Couldn't help myself. Just had to see how all the colors worked together.
I was very sparing with lacquer on the neck heel, and it still slides smoothly in from above.
I think this'll do nicely:
Most of my evening was spent contemplating my options in terms of cable routing on the pickguard. My bridge pickup pocket has a little groove along the front edge, but even with the groove, bundling all the pickup wires together didn't leave enough clearance, so I went with this configuration:
Hot leads to the switch, ground leads to wherever I want, which is what kicked off the contemplation.
Here's another shot of the wiring harness; I don't know if those screws on the bottom of the pickup are stock or not, but I'm leavin' em in for now, and with the wires split into two bundles, it's very neat and has plenty of clearance within the guitar body:
The pickguard just drops right into place.
I'm still meditating on how to do the grounding scheme; 5 wires on the volume pot seems a bit excessive and fussy, especially considering how many times this pickguard is going to get pulled as I sort out exactly how I want the circuit to work. A separate, common ground near the volume pot is the way my mind is headed.
I'll have some pics and a post up later today regarding pickup cavity shielding on Strats.