What you're getting is a complete sonic upgrade: high-end pickups, high-end pots, very high-end capacitors, hand-wired with pushback cloth wire. A drop-in object that can change the entire look of your guitar. The pickups are hand wound, pre-CBS voiced, so early sixties voiced.
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For the wiring, you're getting CTS pots across the board. The one on my bench has a period-correct early sixties cap, what they call a phone book. I've favoured vintage tone caps for years, when I can get them. They are getting rarer. Then I discovered a company called Luxe, who make the most amazing reproductions, even down to the machines they're made on. It's all aged. Under the knobs it has the ring. Being that I'm known for my relicing, and it's the biggest part of what I do, to offer just a new pickguard, that's not really why people come to me. With a Strat, it's not actually that difficult to make it look good, because it's such an integral part of the overall appearance. And a loaded pickguard should just drop in. The only thing you'd have to do is connect the output jack. That's it. Connect that up through the hole, drop it in, put the screws in, string it up, and you're good to go. It would require a little bit of soldering. But soldering two lugs to an output jack isn't out of the realms of most people's ability.
