Description
This DIY guitar kit has everything you need for building your own TC Style Electric Guitar. 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 have already been professionally done, as well as fret leveling and dressing.
Recommended tools: Solo Guitar Assembly Kit Bolt-on Neck
*This kit comes with an ST Style shaped headstock. We’ve included a template which you can use to trim the headstock to our TC style specs if you wish to have a more traditional looking headstock design*
Kit includes:
- Alder body
- Unfinished maple neck with maple fingerboard
- Hex threaded peghead bushings with washers
- String Retainer
- Tuning Machines
- Strings
- Strap Buttons
- Pickguard Assembly
- Bridge Assembly
- Neck Plate
- Control Plate Assembly
- Jack plate
- Ground Wire
- Hex wrench for truss-rod adjustment
- Allen Key for saddle height adjustment
- 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.
Réal Arbour (verified owner) –
WOW ! this is asuper kit. this is my first build and it went very well. But it needs a lot of work. I had to file the end of the frets, too sharp. I had to rewire the switch wasn’t working properly, I put a Wilkinson compensated bridge, a must if you want good intonation, and I replaced the nut , way too high with Tusq XL nut. I also installed Wilkinson EZ lock tuners. Finished the body with Saman tung oil, 2 coats & satin varathane on neck. Assembly was a breeze. parts are well cut, fit very well.
The frets were dressed properly. I also did a good set up and VOILA! Sound is great, good pickups and hardware, nice pots.
It is now my favorite guitar.
Highly recommended. Instuctions are not appropriate for that model, It should be updated.
If you take the time and work carefully, you will have a tremendous guitar.
zax.email (verified owner) –
A great kit with a few issues. First the good: body and neck are very well cut, drilled and routed, the body is made up of many pieces but very well matched, neck and body fit well with good neck angle. The body pieces are so well matched I had to look very closely to see that it was made of more than 3 pieces, I was able to do a transparent burst finish with very good results.
Now the bad: fret ends were very sharp, nut was way too tall, but the biggest issue, and the reason I gave 4 instead of 5 stars is that the routing in the control cavity was not deep enough to accept a US spec switch.
Fret and nut issues I expected, but the control cavity issue was a surprise. I was able to deepen the cavity with careful use of a Dremel type bit and sanding discs but the body should have been routed to accommodate US spec components as many builders choose to upgrade electronic components.
Overall a great kit but be aware you may have to make modifications if you plan to use a US spec switch.
Franck Maras (verified owner) –
Surprisingly well playing guitar.
To get there, I had to
– level the frets
– realign the neck (one out of the 4 neck screw holes was a bit off.)
– work the nut (too high, and some slots cut not deep enough
Apart from that, the guitar feels solid and is enjoyable to play.
Overall quality of the material is good and craftsmanship is above average (for the price.)
richard.herbert (verified owner) –
Super fun kit. Finished guitar looks and plays great. Shhh! Don’t tell anyone, but I even got an extra set of string ferrules! Super service from Solo as always!
jeffclarkelive (verified owner) –
So the guitar is 95% complete at this point. After assembling and setting up, I am finding the neck heel to be at least 1/8″ too thick or the pocket was not cut deep enough. After setting the string height on the saddles, the strings are now sitting 1/4″ over the sides of the bridge plate (it looks like its setup for bottleneck slide, but its not!). The plan now is to disassemble and plane 1/8″ off the bottom of the neck heel (maybe more) which is a real big pain. The fret ends were sharp as expected, what I didn’t expect was the frets sitting out of the slots at the ends as well (0.5mm-ish). Luckily rounding the fretends seems to feel ok on the hands. The neck is nice and flat, with the strings on but there is zero neck relief. I can add back bow, but with the strings provided there is barely any relief and it is buzzing on a couple strings (yes I leveled/crowned the frets and cut the nut slots already). Hoping a thicker gauge of string will help this case. The finish process went well, other than a couple scratches in side of the body that seemed to have some filler in them, was able to hide this pretty well with some stain/Tung oil. I am giving 2 stars because I partially blame myself for not fitting everything together BEFORE I started the finish process. I am definitely beyond being able to return at this point! Just a good warning to others to make sure the parts fit before finishing!
bigzig812 (verified owner) –
Body is good, many pieces as stated previously and the neck wood is nice. IF you plan on using US components the body cavities were too small. I was able to carefully route with a Dermal tool. The neck cutout was way too big for the neck (the worse I’ve seen) and had to be shimmed to align. The frets needed leveling and the ends filed. I added a humbucker in the neck position and it works very well.
The guitar is what I expected! This is my fourth guitar kit build and provided no surprises.
Enjoy
lheidenberg (verified owner) –
I had been contemplating building a kit guitar on and off for probably close to 40 years. I’m not a great player and hadn’t touched a guitar in years. Since I recently retired I got back into playing and decided, after a number of pre-sales calls to talk about the project, to bite the bullet and buy this kit.
My inspiration for this build was the butterscotch 1972 Thinline that a friend of mine played back in the mid 1970s. As I’m not a great woodworker I left the pickup cavities as they were and replaced the stock pickups with a Seymour Duncan Little 59/Vintage Stack pair. I wanted the guitar to look like a stock Thinline (other than the Strat-style headstock) but to have some surprises.
I found that there was relatively little sanding needed to get the body and neck smoothed out to my liking. My intention was to do a sunburst finish, so I ordered the Saman cherry and sesame water-based stains. I stained the entire body, back of the neck and headstock with the sesame and gave it a day or so to dry. I then applied the cherry but was dissatisfied with my result, primarily because I had put on too much cherry. I ultimately just stained the entire body cherry and I’m really pleased with the result. The only thing I will mention is that because I didn’t wipe off any of the stain I did wind up with residue from the staining on my hands and elsewhere. That was ultimately rectified when I applied 5 coats of satin polyurethane to the body and 3 to the back of the neck and headstock.
The remainder of the build was quite easy, especially considering it was my first build. The only problem I had was that there was a noticeable gap between the neck and one screw where it joins the body. I had this corrected by the luthier I contracted to do the setup and electronics. Afterward I found that the screws to attach the neck should pass easily through the body, and mine did not. I know this now for my next build.
I replaced the stock bridge with a Solo 6-saddle bridge so that the strings can each be individually intonated and the stock tuning gears with the Solo staggered height locking tuners. I do like the locking tuners, however the B and high E string posts don’t extend very much above the nuts to hold them onto the headstock. This works well to eliminate the need for string trees, however I find it difficult with my poor eyesight to put new strings into those two posts easily. Perhaps that will get better with repetition.
It was my intention to have a local luthier do all the electronics and setup so I contracted with him to replace the electronics, wire the Seymour Duncans, and set up the nut and intonation. The stock switch was replaced with and Oak Grigsby, the pots were replaced with CTS push pull pots and the output jack was replaced with a Switchcraft. The pickups were wired so that they can each be individually split, giving me eight possible combinations.
Over all, I had a great time building this kit and am already contemplating doing another one. My Thinline plays beautifully and I get a lot of compliments on it,
As a final note I can’t compliment the customer service experience that Solo Music Gear provides highly enough. They furnished me with assistance before, during, and after my build. I’d like to particularly thank Padraig for his assistance and for telling me that the Seymour Duncan Hotrails I had been contemplating would require direct mounting of the neck pickup. His advice steered me toward the Little 59 set. I’d also like to thank Dave and Scott, and the rest of the team at Solo. I truly believe that anyone with the desire to do so can successfully build a quality kit guitar if they get it from Solo.