Are you sure that's a veneer for the guitar, not the spacer used to separate glued stacks? That's how we did it to keep glued pieces from sticking to others in the stack when I was a woodworker, lo those many years ago. The stacks would look like those in that pic.

Yes that is veneer. Do you see the angle on the body blank towards the back. that is showing that it is a blank for a right handed body to be cut and that the angle for that cut is already there before the veneer is layed on so that the cut is not made thru the veneer. The front of the pallet in the picture is the side that the neck goes onto.

_________________
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Cool stuff to know.

On the subject of mods to the MIM, I've got an '05 Floyd Rose model (light blueish/gray/metallic) that I put a pair of white Seymour Duncan JB humbuckers in along with nice pearl pickguard. Very sweet looking and mean sounding axe. It's hot-rodded Strat that looks classy.