MIMF

In building an acoustic, do I install the eq and pickup before or after lacquer?

It mostly depends on what type of pickup, but for the most part that is done after the guitar is complete and it's a part of the set up. If you have to (heaven forbid) cut a huge hole in the side, handle all that structural stuff first before finishing.

Yeah, that's the kind, thanks.

Having done it once now, I think the way to do it is to cut the hole and mount everything and then take it back out to finish. That way the finish doesn't build up and you are less likely to scrape the finish when you make the holes, etc. This is of course, wisdom from one time, not very scientific statistics.