Knoxville Electric Guitar DIY Kit, Ash Body

Full disclosure: I bought this elsewhere, but only because the delivery date worked better. But I thought it worth putting a review on Amazon as many people will buy from here.I bought this primarily because I wanted a better understanding of how an electric guitar is built, without taking a more expensive guitar apart. And I thought it would be fun to build and decorate. This was my first ever guitar build.On the first one I received, when the neck was slotted into place the fretboard was lying around 0.5cm above the pickguard. I wasn't sure if I could remedy that myself, so I arrange a replacement. So it's worth doing a quick check that everything fits together, the parts are all there, and that the finish is as you'd expect before doing more serious work, in case you need to return it.On the 2nd one I received, the fit at the neck was much better, so although there were a couple of screws missing from the pack, no solder and no Allen key, I kept this one.I chose this solid Ash body because I wanted to stain it and leave the grain showing through. The grain pattern was good, and also the neck was nice and straight.Equipment needed:- sandpaper, including some fine grain for finishing- Phillips screwdrivers of various size- Adjustable spanner (or cycle scanners would probably work)- Soldering iron- A fine saw for shaping the headstock - I did this by hand but I reckon electric would have been easier as the wood is very hard- I also found a multimeter very handy for checking that current flowed between each connection ok before powering up.- You'll likely also want to apply oil/varnish/stain/paint to the body, and oil/varnish to the neck and fretboard.The most time consuming element of the build was actually the painting/varnishing, since it needed sanding first, 24-48 hours between each coat, a rub down with steel wool between coats, and it took several coats to get the level of stain I was after.Other elements I found time consuming were (a) cutting and sanding the headstock to something approximating the classic Telecaster shape and (b) the soldering (hadn't done that before). The instruction leaflet is particularly poor on the wiring (having stated that wire colours may vary, it then proceeds to describe each wire by colour - and those colours don't even match the photos in the instructions). So essentially you need to search online for wiring patterns for a similar switching unit and try to figure it out by yourself. Once those were done, the actual screwing together of all the parts probably only took a couple of hours. Some of the pre drilled screwholes were marginally out of line, but I managed to get away with not having to drill new ones.Once strung I could tell straight away that the string height at the nut was far too high (higher than my acoustics) but I was planning to replace the cheap plastic nut with a bone one anyway - that was an easy job.I also replaced the chrome bridge saddles with brass ones - primarily just to add a little colour for the aesthetics, but also I've read they give a slightly warmer tone.It was a lot of work, but I'm very happy with the end result - a very playable Tele that is also quite individual. And I learned a lot about how a guitar all goes together.

Order received very fast. Good kit. I made sure i spent ages on the preparation to ensure a good finish. Also spent some time getting frets level after construction. Very pleased with end result. Lovely crisp sharp twangy telecaster sound. Having heard of other people buying kits and then upgrading pickups, I thought that I would have to do this too. However I can honestly say that is totally unnecessary in the case of this kit. The pickups which came with this guitar are great and give that distinctive telecaster sound.

Body in four pieces , with a very ugly center part , but that's the good thing.Everything is out of angle. See the attached photos.Pickguard, plate hole, bridge, they're all out of angle.If this is drilled with computer cnc, the least they can do is drill in the right place.The picture with the white pickguard, this is Fender Mexican pickguard. same problem.This is a waste of money.. and a bad reputation for Amazon for working with Gear4music.Even if it is cheap, it has to be playable.

The Knoxville Tele type guitar kit arrived well packaged in great shape, the next day, despite my ordering late in the day. Very impressive! I wanted to see if it was possible for a complete novice, first-timer to build a guitar kit on the kitchen table, using only the suppied components, with only the tools I already own. I must say that even if the guitar had been a bit of a disaster, it would have been worth the money for the fun I had in it's construction. Actually it needed a fairly modest sanding before lacquer could be applied. I applied a headstock decal and used Polyurethane on the maple neck, which was straight and true, needing attention to only two slightly raised frets, which I leveled and dress in accordance with some YouTube videos. Not bad! It comes with a "blank" unshaped headstock, so you have the option of cutting it to any shape you like. I went with the standard-ish Fender shape, which I eye balled onto paper and cut to form a stencil, from which I jigsawed a rough oputline and finished with sandpaper. The body was lacquered in Nitrocellulose, which went on nicely enough. The neck slotted into the pocket very snuggly and bolted on true and lined up with the bridge (pre-drilled holes) pretty well. The machine heads went straight into their holes and needed no adjustment, They turn smoothly and hold tune well. The plastic nut was very raised, which would require removal and filing down to the correct height. I broke from my original plan here and made a replacement nut from brass as I had it to hand, but that's by the by and not 100% necessary. The electrics were simple enough to wire and a PDF wiring diagram is available on the Gear4music Website. You will need a soldering iron though. It comes with three inches of solder - just enough! With all the appointments and hardware fitted, setting up is just the same as you would encounter when buying a built guitar online. It set up, intonated nicely and gave me a nice, low action very quickly and without any fuss. I love it. I was very impressed with how well it delivers the classic Tele spank with the supplied pickups. All-in-all, it's a lot better than I would have hoped for and the end result is a very convincing guitar that plays exactly as I like it.John