Tips when building a kit guitar?

['59]

Good evening lads, for Christmas I bought my girlfriend a decently nice Jazz Bass guitar kit for us to put together (I know, technically this should be in the bass forum, but I know there's a lot of knowledgeable people in the Guitar Shop that don't venture to other areas). I think I've got enough knowledge of wood working and guitars to set it up to play nice, plus she's really good at art type things. But I was wondering what are some key pointers to keep in mind when I'm putting one of these together, because they don't always come out the box perfect?

[solspirit]

Hmm. . . I think you should have asked before you bought the kit.
who you bought the kit from matters tremendously.

['59]

It was one of these:

https://www.byoguitar.com/Guitars/El...BYO-JBass.aspx

I've heard good reviews of these, so I decided to go for it. It's already arrived and the components look pretty solid. I've got some j bass pickups laying around that are going in over what came with it, but I like what I'm seeing so far.

Also, I've got a pretty great fretless warmoth neck lined up for it.

[Mr. B]

Just sticking the parts together is one thing, but in my experience the reason a lot of these don't turn out great is because people don't know how to set up even a pre-made guitar correctly. Do the strings align correctly with the neck? Will the action be correct with the bridge saddle's normal adjustment range, or will the neck need a shim? Are the frets crowned and polished? Are they level? Are the fret ends finished? Is the nut cut correctly? Are the nut slots too shallow? You can end up needing several fairly expensive tools just to get it set up correctly even after putting it together.

[AlexR]

I hope for your sake this one is ok. I bought 2 kits from BYO many years back, and they drove me to build for myself due to me being convinced I could do a way better job......turns out I was right!!

Their Les Paul glue in kit had such a poorly made neck joint that to make it sit flush without a gap I had to sand back 2mm of the 'cheek' faces of the joint. This then meant I had to re-rout the neck pickup area as it was no longer large enough to fit a pickup. When I had pointed this out to their 'QC' team their response was 'oh, looks like it needs a little finish sanding to get right'.


The Jaguar kit they sent me fitted no Fender Jaguar parts into the control cavity routs - they were all wrongly located with regard to lining up with the pickguard were or too small once the electronic parts were mounted.
The neck was a 22F one but made without a fretboard overhand - so it just has the typical curved neck shaft end you find on a 21 fret model build at the end beyond the 22nd fret plus a wide space. So no pickguard would fit as they are shaped for an overhang for the 22nd fret - or a 21 fret typical shape shaft.

[ICTGoober]

A client brought one of their Strat kits to build. It was so badly made I threw it on the ground and stomped on it. He didn't stop me.

[formula73]

A client brought one of their Strat kits to build. It was so badly made I threw it on the ground and stomped on it. He didn't stop me.

So professional.

[ICTGoober]

So professional.

Well - in 45 years I do admit to reaching a breaking point every few years. The client made a face when I did, but later told me he gave the body & neck to a local artist who used them in a piece that ended up screwed to a piano mounted on top of a tall tree stump and painted purple with yellow stripes. The local HOA made him take it down. Don't know what happened to it after that.

[NegativeEase]

My advice is to research each task and move slowly on areas you are less comfortable on -everything you need to know and do is demonstrated 100x on places like YouTube -not all will be useful but many are great.

[NegativeEase]

A client brought one of their Strat kits to build. It was so badly made I threw it on the ground and stomped on it. He didn't stop me.

. Haha.

[GuitarDoc]

Only two words of advice (well, more than two words, but only two points of advice)...

1. Make sure the neck is PERFECTLY lined up
2. Don't skimp on sanding. Sand the wood to at least 320 grit before sealing. Then 400 grit after sealing before finishing.

[GuitarDoc]

Just sticking the parts together is one thing, but in my experience the reason a lot of these don't turn out great is because people don't know how to set up even a pre-made guitar correctly. Do the strings align correctly with the neck? Will the action be correct with the bridge saddle's normal adjustment range, or will the neck need a shim? Are the frets crowned and polished? Are they level? Are the fret ends finished? Is the nut cut correctly? Are the nut slots too shallow? You can end up needing several fairly expensive tools just to get it set up correctly even after putting it together.

He's going to use a fretless neck.

[Napthol]

I never knew they had such a thing as a kit guitar. Hope it all works out for you.

[Chistopher]

I've heard mixed reviews from BYOGuitars on the one hand, they've sold a lot of products with few negative reviews, on the other hand all the negative reviews I see are pretty bad.

[ErikH]

Have lots of patience and don't expect to have it done in a weekend. Especially if it needs some work to be done right.
With my last Warmoth build, that was a different story. Much better quality than a BYOC. Everything went together perfectly. That's the big difference between something like BYOC and going with someplace like Warmoth. Fit and finish.