I have been playing this Jazzmaster SO MUCH and am into everything about it: the way it plays and the way it sounds. The only thing I can’t shake is all the extra controls that I don’t use — for example, I modded my Jag to have a single volume and a pickup selector switch. I am looking to do the same thing here, except retain the separate rhythm and lead circuits. This would leave a single volume, channel selector switch, and pickup selector switch. Still need to figure out how to wire it and if I’ll need unused pots, etc under the pickguard to get the same tone out of it.
As for the pickguard — I think I am going to leave the stock plate and electronics as is and just make a new one with pots, jacks, etc. Then I just have to detach the pickups from the stock guard and solder them to the new. I just so happened to have some metal panel samples I got from work that I think will just fit the guard, but I need to print it out to make sure everything is scaled correctly. Slap it on the cnc and that’s that, right?