I really enjoyed assembling this kit! For starters I put it together as it comes, with only the lightest bit of sanding in a few places to smooth a rough spot or two.It plays surprisingly well and sounds good for the price! Overall I'm impressed! Nice to find a couple of options in left-handed!

Unbelievable quality for the price.

All the parts are included together with instructions. The body needs a lot of sanding, it has not been polished and without preparation is not ready for paint applications. The neck requires surface treatment such as oiling and polishing. The scratch plate had impurities that could not be seen until after the protective plastic had been removed. Strings are worth replacing if you require a good sound. Tuners are not of best quality. In all it's a kit that's usable but not of greatest quality if that is what you are expecting. The manual is a good and assists for beginners and free some online lessons are included. All other non mentioned parts such as the bridge, nut, humbuckers work as expected. Seller could not be contacted for assistance, only Amazon online support was available.

Came well packed, with all pieces in individual boxes. The body is well finished and sealed with a sealer. The neck was better than expected and a quick sight down it revealed NO bad frets. There's was a teeny bit of fret sprout, but nothing that is of any bother, and is easy to get rid of.Came with an assembly manual and a free guitar tutorial offer.These are literally the best kits you can buy at the moment in my experience. I bought a Solo kit about 2 years ago, and it did not compare to this.Remember that with any kit guitar, you are getting 'not best quality hardware's, and as such are considered 'upgrade platforms'.These are the best platform you could get.

Not going to lie, I didn't expect much from this. I like to build guitars and other things, and I just sort of had an idea for a paint scheme, and just wanted to have a project that I could complete somewhat quickly. I figured when I placed the order that I was going to have to do a lot more finishing work than I actually did, which was actually impressive for something in this price point.The hardware is of the usual quality you would see on mid-level guitars, with the sole exception being the bridge pickup (I got the Rhodes V style), but fortunately I had a Seymour Duncan Invader that wasn't living in a guitar at the time, so I decided to go with that.The quality of the wood is reasonably good, the only thing that I could even remotely complain about it is that it was advertised as being mahogany, but this is WAY too light to be mahogany, it has a different color to it as well, and it's tone is substantially brighter than I would've thought mahogany to be. Maybe teak? I like it though, and it works really great with the Invader.It came with some incredibly idiot-proof instructions, even somebody who has never built a guitar could understand how to put this together based on the way that they laid out and presented in the instruction manual, so my hat comes off to the technical writer responsible for that.The only things that I didn't use from the kit were the volume knob and the bridge pickup. My only real legitimate gripe is that the screws that would hold down the truss rod cover were missing from the kit, but that's alright because I usually like having that open anyway. And I did an extensive amount of sanding on the neck to thin the profile a little.Bonus points because they gave me entirely too much shielding tape, so I had a bunch of spare left over to finish off another project!Overall, I would definitely recommend this. If you always wanted to build a guitar, but you really don't know where to start, it is rather difficult to mess this one up. Good quality components, easy to follow instructions, everything you need, right there. You bring the tools, the kit brings the rest.

“Poplar” body strat kit - Neck appears well made straight and of decent wood. Minimal fret work needed, just a little smoothing of sharp ends. The body is very soft and light, seems more similar to pine than poplar. Wood grain is pleasant and would look ok with an oil finish. I’m going to prime and paint. I have applied a wood hardener to firm up the surface in hopes of reducing dents and dings in the future.I regret not spending the extra $10 for the “mahogany” body option. I have ordered a mahogany SG kit that I am quite happy with the quality of wood. If I had the neck I received along with the body in mahogany I think I’d be very happy. All the routing and drilling appears clean and accurate.The hardware and electronics appear low quality but serviceable. I purchased the kit to see how nice of a guitar I could build out of it. From what I can tell so far it’s going to be a nice foundation to work off of.Update - Fretboard is artificial fiber composite. Very dense and uniform. I tried to remove the plastic nut to upgrade to bone and had tear out of the material on the tuner head side of the nut. Whatever is used to glue the nut in is the most tenacious adhesive I have ever experienced. I was unable to separate the torn out fretboard from the plastic nut even when the joint was heated to the point that the nut was soft and deforming. instead of regluing the torn out material I chose to file out the remainder of the fretboard and glue in an ebony block to reshape.

