of the guitar. The color of the finish started as white to fill in the grain lines. Then sanded off the sealer, and the body went through orange, yellow, blue, black. Each time, the wood would become a little more tinted, until the current color started coming out. I thought it looked good and just ran with it. I used Tru Oil, and thought it came out very well, aside from my own idiocy in scratching up the finish here and there when installing the pickguard...ughhhh.
The neck is playable. All I've done to it so far is mount the LRS nut, sanded the back of the neck with 1500, and a little burnishing, and of course the Hipshot tuners. The neck has SS6150 frets. Previous guitar I made had SS6115 frets. I like both.
Pickups
Bridge - Thornbucker +
Middle - Dimarizio Cruiser
Neck - Thornbucker
I have to say, the Thornbuckers are absolutely delicious to hear. They have a richness that is beautiful. Also, when split, they sound outstanding. When splitting, I'm using a trick from the Fralin site, about using a resistor. Fralin's resistor is 7k, but I wound up going with a 6.8k from StewMac since they had a bunch of other stuff I needed. There is no volume drop when splitting due to the resistor. Resistor link
https://www.fralinpickups.com/2020/04/19/5-push-pull-pot-mods-you-should-know/
Controls...
Pot 1 (closest to bridge ) = Bridge Vol / Pull up to split to single coil
Pot 2 = Ton / Pull up to switch from .047 to .022 tone cap (I may try something else here, as there's not much of a tonal difference when the tone is on 10)
Pot 3 = Neck Vol / pull to split to single coil
5 way switch
1 - Bridge (hb or sc)
2 - Bridge / Middle (can use bridge hb or sc)
3 - Bridge / Neck (This seems to be the magic zone. Can get 4 different parallel tones here)
Bridge HB / Neck HB
Bridge SC / Neck HB
Bridge HB / Neck SC
Bridge SC / Neck SC (does a really nice version of the Tele in between sound)
4 - Mid / Neck (can use neck hb or sc)
5 - Neck (hb or sc)
I'm surprised how good the SC sounds are. Using the resistor gives a boost in output to these tones. They are not wimpy. I have the best parts of a Les Paul, Strat and Tele all in one guitar. The sounds are really good. Thanks to @JohnnyHardtail for recommending the Suhr pups. Truly outstanding.
All in all, very happy with how this came out. I think my other guitars are going to be jealous.
