Description
Building a Solo DIY guitar kit can be a rewarding experience. You’ll not only create a custom guitar but also gain valuable skills throughout the process which can be applied to other guitars. Since all the challenging parts such as drilling, shaping, fret leveling and dressing are already taken care of, you’ll just need some basic tools and finishing supplies to complete it.
Manuals: Assembly / Wiring
Recommended tools: Set Neck Assembly Kit
Finishing Options: Nitro, Stain, Oil, Dyes, etc
Kit includes:
- Unfinished Mahogany body with Flame Maple Veneer top
- Unfinished Mahogany neck with with 2-way truss rod
- Rosewood fingerboard
- Machine heads
- Tune-o-matic bridge
- Stop bar tailpiece
- Bridge & neck pickups
- Pre-wired wiring harness
- Full size potentiometers
- Chrome plated hardware
- Gold top-hat bell knobs
- Jack, back, truss rod & cavity covers
- Pickguard
- Strings
- Strap buttons
- Setup adjustment wrenches
- Guitar cable
- All mounting screws
: Solo LPK-10 DIY Guitar Kit With Flame Maple Top
: LPK-10
Disclaimer: Kits can only be returned in virtually untouched condition and in original packaging
Ian (verified owner) –
Overall a pretty decent kit. This was my first guitar kit build and it went pretty smoothly. The fit of the neck was quite good although the nut is quite high so I will need to fix that. I did need to remove some material from both the selector switch cavity and one of the volume or tone pot cavities in order to allow the nuts to be threaded on as there was not enough thread coming through as shipped. The “flamed” maple was not very pronounced on mine but to be expected from this type of price range and not a concern for me as I was planning on doing a gold top. Shipping was fast once ordered. Overall I was pleased and would order from Solo again if I was to do another kit.
Albert Leaside –
Ordered this guitbox, Quick and effortlessly. Arrived as promised, No issues. Well Made parts,All there. Went together No problems. Nine out ten. Sitting here “Pickin and Grinnin” Thanks.
Richard Kurek (verified owner) –
fun kit to do be careful with the top keep as dry as possible around edges , then your good to go , i used hide glue for the neck sound travels from neck to body well. had dead LP from the real deal , so pleased with the results
Nancy Larkin (verified owner) –
I purchased this kit as a gift for my adult son. He has really enjoyed the process so far.
The kit arrived quickly, as promised, as was in great shape when he opened it.
Very pleased.
jason1998 (verified owner) –
Just got mine delivered today. Was very excited, looked at the body, flame top looks beautiful and fits snug with the neck. Only problem is it only came with 4 tuning keys… After making a comment they happily sent the other 2 a few days later, very happy with the fast service towards fixing the situation.
Ara Pekel –
Hi Jason, Just created a ticket for you and I will assign it to our shipping department.
Should have that out for you soon.
Sorry for the inconvenience, but we are here to resolve any issues that you may be faced with.
mshepherd.canada (verified owner) –
First off, my kit was ordered from Winnipeg & arrived in like, a week! That’s pretty amazing.
The kit upon unpacking was reasonable “as is” considering the price but I’m doing a partial mod before the build because I want it to ring as clear as possible. It’s not my intention to make a fake Gibson as i find that pulls you into the realm of criminal intent & copyright infringement. Every rock god I worshiped as a kid had a Les Paul slung on their hip like a gun fighter. But they were real Gibsons!
The neck: The nut is plastic & mounted badly crying for a bone nut which I ordered from The Netherlands. It was so bad I initially thought the neck was twisted. The fret wire is such low quality that it tarnish’s within weeks of cleaning. Since I am removing frets & nut I am going to replace the muddy looking wedges with MOP inlays as well & leveling the fret board prior to the fret reinstall & finishing. I find this reasonable as every guitar gets most of this treatment at some point in their life, might as well start off on a good foot I figure. I’m also making a veneer with custom inlay for the head stock to match the “engineered” hardwood fret board but that is purely cosmetic. I need to stress the importance of a well made neck/nut/headstock to the tone of the final product, which is a musical instrument after all, not a shovel.
