Solo ESK-75 DIY Electric Guitar Kit With Flame Maple Top

(11 customer reviews)

$ CAD 369.99

Build Challenge Level. Learn more.

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SKU: ESK-75 Category: Electric Guitar Kits Brand:

Description

This DIY guitar kit has everything you need for building your own Hollow Body Electric Guitar With Flame Maple Top. You will only need some basic tools and finishing supplies. This kit includes all parts and step-by-step instructions to build a complete, playable custom guitar. All challenging wood cutting, drilling and shaping has already been professionally done, as well as fret leveling and dressing.

Recommended tools: Solo Guitar Assembly Kit – Set Neck

Kit includes:

  • Maple body with a poly sealant
  • Unfinished maple neck with Rosewood fingerboard
  • Threaded hex bushings (flat washers included)
  • Tuning machines
  • Truss Rod Cover
  • Strings
  • Top Pickguard
  • Strap Buttons
  • Neck Pickup on a mounting ring
  • Bridge Pickup on a mounting ring
  • Trapezoid tailpiece with Tune-O-Matic style saddles
  • Pickguard
  • 3-Way Pickup Toggle Switch (includes knurled mounting nut, flat washer, and plastic Rhythm/Treble Ring-switchwasher)
  • Full size potentiometers
  • Control Knobs
  • Jack (mounting nut and washer included)
  • Cord
  • Hex Wrench
  • Control Pots (capacitors included for Tone Pots)
  • 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.

Additional information

DIY Kit Information
Finish

Style

Body Information
Thickness

Body Material

Binding

Neck Information
Fretboard

Construction

Frets

Inlays

Scale Length

Thick Nut

Width Nut

Hardware and Electronics
Hardware Color

Selector Type

Tailpiece

Bridge

Controls

Electronics

Pickups

Tuners

Additional Information
Weight

11 lbs

11 reviews for Solo ESK-75 DIY Electric Guitar Kit With Flame Maple Top

  1. Michel_Wander

    First the bad; the headstock was not perfectly symmetrical and there was some sort of glue or oil under the poly sealer which meant that a couple of small spots could not be properly stained. This mesnt I had to do a bit of visual trickery with the finish so that it wasn’t do visible. Three of the tuners are missing the lock washer, and the wood in the neck pocket is pretty rough.

    Next the minor; the heel joint is a little too long so remember to measure and make sure to adjust it properly or you will never be able to get a proper intonation. One of the frames on a pickup was rotated 180 degrees (it has a taper to match the curve of the guitar body). The pickups were slightly different resistances and the one I wanted for bridge was in the wrong frame. Not really a problem, but if you are picky, check this before installation. Sanding poly sealant off takes almost as much time as applying the finish. The bridge post holes are not perfectly parallel but are useable. There is no added wood supports (kerf) in the corners of the guitar body. I do not know if this is an error or just that Solo hasn’t updated thier photos recently.

    The good; the neck was perfectly straight out of the box and didn’t need any adjustment. Even though the wood in the neck pocket was rough, the alignment was perfect. The fretwork is nearly perfect out of the box, I barely needed to file any of the ends. The fretboard and inlays are super nice and without any gaps. The flame maple veneer is nearly perfect and would only be nicer if it were bookmatched. No excess glue to deal with so the veneer takes stain without a problem. The wIring harness is mostly pre soldered and the configuration works nicely. The pickups are HOT, even with considerably larger air gap compared to a Les Paul or Stratocaster, output is high.

    This kit goes together beautifully, and only took a few days to finish once the initial sanding was done, components are decent and the electronics are acceptable as is, I won’t consider upgrading for a long time. When installing the pots, I suggest tying, then taping the string to the posts in such a way that the string is centered over the top of the post, just tying the string (dental floss in my case) to the post causes the post to get stuck sidways. Also, plan on how to hide the wires inside the guitar. I finished the body seperately from the neck after I trial fitted everything. This made the finishing much easier. The thin foam packing material makes a great work surface that allows ypu to spin the guitar body on.

