Description
This guitar kit has everything you need for building your own custom AY Style Electric Guitar. You will need only some basic tools and finishing supplies. All challenging wood cutting, drilling and shaping is already done professionally, as well as fret leveling and dressing. A detailed manual is included with step by step instructions.
Recommended tools: Solo Guitar Assembly Kit – Set Neck
Kit includes:
- Mahogany body unfinished
- Unfinished mahogany neck with Rosewood fingerboard
- Threaded hex bushings (flat washers included)
- Tuning machines
- Truss Rod Cover
- Strings
- Top Pickguard Plate
- Strap Buttons
- Neck Pickup on a mounting ring
- Bridge Pickup on a mounting ring
- Tune-o-matic Bridge with threaded thumbwheel studs and bushings
- Stop Bar Tailpiece with height-adjustable threaded mounting studs and knurled bushings
- Pickguard
- 3-Way Pickup Toggle Switch (includes knurled mounting nut, flat washer, and plastic Rhythm/Treble Ring-switchwasher)
- Control Knobs
- Jack (mounting nut and washer included)
- Cord
- Hex Wrench
- Control Pots (capacitors included for Tone Pots)
- Control Cavity Cover Plate
- All mounting screws are included
- Wires
IMPORTANT (in addition to our standard return policy): due to their nature kits can be returned only in virtually untouched condition and in original package.
droberts4520 (verified owner) –
This was my first kit that I ever put together. I was honestly a little nervous but after reading through all the material in the link provided it put me at ease to attempt my first project guitar. I am super glad I made this purchase! The quality of the wood and joint tightness was superb. There was a small piece of the veneer that was broken that I just glued back on and sanded to blend so that wasn’t a big deal. In the future I plan on taking more time and not trying to rush and get finished so I can play. The sound quality is good with the provided pickups. I do plan however to upgrade them in the future. Overall I am very satisfied and will be purchasing more guitars from here in the future! Thanks solo!!
mike.buckham (verified owner) –
Just finished my Flame Top SG kit. The flame top was top notch. Very little prep work was needed before applying the dye. The hardware was better than I figured would come with it. Wish I could post a picture of the finished product. I definitely will be buying more Solo kits.
phantelope (verified owner) –
First time I ever built a kit guitar or any kind of instrument. This kit came together really well, took me a moment to figure out what wiring I still had to do and what was there, but in the end it took no time to finish it. I put a cat face on it and stained the wood 3 different colors, made the guitar for xmas for my daughter. I still have to do the final adjustments and probably will file the nut down some to lower the action at the first fret, but overall I’m impressed by this kit. And electronics can be updated to better things in the future.
Body is beautiful, the flamed maple veneer is really pretty and not paper thin. The neck fit the body perfectly. Not much sanding necessary anywhere.
I’d not hesitate to buy an other Solo kit guitar. I bought two of these since they came in late in the year and I wanted a backup in case I completely mess the first one up. Now I have one to build for myself 🙂
Chris Daw (verified owner) –
A fun project and plays fine but disappointed in the top. Couldn’t decide on 3 vs 4 stars. Pretty heavy glue line appeared down the middle of the laminate after applying dye. Two other glue lines ( slightly fainter) under the laminate from the body glue up. Too much glue I guess. Probably wouldn’t try another laminate top kit.
kyle_corm (verified owner) –
After doing the 3 pickup les paul custom “SG” kit sold here for my son, this one was a breeze and a dream in one…
-The neck fit couldnt have been any better,
-The inlays and neck were a 10/10,
-The wiring was half done AND put together right, just had to attatch pickups and jack output,
-The bridge ground wire was included and the hole predrilled
-The frets werent bad although a little sharp on the edge
– The plastic nut was crooked but that was because the wood under it wasnt sanded level, and it was put on with out mass amount of superglue and finger skin like my 3 pickup sg kit….(the factory needs to stop putting them on and just send it in the kit for the owner to do)
Michael Hudkins (verified owner) –
This was my first kit that I attempted. This is more of a hobby for me, so I wasn’t overly concerned about the end result since I looked at it as experience building. The kit came very complete, very well packed and shipped, and everything fit beautifully. If using the hardware provided, all fits very well. I upgraded everything. I used Gibson ’57 classic humbucker pickups, Emerson pre-wired electronics, Gotoh tuners, Gibson tune-o-matic bridge, new knobs, end pins, etc., all in Gold. I did a flame cherry sunburst finish and am ecstatic with the result. Note that the hardware provided is typically metric, and using Gibson, etc., are usually imperial sized. That often requires some careful expanding of holes. There are lots of good videos out there to help with inexperience and I strongly suggest them. I had to lower the nut slots a bit, and bought all of the tools to do it right. The guitar sounds and plays like a $5,000 guitar, and it is simply gorgeous. I just built the ES175 kit as well and will follow up on that one. I highly recommend this SG kit. I absolutely love the guitar, and you would have to go through Gibson Custom shop and pay a small fortune to get the finish I ended up with. Two thumbs up!
tomghiley –
As far as guitar kits for the price go, this one is great, so you might be wondering why I only gave it 3 stars? Well, as I said, “for the price,” overall, it’s a 3-star kit. I purchased a B-Stock version of this kit, and it was advertised as B-Stock based on some minor marks on the binding, this is not something that bothered me, something I was easily able to fix with minimal sanding effort.
