Leo Jaymz DIY Electric Guitar Kits (TL)

Arrived SUPER fast, and was very much as it was advertised. I really can't believe that they can put a quality guitar kit together for a little more than it would cost me to just buy the wood. Yes, the body is made up of three pieces of miss matched mahogany so a natural finish is out of the question. This guitar body is paint grade ready when it arrives. The neck is great, the frets are in very well. There are no gaps between the bottom of the fret and the neck, and they are well dressed. I did have to file a couple of frets down, so just a minor fret level job. Everything works great, but I will be changing out the pickups for a much higher quality pair. There is nothing wrong with the stock ones but they are a little shrill for my taste. All in all this is a GREAT kit at AMAZING price.

Nice kit, fun to put together. easy to piece together. My only issue is that I had to buy neck shims and shim the neck to get the action to be playable. After a little tinkering I was able to get it. plays nice. The tuning pegs are kinda cheap so you may wanna buy new ones. they stay in tune, but there is issue with the feel quality. nice quality wood. pretty and feels good. I plan to go over it with a super high grit sand paper and a finish oil.

Not bad quality for a kit. Bought it as I was bored out my skull and at a loose end, assembles well, pretty simple. Took it to pieces again and sprayed it dark blue, looks professional.

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 stained I 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.

This was my first kit guitar build and I would say that it's a great kit at a good price but mine did have a couple issues. Again this a great kit and people looking to get a kit will be very pleased with the quality and overall packaging. My first and well biggest issue was that the frets were so out of whack that I had to level, crown and polish them. I know that this is a kit and that is part of the building process but from many reviews and videos across the board everyone said the neck was good to go out of the box. Most people I know that would want to try a kit guitar would have big problems with this step. Now for a positive on the neck the flamed maple fret board is gorgeous, I mean really beautiful. So that's a big + for the kit and I would guess not all the kits are going to have that neck. The second issue is that the neck pickup is not working very good. This could just be a one off in my kit but for sure test the output when you receive your kit. I built the whole thing thinking it was all good then found out in the end that the neck pickup was lacking. (Very low output compared to other neck pickups I've heard and the tone is off} Again this could just be in my kit and your kit will probably have great sounding pickups. Tuners I can't say good or bad as I swapped out with locking tuners from the beginning of the build. Strings are basically set up use only and then replace with quality strings. Pots seem to be good and work as they should. I swapped out the 3 saddle bridge for a 6 saddle as I prefer having more control on intonation. I think for the price and the overall kit it is definitely worth the money, just know that you might need to upgrade a few parts to have a great playing finished build.