Special Electronics:

Did I mention that the guitar sounded strange with both pickups on?  I am familiar with the sound of pickups wired out of phase, and although a few players like that as an option, for the most part it is undesirable, and never standard wiring procedure.  Mr. X did not ask for it, JLH just got his wires crossed.  There was no ground wire to the bridge, and no hole for one either.  Leaving something that basic out is not only unprofessional, it is less than novice.

When I opened the control cavity for the first time I had to wonder: What's with the artistic wiring, and what does it remind me of?  Oh, now I remember: the 1927 German expressionist science fiction movie "Metropolis"!  See what I mean?

Well it seems strange that someone would go through all that trouble bending red wires into coils and blue ones into zig-zag's, but not take the time to solder them on with enough heat to make the solder melt onto the wires for good contact.  Using hard wire on parts that will need replacing some day is not a good idea to begin with, and in audio applications it is best to keep all wires short, not make them longer than need be, just to be artistic where no one can see it anyhow.

In the green circle, you can see how the stranded wire from the jack is soldered onto a hard wire, without insulation, nor any practical purpose.  In the orange ellipse there is white shrink tubing on the pickup cables, but not where it serves any purpose what so ever!?!??

And what the hell is this all about:

I can sort of see what he was going for: Preventing the potentiometers from rotating, should the nuts come loose. They make lock washers for that, but none were used here.  This has more wrong with it than right.  The cavity is painted with shielding paint, which is conductive, and some of the contacts of the potentiometers were so close to it, that had the nuts come loose, they would have shorted to ground.  It also makes it very hard to service without taking everything out, and the hard wires add to that difficulty.

The switch could not be rotated, and was not in an ideal position to be switched comfortably within playing motion.  I can also see that he did not have it right the first time, and cut out some wood to make the switch fit, after applying the shielding paint, but did not re-paint that spot, leaving the shielding open.  But it would have not made a difference because the cover was not shielded either, making the shielding useless to begin with.

Finally the only soft wire used was to the jack, and in a gauge much too light for that application, and since the insulation was stripped off carelessly, and most of the wire cut, they were holding on with only 2 or 3 of the 20 or so strands, and they came right off when I unscrewed the jack.  It would have not taken much for them to break off in a most inopportune moment.

A few more things:

Believe it or not, there are some more minor details that stand out, but I think that I have pointed the most important stuff out.  There is one thing that does show great craftsmanship or machining:

The fingerboard is well smoothed and the radius is professional.  The inlays are well cut and tightly set into the fingerboard, almost as if they were made on a CNC machine.  Going by everything I have seen so far they were made on a CNC machine, and bought prefab.

The fret job was not near as good, and when I confronted Jesse about his abomination of an instrument and his unwillingness to give Mr. X his money back, he assured me that it was perfectly flat when it left his shop.  Well that would explain the fact that the neck could not be adjusted for proper relief, as making a fingerboard flat, and relying on string tension to draw in a good relief hardly ever works out well.  The right concave bow has to be put in deliberately by the luthier with great skill and care, if the action is to be low yet buzz free.  Proper relief must be established in the fingerboard and fret work, the truss rod's only job is to get it back should it go out of adjustment.  Truss rods can not, nor are they designed to make the actual relief.