Next one to dismantle is the control cavity. The very first wire that I desoldered is the ground tap connected to one of the tailpiece anchor.
This ground tap is the black wire, which I secured with a masking tape, as shown in the picture below:
At this point you can just take off the nut from the potentiometers and you can lift the whole thing off without desoldering anything... saves you a lot of time.
By the way, just to make sure you don't scratch the finish on the top, you might want to put tape around the pots like this:
It protects the finish from accidental slips while using whatever tool in removing the nut.
Here's a picture of the pots with some of the wiring still on:
I tried to "decode" the spaghetti loops and it looks like the guitar came stock with MODERN WIRING. That may be the main reason why it had a really bright tone with the volume knob maxed.
The volume pots are unbranded B500K pots which means that it has a linear taper... no wonder the volume knob was practically useless. It's like an on and off switch which doesn't give you a usable taper.
The tone pot on the other hand is an Alpha A500K pot which means it has an audio taper.
The brown thing on the next picture that looks like a chiclet is actually the capacitor. It's a 0.022uF (I think it's Mylar) with +/-5% Tolerance.