Product Description
This guitar kit has everything you need for building your own custom ST 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.
brian (verified owner) –
update time. I’ve had this strat now for 10 months. five stars now. I will never part with it. I dressed the frets about a month after I got it with a 12″ radius leveling block that I ordered from amazon for 10 bucks. a 20 minute job. the only modification I have done to the guitar is put in a dtdp switch in one of the tone control positions. so now I have all pups including the bridge pup on one tone pot. the dpdt switch allows me to have a neck/middle pup combo in series in position 5 and a bridge/middle pick up combo in series in positions 1 with the mod engaged. with the mod not engaged I have the normal strat set up in position 2 and 4 which is bridge/middle parallel and neck/middle parallel respectively and all the normal strat sounds in positions 1, 3 and 5. the mod engaged gives the guitar a lot more bite which is what you would expect from series humbucking vs parallel. a normal humbucker after all is two single coils in series. its a nice addition to a strats normal hum canceling set up. bite vs quack. does the mod sound like an LP? not quite. the scale length means it will always be a strat. but it drives a preamp tube quite nicely.
bottom line is I can’t believe I got such a sweet little guitar and I don’t mean “for the this price”. its simply a great guitar. the neck is what a strat should have. 12 radius but not too wide. the tuners hold tune. the saddles don’t cut the strings. the pots do as they should the tone being very functional. the jack I replaced. but I wore it out. the guitar has been played to death. and no apparent fret wear which means the fret wire must be ok. the pups have a lovely mellow tone. I am considering putting hotter pups in to get more bite in the series position but i’d being trading that lovely mellow single coil tone away. a hard choice.
just trying to make up my mind which guitar to buy next….
Mark Nester (verified owner) –
Just finish my kit. Must say very impressed with the fit & finish.
Plays & stays in tune really well.
I will definitely be building something else soon.
Great product. Great price.
jim.vanmeggelen (verified owner) –
I am very happy with this purchase.
I am new to guitars, so I’m no expert, but it is obvious—by how well it all fits together—that this product enjoys excellent quality control.
This kit is not for you if you just want to slap it together and play. In my case I took the time to shield the electronics, and also I replaced the output jack with a genuine Fender part, simply because I wanted a more solid-feeling connection (it wasn’t really necessary, but it was worth it). I also ordered a decent instrument cable, since the one that comes in this kit is garbage.
You’ll need to be willing to learn some basic luthier tasks, as you’ll most-likely need to make small adjustments to the truss (tool included), and the bridge (tool included), and maybe you’ll even need to level a fret or two (tools not included). If videos like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHHepmTX3So&list=PLB7631EF18F62E16D) make sense, you’ll probably be in good shape to be able to set up your new guitar.
There’s soldering involved, so you need to have a soldering iron and be comfortable with that.
This is all stuff that you can find out about on YouTube, by the way, so if you have some very basic woodshop and electrical skills (which is how I’d describe myself), this is an enjoyable little project.
I got an excellent product for my money. If you’re looking for a high-end guitar, go and buy a high-end guitar. If you want to try your hand at building, or customizing a guitar, or are looking for an inexpensive way to get your first guitar, this might be for you. It has been a great experience for me.