The body: Looks pretty good actually. Some sloppy binding work around the horn which I can fill. Very little tearing around pre-drilled holes which is indicative of too fast a bit speed. Alignment of said holes seems close enough to deal with. Note: some kits don’t have pre-drilled holes for the tailpiece/bridge, this one does. The body is 4 pieces of wood all of different color & grain so there won’t be a clear lacquer finish to show off the grain which would look crappy so even though the flame maple top is not bad the body will get an opaque lacquer finish. The neck fitted the body cavity very nicely. #49 will ROCK OUT & ring clear.
The Hardware: I’ve not installed the hardware yet but I’ll probably use it all initially (except for the strings…boooo!) to evaluate until the inevitable replacement of the tuners/pup’s & prolly the pots. I doubt my level of playing would require a new 3-way switch/bridge or tailpiece.
There are essentially 3 ways to approach a project like this. A purely wood working enthusiast will find this kit to be a nice canvas upon which to work ones magic. A hobby guitarist with a knack for wood working & guitar set up will find this kit to be a huge amount of fun as I am convinced it can be built to play, with some small effort & forethought. Players might be initially surprised at the finished build quality but quickly turn up their nose that it’s a kit & not a custom shop Luthiers product. Ah well, different strokes.
I’m really looking forward to finishing this kit so I can purchase another.
evan.jones699 (verified owner) –
I ordered the LPK10 kit to build as my second project. It came out awesome, and sounds fantastic. It really packs a punch when you plug it in!
As usual, it takes patience to get it stained and clear coated the way I wanted it, but I was able to do a sapphire blue fade that came out gorgeous. I also decided to stain the back, neck and head stock the same dark sapphire blue, and was very pleased with the way the mahogany took the stain, and the way it looks relative to the maple top. There were no glue spots to deal with, which was awesome. I used Varithane brush on gloss for the finish with- probably 6 coats. If you are comfortable with applying this product, it can come out really nice, but again you need the patience to sand it out between coats with 800/1000/ 1500/2000 sandpaper to get the smooth glossy finish you are looking for.
Some other observations on this one:
1. It’s routed for the neck slightly different from the pictures on the solo site, but none of this presented a problem
2. The neck glued in straight without any modifications. Nice production by Solo on this
3. The frets were much better dressed than on the first one. It took minimal sanding with an emery board, only a few minutes to get it right.
4. I decided to wire the whole thing myself rather than use the provided pots and pre-wired harness. The reason for this was that the kit pots provided didn’t perform very well on my first build, and for about $25 I bought CTS 500K long shaft pots, Orange Drop capacitors and the proper 22 ga wire in four colors. With a little youtube research, I was able to do all the soldering from start to finish in about an hour. Definitely recommend this. I plan on retrofitting my first build the same way. Be advised that the control knobs provided are not the right size for the CTS pots, and you will need do enlarge the 4 holes through the top to get them through (slightly stressful), but it all came out fine. Also, you will need to buy control knobs with American sizing for another $10. I bought Vintage Forge Cream Speed Knobs on Amazon and they look awesome. It’s a nice compliment to the cream pickups, and the gold ones that came with the kit just didn’t look right with the chrome hardware in this kit.
5. The only issue I had with the components provided was with the pickup selector switch. Even after removing the spacing nut, the top is still to thick to apply the Rhythm/Treble badge and still have enough thread to get the retaining nut on. I will have to go in from the back and use a Dremel and chisel to remove another 1/8″ of material to allow the switch to seat deep enough to get all the hardware on the visible side. Not a big issue, but you should test fit all the components before you solder everything up, so you don’t have to disconnect any soldered components to make any needed modifications.
