Well it's all done except for the front strap button, which I'm going to go ahead and use a dowel for that one. I changed so much at once I'm not sure what did it, but man does it sound better. Thanks for all the input. I'll have to post a pic if I can put the guitar down long enough to take one :D It took me all day to get it done and reset the pickup height, bridge height, intonation, yadda yadda but it was definately worth it. I made a couple discoveries while I had the pickguard off. One was I had a busted grounding connection between the cases on the volume and tone pots. I re-soldered it but as I was putting the guard back on I felt it pop back off again. I figured it worked before like that so I'm not going to bother with it. All the pots are bonded by the foil on the back of the guard anyway. The other thing I found was that I apparently have some sort of built-in EQ on the bottom tone pot. I always wondered why that pot seemed to adjust the tone on ALL the pups, not just the middle. I think it's an option that you can get with the EMG pups I have. I always leave it turned all the way up anyway. :p