    The great; the guitar assembles easily, looks magnificent, and sounds good plugged in and nice when acoustic. A fun kit, and I am considering building another but finishing it differently.

  2. rob.hemphill (verified owner)

    I had a ball with this kit. For the price point, you need to take control of expectations and optimize with skill. The construction is excellent for the price. I only needed to shim a gap at the outside bottom of the neck joint (no structural issue, just a small gap).

    I embellished the peg head with ebony and a crown inlay. It really looks like a Gibson. I finished in clear for the natural look.

    Electronics are fine. When I installed light gauge ribbon wound jazz strings (11-50) and plugged into my new Positive Grid amp set to clean with delay, the sound was very professional.

  3. Randy Zwitch (verified owner)

    The kit has been a lot of fun to work on, but I disagree with the description of “all of the challenging parts have been done”. My kit arrived with a neck that was too large for the body, requiring significant time with a chisel to fit. Additionally, the corner where the neck inset fits the body was mis-cut, which leaves a gap on the cutaway side. Finally, the fretboard appears to need some additional sanding to smooth the rosewood board, and there are tons of parallel tooling marks between some of the lower frets.

    The bright side is, Solo has been fantastic with answering questions, and the body was already sent to the shipper a few hours after I ordered it. So I have no qualms about ordering from Solo again, just that this specific kit was significantly rougher than I expected from the description.

  4. brian-6997 (verified owner)

    The ESK75 kit looked like a cost-effective alternative to its big-name reference. After successfully attempting a re-fret job on another old guitar, I felt confident to tackle this kit. Long story short, I am quite pleased.

    The kit shipped the day it was ordered and arrived in timely fashion. The flame maple top is every bit as pretty as the photos on the website. The neck looked good at first glance, but ended up needing extra attention. Mostly I was concerned with getting the neck set properly. I followed the instructions carefully – opting to do all of the pre-finish sanding prior to gluing. The neck cavity did require a little bit of sanding for a proper fit, but not much. I also stained the neck before gluing. I made a block with relief for frets for clamping while the glue dried. Some of the frets were not seated all the way, and others needed filing. The ends needed smoothing as well. Having done a re-fret recently, I was happy to apply newly acquired skills. Since this was a kit, I expected to have to do a bit of extra finish work.

    To personalize this build just a little, I reshaped the headstock and pick guard, and changed the tailpiece. There was nothing wrong with the supplied tailpiece, other than I prefer a more minimal look.

    I had low expectations for the hardware and ordered tuners at the same time as the kit. As for the rest, I replaced the plastic nut with a bone one, as well as the bridge, with one of higher quality. The pickups and wiring I used as they came, and they are ample, though I plan on upgrading the neck pickup, pots and switch in the near future.

    The finish is spray-can polyurethane. I love the flame maple with a clear finish. The big moment was stringing it up (flat-wounds), adjusting the action, neck and intonation. That being done I’ve had a really hard time putting it down. I’ve been playing it for a week now, and still loving it. Great tone; pleasing to the ears and the eyes! It’s my new favorite guitar!

    The only problem is that now I want to build another one…

    I even put together a video of the build for others who might be interested:
    https://youtu.be/9Bvl2VCKGDM

  5. Facq Nicolas (verified owner)

    this kit is absolutely fabulous …

  6. Knut Froland (verified owner)

    I was always interested in having a hollow body electric guitar that could be used for everything from jazz to blues to rock and roll, so I purchased the ESK-75 kit in April of 2021. As always, I dry-fit the parts together to see how everything went together. One of the first things I noticed was that the seam on the flame maple veneer top was off center about 1/4″. I contacted Solo and they checked their inventory of ESK-75 kits, and was told that they all exhibited this same flaw. I decided to keep the kit I had (since I already waited months for the kit to come back in stock). The casual observer would probably never notice the flaw.

    The next fit issue I ran into was that the heel structure under the neck did not extend fully to meet up with the guitar body (the side-to-side fit was fine). There was a gap equal to the thickness of a quarter. Obviously, it would be hard to successfully glue the neck in place if it didn’t make contact with the guitar body. In talking with Solo, I had to make a choice; either fashion a shim to bridge the gap, or file down the area under the fretboard (about 3″). Since I was concerned about how a shim might look, I chose to file down the underside of the fretboard. That ended up being a mistake – that I didn’t see at the time.