All in all, it was another great experience, and even the few small things I encountered I looked at as part of the challenge of making it yours. It’s pretty cool knowing you have a quality instrument that is truly a “one of a kind.” Looking forward to building more of these in the future. Thanks to the Solo team for another quality product!
andrew41moss (verified owner) –
After watching a friend build up his Solo sourced Bass Guitar, which turned out excellent, I thought, heck, I can do that! I purchased this kit and after studying a number of sites specific to wood finishing, and Les Paul guitars, decided to go for it. I confess, the finish looks unique but has gathered a number of compliments already. There are no instructions, and to be frank if you need instructions then you probably shouldn’t be building this. There’s quite a bit of labour involved in putting it all together and doing it carefully so everything fits 100%. I was pleasantly surprised the pickups were wax potted and the controls were pre-wired. There’s plenty of wire so no problem fishing leads through the channels in the body etc. The headstock is not shaped like the Les Paul “moustache”, I suspect to get around any trademark issues. It is however shaped in such a way that with careful use of files and dremel, it can be made to look identical – so I’m told (wink, wink). The only complaint I have is the nut was too high. I suppose if you play bottleneck slide this is a good thing. I studied how to file this down ensuring an angle up towards the string feed but still managed to go a little too far. My friend told me how to mix up super glue and baking soda into a cement to fill the slots and file down again to the right depth. Despite the nut, it plays very well, has nice feel and tone. You know a guitar is good if you don’t want to put it down and such was the case with this kit. I can recommend this kit without hesitation.
kenneth mcconathy (verified owner) –
I am pleased with my purchase. The maple top was beautiful and the neck fit perfectly. No missing components and they all fit nicely in their holes. Took my time finishing the guitar and it turned out great. It receives many positive comments from other people. I’m looking forward to my next solo project.
mariocesar (verified owner) –
Very nice wood finish apart from a couple of glue stain. Neck fit perfectly. I have a bit of issues with tuning but overall sounds great. This was my first build, I learned a lot so probably not the last one.
wiatzkad (verified owner) –
After watching Youtube video reviews I developed some luthier skills working on cheap guitars off the internet. While there were plenty of options for Strats and Teles I couldn’t find a decent Les Paul as low priced. Feeling confident enough in my luthier skills I thought to take it to the next step and settled on this Solo kit after watching another Youtube review about Solo DIY kits. This was my first DIY project and the kit has turned out fantastic! :o)
Pros
– good fit between neck and body
– complete and detailed instructions
– decent hardware
– decent grain in the maple top
– good job on the routing
– decent binding
– getting the intonation and action set up was a smooth process once I addressed the nut issues (see cons, below)
So-so
– frets needed a great deal of work; not an issue for me thanks to the cheap guitars I had learned fret levelling on
– the wiring came with the linear pots and audio pots wired for volume/tone the opposite way the Solo instructions recommend (a big thanks to Solo’s tech Dave for helping me resolve this)
– the neck had a few places which had scratches that I needed to smooth down using a razor blade scraping technique
Cons
– nut slots were very inconsistently cut; needed to lower the D string and G string slots using nut slot files (fortunately I had bought some for working on the cheap guitars)
– the tune-o-matic wire which holds the screws and bridge pieces in place was loose and generated a lot of buzzing; needed to figure out that was where the buzzing was coming from (at first I thought it was fret buzz) after which the solution was to take a flat head and bend the wire down between the bridge adjustement screws (a little at a time between each screw until the tension stops the wire from buzzing anymore)
The nut was almost a deal breaker for me. Fortunately I was able to get the nut slots down to the point where they have a similar height to the other slots. To put it in real terms, fretting the D or G strings at the first fret was almost a full quarter tone sharp instead of a few “cents” like the other strings. Playing any chords involving open strings sounded awful.
Overall the build experience itself is worth the cost. On top of that great experience I now have a Les Paul style guitar like what I have always dreamed of! I think I will some time down the road buy some decent 4 wire humbuckers and get a Jimmy Page style wiring harness so I can explore all the coil split/coil tap/difference phase/etc. with this guitar!
