Ok so I have been looking at some kit guitars on ebay (australia) and wondered if those with any experience in kit builds could advise what I should be looking out for in these kits?

They are pretty cheap around $200-300 so they compare well to buying a fully assembled asian built guitar.

I would be looking to get either a ES335 style, Rickenbacker style or the Les Paul Jnr.

The 335 or Rickenbacker ones would be more pricey and possibly a little more complex.

Les Paul Jnr: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/LP-JR-Gui...item4ab2095d46

Rickenbacker: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/DIY-Elect...item19cbd4b2a2

ES335: http://www.guitarmakersemporium.com/...itar-kits/#335

If you wanna gain some experience in guitar build, go for one of those kits. This is a great start cause it's gonna give you a better idea of what a guitar consists of.
Of course don't expect the too much concerning quality of woods, fingerboard, tuning machines etc...
But definitely since it's really cheap, give it a try.
I don't have experience with kits since I made my guitars by myself but those kits look OK.

You should look closely at the trussrod and how to adjust them carefully and that's it.

also, try to avoid for your first build a set neck guitar. That could end wrong if using bad quality or inappropriate glue.

Give a try to a telecaster :
replace the tuners and buy some Gotoh ones
For pickups look at DiMarzio Chopper T, twang king or other hum cancelling pickups
Buy a fixed bridge for tele.

You could have a very decent guitar and quite versatile.

I didn't mention that you should ask them how the neck is built.
Fretwork won't be an easy part if it's not done yet.
And ask them if you'll have to work on fret levelling. Cause there you're not gonna be happy on this part of the build.

That body for the lp junior kit is just ridiculous. Are those laminates even the same type of wood. Just buy the Epiphone version for way better quality. If you want to buy a build kit get pieces from a reputable company like Warmouth.

Always start from the basics. With guitars I think it's better to start with learning setup and working your way back from there.

If you can wire pickups that's a step. Adjusting intonation is on the various bridge styles is another. Then learning how to adjust neck relief, level and radius fretboards, make and slot a nut correctly, etc, that will put you further down the line. All of this can be done on any cheap guitar.

Then if you're still feeling froggy, you can get a basic alder body + a maple neck for not too much, and learn all about sealing, sanding, painting and buffing. Good stuff.

Finally when that's not good enough, you can deck your shop out with some serious tools and go on a StewMac shopping spree and make your own from scratch. And then start carving your own maple tops and routing out binding channels and picking out purfing and all that good stuff.

Eventually, if you stick to it long enough, you'll wind up making multi-laminate, natural wood, fretless basses, which will have oddball shapes and curly horns. That's where it all leads.

That would be easy to fix. I'm a professional luthier, but most Gibson neck fixes are pretty easy. You would have to remove the tuners and put some wood glue (I prefer Titebond) inside the break. I usually use a small, thin metal ruler to push the glue far down inside the break. After that is done, apply two or three clamps, then using a slight damp (not wet) cloth, wipe off the excess glue that seeps out.

Michael

^^Awesome! I might do this today and I'll take pics and report back.

As requested in the Introduce Yourself thread, here are a couple of pictures of the metal Telecaster that I built. Curly maple top on a mahogany body, trans black lacquer finish, and a maple neck with an ebony fingerboard, two EMG X Series pickups (81X in the bridge and a 60X in the neck)....

Michael

this thread is making me nervous. I'm obsessed now with starting a new guitar build but I really don't have time for this.
I'd love to build a replica of a a Richie Kotzen Telecaster. This is an awesome guitar

anybody here built an all-valve guitar amp ? I might wanna build one. any recommandation ? I saw there are several companies like Ceriatone who provide kits.

I built a Metroamp plexi replica but now that I go on their website, evidently they are not doing kits now. The amp sounds fantastic though.

Michael

Here it is. I bought some Gorilla wood glue and some cheap clamps from Walmart. I'm gonna let it sit for about 24 hours. I hope this works! Now let's see what happens

I have a couple LPs I'm about to do some work on.