    I attempted to set the bridge pin bushings, but found that they bottomed out before they were fully inserted. To fix this, I had to deepen the bushing holes so the bushings would install flush to the top of the guitar. To do this, I had to purchase a bushing puller to extract the bushings without damaging the (already finished) surface of the guitar. Even after all of this extra expense and work, the action (with the lowest possible adjustment of the bridge) ended up being 1.5mm at the 17th fret (with a capo on the first fret). Ultimately, I should have filled the gap between the neck’s heel structure and the bottom of the guitar with a shim. That would allow me to properly set up the guitar for normal string action. I even put a slight back bow on the neck, but even that did not solve the problem.

    While most of the parts used were stock from the Solo kit, I did replace the jack with a Pure Tone jack and the plastic nut with a Tusq replacement. For cosmetic reasons, and to have the guitar more closely reflect the design of the classic ES-175, I changed out the tailpiece and the volume and tone knobs. I also installed a Gibson style truss rod cover on the headstock.

    Overall, the guitar looks great (black/brown burst finish), and it sounds great. I am most disappointed that the action ended up so high. I guess I will be building stronger fingers every time I play this guitar. Too bad, considering all the hours I poured into assembling and finishing this kit.

  7. Jon Ochsendorf (verified owner)

    Just received the set and on close inspection, everything looks commensurate with the price point. Electronics are most likely the weaker points and I’ve already purchased pickup upgrades, and will probably upgrade tuners at some point. The neck and body are well made for the most part. The neck heel that sits inside the guitar wasn’t square on the bottom and when I glued it in place noticed that the neck was almost a millimeter higher from the guitar top on the bass side as opposed to the treble side. It probably won’t affect the playability but it’s one of those things that irritate you when you know it’s there. I must say that the fault is probably mine to own as I should have seen this before gluing, even though I clamped the neck firmly when gluing. The other thing I noticed is that there is no kerfing for the top and back to glue to. Even the cheapest guitars have some kind of kerfing to secure the top and back to the sides. This makes me sceptical of the solidity of the joint between the back, top and sides. The purfling is pretty and the binding is well done for the most part. Binding on the neck is a nice touch and there are no finger slashing fret ends. I do like the flame maple veneer and it should finish up nicely. The manual instructs to use 180, 240 and 320 grit to remove the poly sealer before finishing, but i would say that’s a bad idea as the veneer is thin and could be sanded through quite rapidly. I used 400 grit and hand sanded everything and got a beautiful result. Testing with drops of water proved that the wood was ready for Tru-oil finish. If you do place drops of water in spots on the guitar, be aware those spots will need to be lightly re-sanded as water will raise the grain. Keeping in mind that this is a budget guitar, one can’t have extravagant expectations, and I’m sure as the build progresses, I’ll be happier with the overall quality. If you’re interested at all in guitar building, this would be a great place to start. With proper attention to detail, you could have a nice result. I will post more when I’m done.

  8. gibsonfran (verified owner)

    First the good news…
    Shipping was fast and it arrived in perfect shape. The flame maple top was quite good and I can see no telltale signs of “shadows” peaking through a thin veneer. Nothing was missing from the parts list.

    The rest of the story…
    The pickups appear to be very hot, measuring 13.5 and 14.3 ohms. It isn’t wire up yet, but I’ll be pleasantly surprised if they aren’t to “mid forward” and lacking in definition. The pots are the miniature type like you see in a stomp box and the switch is a “box type”. If you don’t like wiring a hollow body, you may spend a few extra bucks and put in better pots, switch, and a jack. The bridge, tailpiece and tuners feel unsubstantial, but they are certainly acceptable.

    The neck set angle was way off. both up & down and side-to-side. The neck pocket was very roughly formed with chisel marks showing the effort to get the side-to-side angle correct. Take your time! If you don’t get these things right, you’ll end up with a poorly playing guitar.

