I'm sort of excited about this but at the same time apprehensive because I
like everything to be just right and buying a guitar kit to build makes me a
little bit anxious I want it to look like a million dollars when it's done I
guess I'll find out soon enough though, I bought the kit from the fretwire.com
had some decent reviews and Dan from guns and guitars did a great video on it
I'm thinking that's going to be really useful as a resource as well this is the
first time I've built a guitar from a kit but I do have some experience with
setting up guitars and soldiering so hopefully that's also going to be useful
in this video I'll unbox it and assemble it check it out why are up the pickups
and screw everything together and see how it sounds out of the box I'll also
let you guys know how difficult or easy it was in case you're interested in
doing the same thing and you also have no or very little experience like me I'll
do a second video on finishing color staining the guitar including shaping
the headstock setting the guitar up so look out for that one so let's unbox the
kit see what we have in the box before we move on to assembly and wiring
there's also a lot of soldering so I put a time stamp in
if you want to skip that bit.
it's been a while since I've soldered actually but I've got a good wiring
diagram so let's crack on
so I left the soldering iron on the switch too long and a burnt one of the
contact points it's a PCB switch so it was easy just to put too much heat on there
and lift the contact point on it's no biggie you live and learn
and I was going to replace the switch anyway so...
I was wondering how this wire was going to get to the bridge because in
the wiring diagram it said earth it to the bridge but as it turns out there's a
hole just here where the wire goes through the cavity and then comes up
through the bridge
the bridge is okay should do a job it doesn't it adjusting but we can do that
later
so this is the first part of the build complete, but the nut does need adjusting
so does the intonation the action is too high the fret ends need dressing all
that aside though straight out the box and setup let's see how it sounds
okay so it was a little tricky I have to be honest and it took me around four
hours to get this far the most difficult part was the wiring and soldering came
as a bit of a surprise to me actually after watching so many build videos in
preparation our soldering skills are lacking a little these days and I
actually burnt one of the switch connections as I left the soldering
iron on too long you live and learn and I have some grounding issues I need to fix
probably by shielding and checking my wiring still got a lot of work to do but
it's a quality kit everything went together well there were no issues with
the kit and the finish of the parts I still have to set it up completely and
work the frets as they have sharp fret ends and they're a little scratchy when
you bend so I'll crown and polish those I will replace the switch with a
mechanical one as the one in the kit is a PCB switch and also replace the pots
to cts pots also what color do you think I'm thinking a grey brown or yellow wash
wood stain with tung oil finish I'm not sure I also need to make my neck
smoother perhaps some sanding and some tung oil I'd love to hear your
suggestions for the next video where I finish the guitar and set it up
until then...