i have found that getting the parts ahead of time is sound advice. after i cut and routed my first body, i wondered about the size of the neck pocket, size of switch holes, cavity cover sizes, bridge holes, etc. i actually began taking apart my other guitars to size up my routes and holes. i quickly ordered the parts i needed. at that point it made life easier. it would be a bummer to make your neck pocket the wrong size. also, pickup, tremolo and cavity template prices are pretty reasonable. you can get them at stewmac. as for the body template, i have bought templates from both ron kirn and guitarbuildingtemplates.com. the ones from gbt.com are head and shoulders above kirns (the ebay dude). the materials gbt.com uses are much better, plus you get neck templates. with ron kirn, you will not get the neck templates. they are both approx. the same price... so you do the math. also, when i got the templates from kirn, the edges were dinged up. not a good thing if you want to follow it with a router.