Progbusters
New member
Kit guitar build: Albatross guitars V style electric guitar
I am finished with my first build. Its a relic’d faded trans cherry reverse burst Flying V-style guitar. It was a fun experience and the guitar looks and sounds great. Some intimate bedroom pics:
specs:
7.5 lb (estimate) Solid mahogany body
mahogany bolt-on neck and rosewood fretboard with pearl-ilke inlays
two volumes, no tone
SH-5 bridge
HB102 neck
tone:
I like it. With my pups its like Van Halen. raunchy, raw, and sings. Not too middy, not too trebly, bassy or any extreme. Clean tones were classic. I did try my Dimarzio Titans in there and they sounded like mosquitoes. Sound clips coming in the next few weeks. Playability is doable and almost as good as my existing guitars.
finish:
I used a mixture of Minwax Express color stain and Stewmac ColorTone red. The back and sides were a solid and the top was my “artwork” stain job that was like a watercolor experience, hahaha.
I finished it with Tried & True Oil. It looked and felt great but did not protect from scratches and dents, so later I topped it off with Minwax Wipe-On Poly Satin after touching up the scratches. This kinda sucked cuz it added a little gloss to the original finish.
review of kit:
I got this for under $150 on eBay from Albatross guitars. They are also on Etsy. Shipping was very fast from California to California. Two days free shipping.
Review:
The kit was complete. It had all the wood and hardware.
The wood was light and smelled good with no deformities and marks, and with parts like the wings they were glued on smoothly and rough sanded. However I did notice glue-like stains here and there that showed through my light staining. Probably could have used a primer kind of thing. A plus for this particular kit was the headstock was already shaped - as I was not ready to cut my own shape as in the other kits from Albatross. I did notice the peg holes were a tad larger than standard sizes. The studs/post routes were sized correctly but I did have make them deeper a tad. A major flaw are the pickup wire routes. They go through the wood in a tunnel instead of a canal — this made pickup installation a major job.
I went over the initial sanding with 250 grit on up. The wood grain rose a lot so use all those techniques.
The neck is nice and thin. I’d say its like a thinner epiphone les paul profile. The rosewood looks raw and not too dense. the frets seem even. I fought the truss for a few days. I had to hack off the glued-on nut to put my own.
The the parts fit. The parts are basically Epiphone metric sized. I did not use most of them in my build though. I did not use the pickups, pots, knobs, tuners, stop tail and tunomatic bridge; and the wiring - I used my own. Here I am not a beginner. I can do all this stuff. I did not use any caps and skipped on the tone pot. I used Emerson CTS pots for the two volumes. The standard les paul switch is too tall for the route so I used their budget switch which works fine.
The pick guard is solid but basic. A thin 3 ply black/white/black. There were a few cuts that were uneven. I had to ream the holes larger for CTS sized knobs. The major flaw was the bridge holes were not aligned exactly and this affected the final setup. I had to ream that sucker wider than usual to let the bridge sit flush. The plastic jack plate is too large and a little uneven. I will replace that soon. The truss rod cover doesn’t match. I left it out.
All in all, it was a fun experience. You get to make something almost to your own specs without doing everything from the beginning. I would do it again and as I get more skills, maybe make a guitar from scratch.
I am finished with my first build. Its a relic’d faded trans cherry reverse burst Flying V-style guitar. It was a fun experience and the guitar looks and sounds great. Some intimate bedroom pics:
specs:
7.5 lb (estimate) Solid mahogany body
mahogany bolt-on neck and rosewood fretboard with pearl-ilke inlays
two volumes, no tone
SH-5 bridge
HB102 neck
tone:
I like it. With my pups its like Van Halen. raunchy, raw, and sings. Not too middy, not too trebly, bassy or any extreme. Clean tones were classic. I did try my Dimarzio Titans in there and they sounded like mosquitoes. Sound clips coming in the next few weeks. Playability is doable and almost as good as my existing guitars.
finish:
I used a mixture of Minwax Express color stain and Stewmac ColorTone red. The back and sides were a solid and the top was my “artwork” stain job that was like a watercolor experience, hahaha.
I finished it with Tried & True Oil. It looked and felt great but did not protect from scratches and dents, so later I topped it off with Minwax Wipe-On Poly Satin after touching up the scratches. This kinda sucked cuz it added a little gloss to the original finish.
review of kit:
I got this for under $150 on eBay from Albatross guitars. They are also on Etsy. Shipping was very fast from California to California. Two days free shipping.
Review:
The kit was complete. It had all the wood and hardware.
The wood was light and smelled good with no deformities and marks, and with parts like the wings they were glued on smoothly and rough sanded. However I did notice glue-like stains here and there that showed through my light staining. Probably could have used a primer kind of thing. A plus for this particular kit was the headstock was already shaped - as I was not ready to cut my own shape as in the other kits from Albatross. I did notice the peg holes were a tad larger than standard sizes. The studs/post routes were sized correctly but I did have make them deeper a tad. A major flaw are the pickup wire routes. They go through the wood in a tunnel instead of a canal — this made pickup installation a major job.
I went over the initial sanding with 250 grit on up. The wood grain rose a lot so use all those techniques.
The neck is nice and thin. I’d say its like a thinner epiphone les paul profile. The rosewood looks raw and not too dense. the frets seem even. I fought the truss for a few days. I had to hack off the glued-on nut to put my own.
The the parts fit. The parts are basically Epiphone metric sized. I did not use most of them in my build though. I did not use the pickups, pots, knobs, tuners, stop tail and tunomatic bridge; and the wiring - I used my own. Here I am not a beginner. I can do all this stuff. I did not use any caps and skipped on the tone pot. I used Emerson CTS pots for the two volumes. The standard les paul switch is too tall for the route so I used their budget switch which works fine.
The pick guard is solid but basic. A thin 3 ply black/white/black. There were a few cuts that were uneven. I had to ream the holes larger for CTS sized knobs. The major flaw was the bridge holes were not aligned exactly and this affected the final setup. I had to ream that sucker wider than usual to let the bridge sit flush. The plastic jack plate is too large and a little uneven. I will replace that soon. The truss rod cover doesn’t match. I left it out.
All in all, it was a fun experience. You get to make something almost to your own specs without doing everything from the beginning. I would do it again and as I get more skills, maybe make a guitar from scratch.
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