I just wanted to take a second to mention why I started this site. I've got a very stressful 9-5 job... because it's more like a 9-9 job... 6 days a week. I started tinkering with old cheap guitars that I had that weren't really worth anything but I wanted to be able to play and enjoy - for no other reason than that I want to be able to embrace things from my childhood - you know... simpler times.
I guess you could take it back maybe to 1999 or 2000 when I dismantled my early '90s Peavey Predator. It was originally a Fire Engine Red with a white pickguard until I joined the woodworking club at school for maybe three weeks and sanded it all down to the bare wood. Totally made of scrap wood - probably 8-10 pieces glued together with a thin veneer on the front and the back (which I think to prevent the lines showing through the finish). I drilled a sloppy hole in the bottom for a jack plate and made a crude cover where the original jack plate was out of 1/16" Walnut, I think. It was so awful that I never attempted to do the pick guard and I just bought a Tortoise Shell one...
If you really, really want to take it back even further to what started it was maybe '97-98 when just before Don Warner Music in Richmond, VA closed up... they were liquidating guitar parts, accessories, and all and there it was... a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails Single Coil Sized Humbucker. I think I paid $20 for it not knowing what I was going to do with it at all but I was 12, 13, 14 years old and didn't care much about anything... except Silverchair. I loved some Silverchair.
So the correct order is... Bought a pickup, sanded a guitar, had a guitar put back together by someone that knew what they were doing... took apart another guitar (mid 90s MIK Epiphone Les Paul) and it sat for about 15 years. And that just about brings us up to speed.
So now that you know the backstory you can see I'm trying to relive my tween years by hotrodding semi crappy guitars. But it's a sometimes peaceful hobby where I can feel accomplished by doing something for myself and the finished product can be enjoyed for as long as I'd like.
So it's late... I'll get some pics of the Peavey and the Epi up in a few days... I really wish I had before pictures. They'd make Kafka proud.