Unfinished Strat Electric Guitar Kit - You Build The Guitar, Basswood Body With Sanding Sealer, Includes All Parts And Instructions To Build A Complete Playable Guitar - Pyle PGEKT18

I'll start off by saying that I have purchased several kit guitars and have made a few guitars from scratch. I'm by no means a luthier but know enough. I fully expect on a kit guitar like this that I am going to have to replace certain things. I was expecting to have to put in a Graphtec nut, new pickups, trem block, etc. At first I was thrilled with the guitar. The neck pocket fit really right and the mock up went really well. All of the issues that I ran into came after I had already put a finish on the guitar and was doing a setup on it. So below I'll put the:ISSUESMODIFICATIONSIssues -1. I could not for the life of me intonate the guitar. After messing around with intonation for awhile I decided to pull out the digital caliper. The first thing that I noticed was that the spacing between the nut and the first fret was off. Not by a little, but off by almost 1/4 inch. This was problem number one with intonating. So I had to cut the nut slot back a bit and had to ebony stain a piece of walnut to use as a shim to place the nut back. The intonation was obviously a lot better but still off.2. So I measured the fret spacing down the entire neck and found that over half of the frets had incorrect spacing. This really confused me as a cheap kit like this was surely cut out on a CNC and that should be an easy thing to program to have repeatable results.3. I was expecting the pickups to not be great but these things are quite shameful. All three pickups measured around 2,000 ohms which is an extremely low output.4. Along with a very low output, all five positions sounded like absolute ice picks. It was hard to even listen to just for intonating, let alone trying to actually play the guitar. Again, I'm confused because you can go on amazon and purchase the absolute cheapest pickups on the market and they will vastly out perform these.5. The volume pot would cut out between volume 2-9 so you could only play it on max volume or almost muted.6. I've had cheap pot metal trem blocks before and they did not give me sustain issues like this did. I didn't weight the trem block but it weighs about as much as a pen. No lie...a pen.7. Three of the saddles had stripped screws in them. Now this can easily happen if you try to adjust them while their is string tension but that was not the case here. I always detune the guitar to adjust these as I've made that mistake in the past. Still stripped.8. Something is wrong with the Truss Rod. I could not get the neck straight to do a fret level and crown. I had to end up getting really creative and using an assortment of clamps and vices to get the neck straight so I could do fret work.9. Even after getting the neck straight and doing a fret level, there are a few frets that have such a height discrepency that a few of the frets had to be sanded down almost to the point of needing to be pulled and replaced. So I'm sure either a new neck or a refret will need to be done within the next year.10. Still had to have the action high to avoid buzzing. Ended up having to shim the neck.11. Input Jack was bad and would cut out.Modifications:1. Nut Slot recut and shimmed. Replaced nut with Graphtech nut2. Fret Level, crown and Polish. I actually had to taper a few of the frets to adjust for the fret spacing being incorrect. Kind of like how you have to intonate an acoustic guitar.3. Bought a loaded pickguard off guitar fetish to replace the pots, switches and pickups.4. Put conductive paint on the entire interior of the guitar for shielding5. Replaced the trem block with a Nice solid block from guitar fetish. Purchased the "shorty" block but still had to grind off about 1/4 inches from the block so it would fit. The body is extremely thin.6. Replaced the cheap saddles with Stainless Steel ones7. Shimmed the neck8. Replaced the guitar Jack9. Used longer, stronger screws for the strap buttonsFINAL CONCLUSION: I would not recommend this to anyone unless they knew how to do all of the above to the guitar. Essentially the only thing you are buying with this kit is the guitar body. You'll probably have to replace everything else including the neck.

Poor instructions, but you can figure it out and tec support was awesome helping. Definitely would by one again.

Very nice set! I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of everything, very few "cheap" compromises!The body is niiiiiiiice. Mine has four laminates (the fourth is a small section), but the most presentable side is out front, you can barely tell it's not a solid piece. The curves are very pleasing and feel great. There was a small defect in that the pocket for the output jack needed to be relieved just a little with a knife since the plug was rubbing when it was inserted.The neck feels great, quite playable as-is. The fretboard is....... I dunno. The color is nowhere close to how it's pictured! It's like a burnt reddish hue. I think it will take well to stain though, which is likely the reason it looks this way. The tuners that come with it have no backlash at all, and just a slight wiggle. The major problem I have with my neck is that after a little truss adjustment the neck starts back-bowing! I don't know why it would do this, perhaps I just got a bad neck. I ended up pulling the frets out anyway and I'm gonna flatten the fretboard so it's not a problem for me. Another big problem was that the holes were drilled crooked. It looks like the neck was hand-drilled using the body holes instead of using a drill press or a jig in a machine. It fits, but the screws look a little wonky.Bridge, the bottom piece that accepts the string loop-ends is a high quality foam cast piece with deep holes. Good job! However mine was loosely rattling so I had to take the saddles off and tighten it up a little more. The saddle heighth adjustment screws have nice flattened and radiused ends so it doesn't scrape the finish on the bridge. Also a good job!The strings. They are playable, but they are not that durable. Especially as you have to tighten and untighten a bunch of times as you are setting the intonation. Grab some D'Addarios or whatever strings you fancy, but definitely invest in a set!Electronics, also a good job! I saw a couple cold joints but since you need a soldering iron anyway it's no big deal to touch them up. The knobs don't crackle when you turn them, and the selector has a good feel to its detents. The pickups sound decent too, despite how they are adjusted from the factory.The backplate holes for mine don't line up with the bridge, they are offset somewhat. I'm gonna just cut a rectangular slot and do some more decorative work. The plastic it's made out of is rigid and has a good feel to it. It's cheap plastic, but it doesn't feel cheap.Overall, this will make a good starter guitar if you want to save a few dollars or just want to build something. The stuff that comes with the kit is all of good quality, but of course you'll want to upgrade most if not all of the components anyway.

