The spacers are great! I decided yesterday that I didn't like the way it was handling (electronics wise), so I took the thing apart yesterday.
Anyway, here's what I found:
Here are the things I noticed:
1. The neck pickup is the cheaper looking kind that comes with '69, '73, and the other RI, and not the better looking and cloth wire kind that comes in '65s. Slightly disappointing? However, I wasn't even using the neck pickup on mine so I guess I hardly noticed. Sounded pretty good, though.
2. The switches are the standard Japanese issue, they have retaining nuts, instead of being threaded at the switch. I'm not a fan, but here it actually makes a bit of sense, since it makes the foam retainers possible.
3. The JB is a standard issue JB but has short wires and the humbucker routing is weird. There is no recess at all for the mounting screws, the thing sits flush against the body, no spacer foam or anything. The pickup is actually quite close to the strings already, so if you don't like that, you have no option but to live with it. I wouldn't change a thing about the bucker, though, honestly, it sounds awesome already.
4. I don't know if you guys know this but SD and Fender pickups are reversed in terms of phase. You would think that Fender would have dealt with this by flipping the wires on the neck pickup. Instead, they went with a very interesting option: the red wire is the ground, white wire is hot, and the black and green are the split wires. The standard Duncan colors are green for ground, black for hot, and red and white for the coil split. The KC wiring changes the phase of the pickup, and not only that, it changes the behavior of a coil split if you ground the split wire, since you'll get the screw coil and not the slug.
5. The bridge is actually radiused to 9.5", and not 7.25". This was slightly disappointing. However, considering just how small the differences are, and the fact that it had 3/64" action from the factory and it was fine, this tells you all I need to know. I think I will one day install GraphTech saddles.
Overall, none of this is groundbreaking stuff but just some interesting quirks about a rather interesting guitar.
I made the following mods:
1. I cut the spacer in half with a box cutter and used it under both switches so I now only have half recessed switches.
2. I gave the JB what I've been calling the Avril Lavigne wiring, where the 3-way is wired so that I can split to slug, use as full humbucker, or split to screw. It's a neat idea stolen from the Avril Tele. I've been doing this on my humbucker guitars, and I really do love it. I think it's the best way to wire a coil split. The screw side is a bit weak but has good twang, whereas the slug is quite powerful and very usable. All three mix well with the neck.
3. I put in a Green Lace Sensor that I had lying around. I wasn't unhappy with stock, just that I knew eventually I'd want a different neck pickup since I prefer low noise or noiseless options. Since the SD was wired in reverse phase, I also installed the Lace in reverse phase (green hot, orange to ground). This was a complete shot in the dark, honestly, because I had no real way of knowing if SD and Lace have the same phase, but I figured they did, and it was a good guess.
4. I changed the neck 3-way to a pickup selector switch. It works exactly as you would expect.
I have to say this wiring does it for me. Not only that, if I ever have an HH Mustang, as in two Hot Rails or P-Rails or something like that, I could imagine using the bridge 3-way not only to select coils for one pickup, but for both at the same time, since it is capable of doing it.
