Ignoring the humbuckers and that stop tail bridge, the other big problem is that they each only have one chrome control plate. I didn't intend to do this when I got them, but I had some stuff lying around, and they pissed me off...
To begin with the shoreline gold, I had a tort guard that I decided not to use on another project and it was a little shrunken and curled. But the mounting holes practically lined up right, and it sits mostly flat when it's screwed down. Also had a two-switch upper plate off a Marrguar.
I didn't like the gap there, so I ended up doweling the holes for the control plate, since the control cavity needed to be routed anyway, might as well get it to fit where I want it.
So I routed out the upper cavity and expanded the the other switch cavity as well to fit a conventional 3-swtich plate instead of the toggle. I decided to stick with humbuckers since I had a set of Duncan Saturday night specials I wanted to try. The pickup bezels mount right to the body, so the pickguard just has big rectangular holes. The holes for the bridge posts also needed to be enlarged (or shifted downwards) to fit right.
The pickguard was actually screwed down flat while I was cutting it, didn't have too much trouble. The upper switches ended up being coil-split and phase, and the other switches are normal with the strangle. Still haven't decided what to do with that bridge.
Moving on to the tidepool, I was originally just going to replace the pickups, but when I tried to install a trembucker it wouldn't fit in the pickguard. And if you're going to modify a pickguard, why not go all the way?
It turns out the single-switch AmPro upper plate lines up perfectly with the upper switch on this one, and it's already got a 3-way blade switch, so sticking with that pattern there's no routing needed, just a few new screw holes. I also doweled and re-drilled the mounting holes for the neck pickup, they were so crooked one was almost a quarter inch off.
Well, I guess I didn't take any pictures while cutting up the pickguard, but I ended up using a '62 RI neck pickup and a Duncan '59 trembucker, kept the 3-way switching and the upper switch is just coil-split for the humbucker. And this is what it looks like now:
I still need to fix up those necks - smooth out the fingerboard and roll the edges. The left one hasn't been oiled yet, but the right one was.
I'll say I've been a lot more flexible in my acceptance of the non-traditional aspects of some of the more recent offset models than I used to be - the Tune-O-Matic/stoptail would have been the first quirk I'd be tempted to get rid of, just not my preference for hardtails (probably pull out a drill to make an ugly string-through conversion.)