NEITHER PROS NOR CONS, JUST OBSERVATIONS:
1. Maple Veneer, it’s a veneer, but even calling it a veneer is being generous, this one is about as thick as a piece of tissue paper, so if you want to do something cool with the finish, you have to be extremely delicate, because any amount of sanding is going to go right through this thing.
CONS:
1. The holes that were pre-drilled for the machine heads on the headstock were not aligned, so in order to correct something that not only looked awful, and would inherently cause tuning issues on the guitar, I had to fill them and re-drill them
2. Neck Tenon is not great, it’s not cut the greatest, so aligning it is a bit of a task, but if you’re good at troubleshooting, it can be done. I attached it with both wood glue and 6 tiny screws just to be 100% sure it would stay in the right position.
3. Goes without saying, all of the hardware that comes with this kit is trash, and in order to upgrade some of the hardware, you have to get creative. The best piece of hardware, and the only pieces that I kept were the volume & tone knobs, and the pickguard. I didn’t use the pickguard, because a flamed flat-top with a pickguard, why would I want to hide the flamed top? But, the tenon cover is cut crooked, so it looks wonky, I’ll probably end up cutting my own. Pots are terrible, nut is cut terrible, bridge is bad-mediocre at best, pickups are maybe the worst pickups I’ve ever seen in my life, they’ve got wax, which is nice, but I’m pretty sure they’re made entirely out of wax, you could make them into a candle, that’s about all they’re good for. So, be prepared to invest a minimum of $200-$300 in upgraded hardware if you want a playable instrument (this should be expected with all kits at this price point).
4. Fretwork, frets were surprisingly very well installed and finished, but they’re incredibly low and cheap, I suspect that after I play the hell out of this guitar for a few weeks, I’m going to have to redo all of the frets as well.
PROS
1. The figuring on the mahogany was absolutely stunning, I don’t know if I just got lucky, but, the back of my guitar looks a million times better than the paper-thin maple veneer on the top, a small part of me wishes I had just completed sanded off the veneer and exposed the mahogany on the top of the guitar, after all, it would have only taken a couple of wipes with a piece of paper towel to take that veneer off.
2. The body is well built, the routing is all great, lines up nicely, no complaints here at all.
3. Neck, and this is a big one for SG Style guitars, shape of the headtstock is nice, and the neck is thin and light, I knew this was a gamble before buying it, but I was just praying that there would be no neck dive, and I was very happy to see that there was no neck dive at all.
Overall, I would 100% recommend this build to someone who has a lot of experience building guitars, I think that can be said for most cheap guitar kits. If you’re buying this as a first build, something you can play right out of the gate, take a hard pass. You will need to have a lot of tools and upgraded parts at your disposal in order to have a good instrument.
Paul Roberts (verified owner) –
First off, I want to say that the original kit I received had a crack in the body when it arrived and when I reported it to Support, I was able to exchange the kit for a new one. I really appreciated knowing that the new kit was inspected before shipping it to me. This second kit is the one I will be referring to in this review.
The neck pocket was nice and snug without being overly tight. There was an issue with the neck pocket however that I had to get help from a friend with. The issue I had is the reason I am grading this kit a 3. When I fit the neck into the pocket I realized that the part of the neck that has the small piece of pick guard between the fretboard and neck pickup was too high. It should have bee flushed to the wood of the body but was off my maybe 1/8 of an inch. I don’t have a router so a friend of mine helped me rout out the pocket a little deeper so that if sat flush. I still don’t know if this was the proper solution because adjusting the neck to have low enough action and accurate intonation has been difficult.
I was able to correct most of these issues by correcting the slots in the nut, flattening, removing relief with the trussrod, and making the tail pieces sit closer to the height of the saddles. I also had to switch around some of the saddles so that the highest point of each saddle was as far back as it could go. All these adjustments really helped with the guitar’s intonation. The intonation isn’t perfect, but it’s close enough to me. The action on the upper frets is still higher than I would like, but it works well enough for me.
As I note I also used some other budget friendly pickups and tuners as upgrades over the stock kit pickups. I think using upgraded strings is something everyone should plan to do anyway. This guitar is a lot of fun.
kevinronan794 (verified owner) –
This is the 3rd diy guitar kit I have assembled. I was/am very impressed with the quality of the kit when I received it, and after I put it together as I saw fit. I did test fit a lot of the parts. I measured everything that should be measured. The flame maple veneer looked great before finishing and even more so after finishing. I did upgrade the the tuning machines (black nickel Grovers), and the rest of the chrome hardware was replaced with black hardware. Pickups were also upgraded (Artec neck HB, and Seymour Duncan Mark Holcomb Omega bridge HB). I look at the finished guitar now and know this is the best guitar kit I’ve assembled. Look’s great with translucent royal purple (5 coats rattle can Krylon Stained Glass and 5 coats Krylon Clear gloss). Feel’s good/plays good. In the kit I received, the body looked closer to a real SG, as opposed to the photos on the SOLO website which show a more LTD/ESP Viper-looking body. I’m okay with that. The nut that came with the kit needed a little filing with my set of Hosco nut files. Just a little bit. Great string action. There were no unpleasant surprises. I got my money’s worth.