Product Description
This guitar kit has everything you need for building your own custom Strat 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, Included in Kit:
- Finished basswood body
- Finished maple neck with rosewood fingerboard
- Press-fit peghead bushings
- String Retainers
- Tuning Machines
- Strings
- Strap Buttons
- Pickguard Assembly
- Tremolo bridge
- Jack plate
- Neck Plate
- Back Plate
- Spring Claw
- Springs
- Ground Wire
- Cord
- Truss rod Allen key
- Bridge saddles Allen key
- All mounting screws are included
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.
brian pinhey (verified owner) –
received the kit in two days. very quick. there were a few issues. i’ll start with the worst. and move to the good…..
1) the fret leveling job was level but it had a major flaw. the only way i can describe it is as a wallow or dip in the frets on the bass side of the neck. had it been on the treble side it would have been much worse for playability. if you drew a line from the outer edge of the second fret, parallel with the other side of the neck, all the way to the upper end of the neck, that would describe the inboard side of this wallow or dip in the frets. this wallow was quite pronounced at the high end of the neck and decreased in depth and width right back to the second fret. i will at some point level the frets myself but when i did a full preliminary set up it didn’t seem to affect playability as it was uniform in height.
2) the neck pocket was routed in such a way that the inboard end was deeper by about 1/32 of an inch giving the neck a forward angle of about 1/4 of a degree. that puts the nut end of the neck about 1/4 of an inch to far “forward” out of line resulting in extremely high action. i used a 1/32 shim for leveling the neck to do a preliminary check out set up. of course the saddles were at their extreme upper range of function at this point in time…
this brings us to number three…
3) the neck…… the neck heel was really thick. but this was a cloud with a silver lining. i had lots of material to work with to sand the heel down to the proper thickness and angle to get a good fit both for level and height above the body. i started out with over 3/8 of an inch between the pick guard and the underside of the rosewood finger board. other than that the neck fit the pocket very well. it would have however been way too thick anyway had the pocket been level. also the end of the rosewood board was not shaped.
no big deal. all easy fixes here. but i would not call this a finished neck.
4) this one i got a chuckle out of during the preliminary set up. it seems when they put the pups in the pick guard they put the bridge pup in the middle position, the middle pup in the neck position and the neck pup in the bridge position. i figured this out by measuring the impedances of the pups. funny thing is i kind of liked the sound of them that way. these pups are definitely cooler than a squier strat and even cooler than an american strat. hotter is not always better. they sound good. i have way more headroom through my tube amps (6v6 and el84’s) than i do with my les pauls. and more headroom than with a strat or p90″s. i like these pups.
5)back to the neck. straight as an arrow. frets very clean. other than the wallow/dip…A1. love the 12″ radius too.
6) the body routing (except the neck pocket) was routed very well. everything fit perfect. the finish was flawless and very nice.
7) hardware is acceptable and pretty good for the price point. as i said, i like the pups. i wont be changing them. tuners and stuff very much like a squier standard. a nice bridge too. i dont know about the bridge and tuning stability cos i always block strat bridges.
i will enjoy this guitar and i intend to order another. i just want a better fret job this time. i am pretty sure the fret job was just a piece of very bad luck that slipped through quality control. as for the rest of it…its a kit. i dont think one can expect fit and finish of a finished guitar at a do it yourself price. after all, there has to be something to do yourself. otherwise go buy a finished guitar.