Super fun project and you will have a Tele! Sweet!
I redid my first old beater strat. It cost $30, so wouldnāt have lost much messing it up.
One thing I have learned from this and other projects (and a friend who fuels his GAS by building) is to pay attention to the frets.
After market necks and kit necks may be mostly ok, but the frets can make or break the guitar. Get those frets right and your instrument will sing. Ignore them and it may be frustrating to play.
Even a pretty cheap neck can be made awesome with love, care and elbow grease.
Donāt be afraid of the frets. They arenāt that hard to clean up and, if you are willing to work slowly and carefully, you donāt need much in the way of tools.
I have used a straight piece of wood 3cm or so square and 20-25cm long with the corned trimmed flat. Then fine sandpaper can level and crown the frets. A small jewelry file is good for any sharp edges. Tape the fretboard first!
A fret rocker is helpful, but I have used other straight objects of various lengths.
Music Nomad has some less expensive stuff if you feel you need to buy something, but if you are willing to be fastidious, you can do fine without.
@Jamolay thanks for all that information. The only extras I got other than the kit were some shielding paint, and a fret rocker! (After watching a YouTube video) So I am all prepared to start putting it together tomorrow, and yes paying special attention to the frets.
@DavidP I hope Iām not setting myself up by building this project up too much lol. I do plan to have some kind of an update by the end of the weekend.
I put my new guitar together yesterday. It looks like it took the guy on YouTube half an hour or so, but it took me most of the day! I had to watch a few more YouTube videos, and chat with a friend of mine re truss rod adjustments, but overall it went pretty good. Everything is from the kit, no upgrades at all, even the strings are the crappy strings from the kit. I was happy I spent the extra $20 for a solderless kit so I could put it together without a soldering iron (which I donāt have). Iāll have access to a soldering iron when I do the finishing, but this way I could put it together on my own to test it out. I didnāt put all the screws in the pick guard, because it wasnāt necessary just to test it out, and I didnāt put the spring tree retainers on at all, because those holes arenāt pre-marked and I donāt want to realize theyāre not in the perfect spot when I put the guitar together again after itās finished. I also didnāt use the shielding paint yet. I donāt really understand grounding so I have to read some more and watch some more videos to figure that out. Thereās actually not a lot of noise, but there is some, so that paint should presumably help.
Iāll need to wait a bit now before finishing it since Covid cases are pretty high and Iāll be going over to a friendās wood-working shop to work on the finishing. I talked to him about plans today, so that will be underway at some point. Iāll take the guitar apart, finish it, then put it back together again. Then Iāll spend some more time on the set up before I decide if Iād like to upgrade anything (excluding strings, there will definitely be new strings). Iāve already learned a bit about maintenance, as there was a pretty major buzz on the lower frets at first and I did get the truss rod adjusted correctly, while also learning something about the bridge saddle screws and adjusting intonation. I could certainly do more work on the set up, but since Iāll be taking it apart and putting it back together again I decided to wait until then. I did realize just now while playing it that although the fretboard is pretty decent, the frets need some more work as I nicked my finger enough to bleed a bit while sliding up the fretboard.
Thereās a lot more to do yet, the finishing has quite a few steps with potentially multiple days in between, but even at this point Iām very happy with my purchase. Imperfect playing aside, I thought I would put up a short demo to show that it is in fact playable. The strings kept going out of tune, and the 1st string fell off the nut a few times. To be fixed after the finishing ā¦
Great update Mari, thatās what always trick my mind when you watch someone building something in a timelapse that lasta 6min long where in reality itās more like 16 hours
Looks great and interesting itās a non soldering guitar kit didnāt even know there is something like this!
Sounds really good, how much you have left to do then?
Thanks @adi_mrok@stitch@LievenDV . The finishing will take a lot more time than putting the guitar together, but if I can put it together itās not too difficult! There are 5 Build Challenges on solomusicgear.com, and this one is Level 1.
Adrian, I think that it really wouldnāt take much time at all if I knew what I was doing. Re time left to finish it overall, well the finishing will be what takes time. Taking everything apart should take no more than an hour, and putting it back together again after itās finished no more than a couple of hours now that I know what Iām doing (kind of). For the finishing though I need to sand it, prime it, paint it, and seal it, most of that multiple times, over multiple days, so that will be time consuming. That doesnāt include additional research on how to do all of that, but it will easily be a couple of months before weāre comfortable working in close quarters so I should get all that done before.
Re the solderless wiring, the wires go into ends which then go into each other. You can see on these photo the red end cap things, the ones at the bottom are on the wires that came from the 2 PUPs, and they will fit into the red end things on the wires coming out of the cavity that has the volume knobs and PUP selector (I donāt know what those ends are called). They kind of snap in, so Iām not entirely sure that they will come apart easily. My friend figures they will, but worst case scenario if they donāt we should just be able to cut the wires right at the edge and then he can help me solder them together.
Looks great Mari really like to follow this kind of subjects. I needed to sand, prime and paint 3 bedrooms before I moved in so I already feel your pain in doing that but additonally on a wood, you are definitely up for an adventure good luck!
Bravo, Mari, congrats on progress made on the project. Sounds like youāve learned a lot, had fun, and have a playable guitar to show for your efforts.
Looks as if itās gonna be good Mari, welcome to the world of messing with guitars! Now youāve got the feel for what needs doing you may find that you can do some routine maintenance and save yourself some money!
When I started messing I bought junk shop guitars and got them working properly, it made me a bit of cash (for the next one ) and was fun. Being able to build your own gives you the tools needed to make a Custom guitar that is unique, when you get there itās very satisfying! Looking forward to seeing and hearing the finished instrument!
Intrigued about the solderless connections. When I pimped the Affinity and added the Iron Gear pickups, it was more like welding meets a lava lake !!
Plan was to upgrade one of my Washburnās with some wilder HBs or P90s but I bottled it and put things on hold because of the soldering side of things. I looked a kits like Obsidian but still in two minds. Your methods seems easier and I could use the existing Pots and Caps. Are they guitar specific connectors ? Canāt seem to find anything similar.
Looks like great progress and sounding good - looking forward to final finish!
I think they look like a type of crimp connector where you strip the wire back, put it on a āpinā and crimp it down and it slots into the plastic casing with a click. They then connect and clip together. This sort of thing I think: JST RCY Connector - Male/Female Set (2-pin) - PRT-10501 - SparkFun Electronics
@Jozsef@adi_mrok@DavidP@SgtColon@DarrellW@TheMadman_tobyjenner@grayal Iām really enjoying this project, although I donāt know when Iāll get to the finishing work. Hopefully Covid restrictions wonāt delay it too long before I can do the work in my friendās shop . I do have a plan for the finishing but Iām not going to share it just yet as I donāt know if thatās what Iāll end up doing. I do have a picture in my mind though.
Al, thanks for sharing that connector info for Toby, I googled it yesterday when I insert the picture but I couldnāt find a name for them. The link you provided seems to me exactly what they are.
Darrell, yes I am already brave enough to try a few minor maintenance things on my other guitars, when before this all I would do is change strings
good luck!
) and was fun. Being able to build your own gives you the tools needed to make a Custom guitar that is unique, when you get there itās very satisfying! Looking forward to seeing and hearing the finished instrument! 
