Wizard wrote
Does this make me a sinner?
If it does, then it makes me the prince of evil:
P.S. If I do this, what do I do with the gaping hole in the pickguard left by the absent volume knob?
Look closely between the volume and tone, where I removed a switch:

Offcut of pickguard material cut with a plug cutter and fixed in place with good ol' fashioned superglue... What colour is your p/g? It's a bit more difficult to do with a pearloid or other textured p/g, but you just put the p/g on the scrap and move around until you find a match.