The Floyd Rose has coarse fine tuners which are tough to keep in tune. 10.8 ohm on both N & B with 3.8 for the single coil. Sounds good on all 5 settings when in tune, with a slight buzz. Good strap buttons, and only lost one small screw. 3 extra nut lock allen screws and there was extra, copper shielding tape. The tuners are also not the best. So, change the Floyd to a good one and change the tuners to better ones right from the get-go, and the strings that came with should also be replaced. I think the headstock top should be stained the color of the body, and just an oil or clearcoat finish. The ebony with vine of life is worth the kit cost, however I had two high frets on the low side and one on the high side, and half the fret ends were sharp. Needs a lot more work and a shim on the body side of the neck pocket. It held tune for a few days, too, and sounds great. I used a lot of Tune-It lube and it is holding tune much better, the shim raised it just enough, and the mass block helped. It looks great and plays great after evening out and smoothing the frets. The pickups sound fantastic in all positions. I would have used tung oil on the whole thing, if I did it again. A great value for a great sounding and playing guitar, worth 10 times as much as the kit price. Weeks later and it is still in tune, plays and sounds great. The fine tuners now work well after 2 lubes with Tune-It. The EVH de-tuna I put on does not work at all, and I had to shim for the largest size brass mass block. The medium would have been right. The whammy bar is loose so I have to remove the back cover and tighten it. It is still my main player right now. Very nice tone.

OK, this is a sub $100 kit that includes body, neck, tuning machines, pickups, switches, volume and tone control, strings and an amp cord. that is an amazing price. But...... the tuning machines were really cheap. I replaced those with wilkinsons. The nut on the neck was low quality so replaced that..... But remember this is a sub $100 kit. do not expect $100 tuners and $200 pickups.The body wood was a 3 piece wood body. the wood grain and color did not have a great match. If you are painting this is not an issue. I stained and used clear lacquer so you can see it. Not a big deal.The nut was cheap white plastic. I could not find a tusq that would fit. so I bought a blank and made my own bone nut. Pretty easy and much easier to do before the neck is finished.Speaking of finish. This was my first guitar finish job. If it is yours do you research and take your time.The body was fairly smooth out of the box, I sanded the body to 320 grit, did a pore fill. sanded. Pore filled again, sanded, pore filled again. I wish I would have done a 4th pore fill. I then stainedI then sprayed 3 coats of vinyl sealer, sanded, applied another coat of vinyl sealer and, sanded to 400 grit.I then applied about 12 coats of clear lacquer with sanding every 4 coats. My goal was a mirror-like finish. I got close after sanding to 5000grit and then buffing.The neck was pretty much the same. the frets will get coated with lacquer which needs to be removed. So I took the opportunity to do a fret level, recrowning and polishing which removed most of the lacquer. I took a bit of hand sanding to remove the excess on the sides (tape up your lacquer to protect it).the neck to body angle was off a bit, it would still play good, but i added a 1/2 degree shim to angle the neck back a bit.Wiring is plug and play be aware of the exposed pickup ground wires hitting copper shieilding in the cavities, this will kill the sound.After finishing up the setup, truss rod, intonation, string height it was ready to plug in.the cheap single coils hum a bit, but again, this is a sub $100 kit. Most decent pickups are $100-200 for a set. I plugged it into a Marshall amp and it sounds decent. I do not have a Fender Telecaster to compare the sound, but It had a decent tone, maybe not the tone you want, but it sounded good. I added a 4 way switch to be able to run the pu in series and that added some beef to the sound.I used both min-wax lacquer and lacquer from a local woodworking supply. Heated the lacquer up in hot water and it gave a pretty good finish. I probably could have done a few more coats and more sanding and could have had a close to perfect finish, but hey this is a sub $100 kit. Total cost including sand paper, vinyl sealer, stain, pre filler, lacquer, nut blank, new tuners and the 4 way switch is about $220 .Great learning experience on making and setting up a guitar and fret work.