Thank you Solo!
meredith (verified owner) –
Great kit for our first father-son guitar build. all of the components fit together nicely. The instruction could use some more / better illustrations or pictures, ditto for the wiring diagram. The support staff were very responsive and “Johnny on the spot” with answers to my questions. There were a few spots glue spots here and there on the neck and on the side of the body but nothing too obnoxious and nothing that we couldn’t get rid of with a little elbow grease. I found tons of advice on finishing on Youtube, and in the end our finish came out superb, and really put the ‘flame’ in the flame maple. We get lots of compliments and my favorite is the amazed facial expression from friends that say ” You built that guitar?” So much fun I’m looking forward to the next build.
pabalava (verified owner) –
This was probably the best of all the kits. As usual everything came with the kit. You will have to figure out which screws go where, but it’s not that difficult with a little bit of time. I did notice some imperfections but these are things that could be fixed. The biggest flaw though was the whole for the output Jack was probably drilled too fast and you can tell that the wood cracked. You can also see where the glue was put in place to correct the mistake. Well it was only noticeable after I started sanding I was able to mask it with a little bit of die. Ultimately it’s barely visible unless you’re really looking for it. The next fit very snug. The only issue with the necto was at the edge of the body and the neck there was a tiny little Gap where it didn’t fit correctly. I was able to just put some wood filler to make it more seamless. The action was very good about a third of the frets needed to be leveled so I just leveled the whole thing. The guitar plays great, feels great, and looks great. I did upgrade the pickups to something a little bit better. I did purchase the Wilkinson vintage humbuckers from Solo. They have a very nice sound to them. They were very articulate in the high-ends which I appreciate. Overall this was a great kid. I would recommend this one 100%.
steven.baric (verified owner) –
I’m in the process of finishing the final top coats on this guitar. It plays great out of the box, and the kit is just fantastic. Hopefully we’ll get some coverage once the final product is ready to reveal.
I did have one issue, and that was with masking tape actually peeling some of the wood from the surface of the mahogany neck. I didn’t plan on doing a painted neck, but I’m going to have to now. A little wood filler and we’re on our way.
If you’re looking to do any upgrades, I think it’s important to note that the Graph Tech Black Tusq #6114-00 is the one closest to fit. I always try to source the Graph Tech nuts and let people know which one will fit their kit. This nut is slightly wider than the fingerboard so you’ll have to sand the ends a bit. The E spacing is also slightly wider than the original, so bear that in mind when fitting. Finally, the original nut is glued directly to the headstock wood, and tacked to the fingerboard, so be careful you don’t tear out too much when changing.
All in all another great kit, and an easy intro to the world of set neck instruments.
Peter Larkin (verified owner) –
I ordered the kit just after Christmas; took a while to get here, about 3 and half weeks, but given the time of year I was hardly upset. At the best of times, BC has very poor service for deliveries, unless you live in a large city centre.
I am very pleased with the kit upon first look. The neck is a little loose in the pocket, but I have a fix for that, not too concerned. The wood has nice grain and the maple is quite thick which was a nice surprise…. I wasn’t expecting a kit of this quality. I am far more excited to get started after going through the kit, than I was at the time of ordering. My original intent was to relic this and go with a solid colour….. that changed when I saw the maple!
I would recommend this to anyone who has had some experience setting up guitars and is comfortable working with frets, nuts and bridge set ups. Sanding is the biggest part of this project and spending as much time as possible on the surfaces prepping for finishing will pay off, given the look of that maple.
The staff as always have been helpful with the purchase and questions.
**** Be aware of the pricing and how the charges are processed! **** I am ordering from Canada and while the pricing was CND during the order it switched at some point and I was charged in US dollars which added extra charges including exchange. The staff were helpful correcting this.