    That said, this is a fine kit for the price, and in the hands of a patient builder, should yield a fine playing guitar. Just remember, this isn’t a bolt-on neck, solid body guitar and will require a considerable amount of time to become as good as it can be.

  9. Rob Gardiner (verified owner)

    The not so good :

    This is my third attempt at a maple veneer build and my last. It appears that any kit that uses thin veneer will always have at least one or more spots that will not accept stain. A thicker veneer would allow a deeper sanding and a better chance of a consistent stain finish.

    My other major complain is the maple neck. A maple neck is hard enough to stain when it’s made from one piece of wood, but the neck supplied is made from six (6) pieces of maple with different grain in each piece. I suspect that this condition also contributes to this guitars tuning instability. If the neck heel and headstock have to be laminated then mahogany is the best option.

    The good :

    Aside from the top veneer, the rest of the fit and finish were OK. Neck alignment was perfect, but I did have to modify the neck angle to allow me to set the string height. As supplied the string height was too high with the bridge bottomed out. I did upgrade the tuners to Grovers and the P/U’s and tailpiece to better quality items.

    After completion, this guitar was easy to setup and plays and sounds great whether plugged in or not.

    As mentioned in other reviews this kit is not for the impatient or new builder. Time and technique will produce a decent guitar.

    A mahogany neck and a much better top would have gotten five stars.

  10. Jon Ochsendorf (verified owner)

    Yhis is a fo;;ow up to my first post. I have finished the guitar and am reasonably happy with the result. I used Tru-Oil for the finish and the result is quite nice. The oil finish took better on the solid neck then it did on the veneer, even though I cut the tru-oil with mineral spirits and sanded lightly between coats, but the end result is a less than polished finish, but acceptable. I upgraded the pickups and electronics, as the electronics supplied were a bit of a dog’s breakfast and quite cheap. The hardware is budget as well, but given the price point, understandable. My only real beef is with the bridge. The posts are not quite the right distance from each other and getting the bridge mounted was quite the chore. Once mounted, adjusting the bridge is difficult because of the poor fit. I did manage to work around but this is a problem which should be rectified. Once i installed new strings, ( the gauge supplied are too light for my use ) and adjusted bridge height and intonation, refiled the nut slots to lower string height at the first fret, I have a very playable 400-500 dollar guitar. In the future I will probably change the tuners, bridge and nut, but for now I will play it more to see if that would be worth it. I learned a lot building this kit and it gave me a real appreciation for the lithiers who build our instruments.

  11. Shef Robotham (verified owner)

    I have always wanted a ”Jazz Box’ and was excited to try SOLO. I have done a DIY thru BYOGuitars. The ESK75 kit arrived and upon initial inspection the 12th Fret to the Nut/Bridge lengths were different. I spoke to Scott and Dave with my concern. They sent me a prepaid UPS slip and stated SOLO would send out a replacement kit as soon as the tracking number was active. GREAT Service. My replacement kit arrived and the neck dimensions OK,, HOWEVER the neck pocket to deep resulting in neck gluing impossible. I could shine a flashlight under the neck heel and see the light inside the body. The gap ranged from 0.030″ on the exterior to 0.120″ inside the body. I sent some pictures to Scott who suggested I make a shim, a bit more than i expected I had to do. Neck fit to the body will require some wood filler as well.

    While waiting for the replacement kit, I ordered a 335 kit. Initial inspection showed no issues.

    SOLO’s customer service great however their quality control questionable.

    I am still pumped re the 2 kits but disappointed re the 75

    Brad Angove’s videos AWESOME, a great resource. I have watched most. His ‘Unboxing’ vids a big help, a deeper ‘Neck Fit’ episode would be helpful in this case.

    If I can get back here, I will share ‘the Completion Experience” !!

    ’73’

Add a review

Here are some of our most popular upgrades for your DIY kit. When you opt for any of these upgrades, be prepared for potential modifications to ensure a perfect fit.

**Please keep in mind that these are separate purchases and cannot replace the items already included in the kit**

Bridge & Tailpiece
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