The good: good value, all the parts get the job done. Tuners sometimes grind whenever they're turned, but they hold a tune just fine.The bad: fretboards have some cosmetic issues by being pretty cracked and messy. The frets are also pretty sharp at the edge of the fretboard, so you'll need to take the time to sand those down. Another small issue is that they have the volume and tone pots backwards; usually pots with a linear output go to the tone pots and usually pots with an analog output go to the volume pot. It's not a deal breaker, but it's nice having an analog pot for the volume knob so that you can produce a smoother swell effect whenever you need to fade in or out of a song.

It’s a nice kit that should make for a fun project. It’s so cheap for what you get. Mine looks quite nice out of the box. The neck looks straight and the frets look well done although I can tell they’re going to need a little sanding to smooth out some rough edges. The delivery was super fast like most Amazon orders I receive. I haven’t assembled the guitar yet but I will update this review. I’m quite satisfied with everything I see so far having ordered and assembled high end guitars and electronics in the past from warmoth and Seymour Duncan.

I actually bought this because I needed a cheap body for another project which went wrong. £45 for a whole kit was cheaper than all the bodies I was looking at. However, this kit is brilliantly good value in its own right. I've made a few guitars over the years with varying degrees of success, and the most important bits to start with are the neck and body. Everything else you can upgrade when time and cost allow. The neck and body of this kit are extremely well made, nicely finished, ready to seal/paint/lacquer. The fit is very tight (in a good way) and no nasty fret wire snags or glue filled dings or gaps. All well sanded and shaped. Even if everything else is not to the same standard, the price is a bargain just for the wooden bits. It comes with a pre wired scratch plate, which has been neatly done if not to any great quality standard. I'll definitely try it, probably with some mods for fun. The metal bits look perfectly acceptable, but as I say, upgrade them when you can. All in all, this is an ABSOLUTE bargain.

Nice little kit after some hunting down and buying a few duff kits this kit has the edge over other rival kits.

I liked the kit, period. Very easy to assemble although some pre drilled holes in the pick guard were a hair off and no holes pre drilled in the head stock for the string trees. Easy to figure out where they need go, tho. Fender has great resources on this in the strat forums. "Phoenix" has kept tune with Fender Standard Strings. Use the supplied strings as a guide for the string trees, during final steps. I did, then tossed 'em. In go Fender strings( in pic). My first "strat". I did find the action high out of the box...it's a strat...easy fix. Pickups low/high? It's a strat...gotta #2 phillips screwdriver? Overall...a great guitar build. My first.Cons: pre drilled holes in my head stock for two pegs...off enough to be noticeable. All other off drills were easy to deal with.Pros: Fun, customized build. I enjoyed it and it's incredibly easy.

The build went not bad until I went to string it. The neck did not have adequate forward tilt which cause the strings to touch the frets resulting in a moment of panic. After reading on the internet I found that this is a common problem with Strats ( in fact some Strats come with and adjustment for this. I used a small shim under the 2 back neck screws to tilt the neck forward (thickness of two playing cards). I replaced the bridge height adjusters as the ones that come are. crap and the adjusting screws strip easlly. Tuners are not too bad. Truss rod adjustment was successful and after some patience I got this guitar set up very well. The frets require lots of work as they are rough and sharp edged. If you are expecting to just bolt this guitar together then think again. You need some experience with guitars to get this one working. Electronics all work so that was a bonus. Overall a 3 rating is generous especially if you are not experienced. You would end up taking it to a luthier otherwise and spending at least $100. I think the build is of higher quality that a Fender Squire though.

ora che ho finito il montaggio posso esprimere la mia opinione, prodotto deludente, nella confezione non c'erano le istruzioni, l'elettronica è di scarsissima qualità,ance I pomelli delle regolazioni sono plasticaccia. Ho dovuto inserire uno spessore nell'alloggiamento del manico perchè rimaneva curvato (nonostante la regolazione ).