13amplifiers (verified owner) –
The flame on the maple top on this kit was *fabulous*. After staining and finishing it turned out looking like an instrument hanging in a guitar store … up high … where nobody can easily get at it. I don’t know if this was a one-off but I’m going to try another for sure. I did a few substitutions … locking tuners, pickups and knobs. The instrument plays very well and intonation is very good. I did have to crank the truss rod since there was a visible back bow when I unpacked it. Thank god for dual action truss rods.
This will be a regular at band rehearsals and gigs for sure.
Art Tantasook (verified owner) –
Just finished building my kit and I would say it’s overall a mixed experience. For a $240 kit, there’s only so much that you can expect. I still managed to build a pretty nice guitar though. I don’t think I would recommend it as a first kit build unless you have some woodworking and guitar setup experience.
Pros:
-Body/neck fit is very good. No issues gluing them together.
-Cut and routing is pretty good.
-Nice wood quality
-Nice flame maple veneer
-Neck is pretty straight
-Nice fretwork
-Contain every part that you need.
Cons:
-Some part of the maple veneer bubbled after one coat of stain. When I contacted Solo and asked for a replacement body, they literally sent me a link with the how-to-fix instructions. A little disappointing way to handle a quality issue.
-The neck feels and sound thin.
-The components are VERY basic. I suppose for a $240 kit you can only ask for so much. The saddle and screws on the bridge is really flimsy. You can push the saddle with your finger and it would move. The screws are also loose and I think it causes some rattling that I hear when playing. Some of the tuning machines are too stiff and don’t turn smoothly. I’m definitely going to upgrade the tuning machines, bridge, nut, and pickups.
-The nut isn’t cut consistently. The G string slot is cut a little too high and cause intonation issues. Fretted notes are way too sharp. Open chords sound absolutely horrible.
-Some strings don’t hold tune. Could be a combination of the flimsy bridge, tuners, and the nut.
-The ground wire hole that is supposed to lead to the tailpiece post was not drilled. I had to drill one myself. Not horrible but solo should have made sure that all the routing and holes are done.
bluesfan (verified owner) –
Hi,
This is my 18th kit from Solo. It was a crasy fast delivery, I confirmed my orded on Thursday 10:30 AM and it was at my door on Saturday 9:00AM, WOW.
Again, the packaging was super and all parts were in perfect condition. The body is very well cut with a nice flame veneer. The neck is dead straight, frets are
levelled with prety smooth ends, need only minor sanding and polishing. The neck joint is a perfect fit. Also purchased Solo Pro vintage tuners and control knobs
position indicators. I only kept the tail piece and the jack. I changed all the other electronics and hardware as usual.
Switch: real 3 way toggle.
Pots: volumes are push/push A500K full size with brass bushings and stem for coil split with a 1.1K resistor to ground keeping some signal from the cut coil.
tones are B500K full size with brass bushings and stem.
Pickups: Hot Vintage Zebra 8.9K neck and 9.6K bridge alnico V
Wiring: independent for volume and vintage for the tones.
Caps: .022 ceramic .
Bridge: Nashville style with large posts.
Boby mods: carved the cutaway for a smooth access, did some wear patern.
Neck mods: carved the hell for a smooth access and shaved the neck a bit.
Finish: used Samans water based stain and flat varnish Without grain filler as I like to see and feel the wood grain.
After sanding off the Polyseal I appled red stain on the body and neck ( added 30% water for the body face
to make it more translucent ), black on the headstock face. Then applied 4 coats of varnish
Buffed with Scotch Brite grey pads before and after stain and between each coat of varnish.
I shielded all cavities and covers with copper tape and grounded, it is dead quiet.
Final setup was a breeze, low action, perfect intonation. Just lowered the nut slots a bit and adjusted the
trussrod by a quarter turn.
She sounds great and looks fantastic.
Thanks Solo for these kits and excellent service.
Regards, Michel