One's a beauty of an Epi Wine Red Les Paul Custom, the other is a straight black 25.5" scale Warmoth LP. Looks like the LPS above with a slightly longer neck and trapezoid inlays + ebony board.

I'm short the awesome-looking shop blkmagic (and skill set I'm sure) has for right now but I can make do.

What kinda work you gonna do?

The Epi is getting a TonePros locking bridge, some new hardware. Possibly tuners, not sure. New nut which is an Earvana in this case. It's gutted at the moment, and the bridge posts are kind of loose. Fret level and all of that basic setup stuff.

The other is a clone of a guitar I had stolen, will be assembled from parts. Mahog body maple cap. Neck mahog with ebony fretboard. I have to put posts in and everything. Other than being a bolt-on and a longer scale it's pretty vanilla. Even have the typical JB/Jazz pickups for it. Just waiting for some replacement files and and things from Stewmac to start.

Speaking of, blackmagic:

Any basic tips for fret leveling a compound radius 10"-16" fretboard the right way? I've been kind of winging it by feel and there's really limited information online about it. I'm getting okay results but I think my approach could be fine tuned a lot, it doesn't feel very precise the way I'm doing it. I'm not even sure I'm radiusing the saddles enough.

And fwiw I've been going 18" radius at the saddles. If the radius is 10" at the nut, about 14" at the 12th fret, and 16" at fret #22, then that seems like it should work out about right, but not sure.

I think you will have to wing it. Jackson, Warmoth and others are doing those but I know Jackson/Charvel is using a CNC machine and I assume that Warmoth is as well. I also have a small CNC machine that I use but it can be done by hand if you take your time, use some radius sanding blocks and fine tune. The guy that I learned from could do them with a wood plane but I don't have that kind of touch with one. He is from Croatia and his father built the old style wood barrels with the metal bands around them, and he started assisting him when he was a kid. He was small and would go inside the barrels and use a wood plane, so he has tons of experience. GL!
The finish on my Tele was actually pretty easy to do- the mahogany took a lot of sanding and then quite a bit of vinyl sealer as it is so porous. The transparent black was done with an alcohol based stain so it wouldn't make the grain rise like a water based one. I just used a rag and wiped it on, making sure to do it very quickly and evenly because if you hesitate, it will make it darker in that spot. Then sprayed the whole thing with sealer, wet sand, then multiple coats of lacquer. Wait three weeks for the lacquer to cure, then lots of wet sanding and then buffing.

Michael

That should work..let us know how it turns out. The glue joint is stronger than the wood, so if it breaks again, it will be somewhere else.

Michael

Like the Landgraff LED clipping option or something different? I have built a lot of pedals and sold a lot of them as well. I started out with the kits, then started etching my own boards (which is a messy process), and now I just send them out and have them done by a company.

The most difficult kit that I ever built was the BYOC analog delay but it sounds fantastic. I used an oscilloscope to adjust the trimmers to get the most clear repeats....not as clean as a digital but it has a great analog tone.

Michael

It's got LED clipping and you can swap that out for MOSFET clipping.


What kind of scope do you use? I need to get one imo.

I use a Rigol DS1052-E which is dual channel digital with 50 Mhz bandwidth. There is an easy hack where you reflash the firmware that doubles the bandwidth, which I did, but you don't need that much bandwidth for analog effects. This model and the one above it are the exact same internally, the only difference being the firmware- China, LOL!

Michael

Here are a couple of pictures of another that I built to be a 'sister' to the Tele. Neck through construction of flame maple with an ebony fingerboard and brass inlays that were a major pain to work with.

Nice guitars sir.


I'm reading a book called how to diagnose and fix everything electronic, by Michael Jay Geier, as I'm planning on moving on to general electronics repair and production, and the author recommends getting an analog scope, stating


Thoughts on that?


I've never used a scope at all, and am still very very new to electronics.