Just in case nobody has mentioned it yet, they don't drill the bridge holes for you so that you can use your own choice of bridge (different bridges from different hardware manufacturers may have slightly different dimensions, post size, etc). The downside is obviously you have to do it yourself (that is kind of the point of a DIY kit anyway) which means you also have to drill it correctly first time.
I picked this kit up and lucked out with a very nice neck pocket. I guess your mileage will vary with TonTop. Also, not having the holes pre-drilled gives you the option to upgrade the bridge to a standard LP style Tune-o-Matic instead of the import style that comes with the kit. If your going to get new pickups, you might as well split them and get better pots. Lots of tone options.
Jeff Allen yeah, the guy doesn’t wet sand. He “doesn’t believe in it.” What an idiot he is. I’ve noticed his finished come with orange peel. What a surprise!
Evan Stanley yes wet sanding is crucial for a good finish on your instrument or lawnmower, it’s kinda like saying “i don’t believe in planing my wood” sure it works but your project won’t be the best it could be.
I do a lot of my own setups on my guitars and basses. I have always been skittish about adjusting the intonation. You explained it very well. Thank you, Dan
Make it a solid color! Stains are too easy, I want to see what you can do with a solid color. FYI, I've watched ALL of your guitar/bass vids, really well done! I just started a 12 string Telecaster kit build thanks to you (and a few others) giving me the confidence to do so. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Dan to have introduced TomTop to me. Got the mini compressor you reviewed and I love it, as well as several other pedals and cables I got from them.
great video! Do you know if you could build the PRS (aka double cutaway) guitar from the Fretwire? You could have a lot of fun trying new finishes on it!
Dan: by a longshot, your videos about guitar builds are by far the best on RU-vid for three reasons: 1. You give complete sourcing information for the kits and parts. This is such a basic part of doing these videos, the other guitar-building channels out to be fined for failing to do it as well as you do. 2. Your overview of pros and cons is both sufficient and concise. You stay on-topic, but if you rabbit-trail it is relevant and brief. 3. You do not waste alot of time on intro, and you have a nice archive of detailed videos so you don't waste the viewer's time in your review with things better coverd as a stand-alone video. Keep up the good work.
I've found you can cut down on the feedback on cheap non-potted covered pickups by either removing the chrome cover or putting blue poster tack between the pickup and the cover. This is because it's actually the cover vibrating that you are hearing. Obviously you can also just get some wax and pot the pickups too.
Yeah the blu tac is very quick, just make sure it's tight between the cover an the pickup, enough that the cover doesn't ring when you tap it. I've only done it once but it worked well enough with the marshall half stack I was borrowing when the pickup was unbearable if I faced the amp beforehand.
go crazy and make a shredder, but not emg. go completely outside of the box. semour duncan nazgul pickups, give it a floyd rose, and make it something wild like an emerald burst or purple burst.
I want to build a les Paul jr(double cut) kit but I don’t know which one to get, love these kit videos, would love to see a les Paul junior(double cut) one if you’re into them!
I wanna see a rick build with a musicman style pickup configuration. I’ve always thought that’d be kinda dope. I’ve always enjoyed the sound of mm pickups
Too bad about all the repairs and adjustments to just get it together, but surprisingly bright in the bridge pickup. Found the tone on it quite nice. The neck I found a little cold for my taste. Did not seem to have that "big warm" sound most neck humbuckers do, but for the price and everything, what are you gonna do? As for color, I say take a blow torch and char the grain a little and do an ox blood type red stain. Pickups, I am going to second what someone else mentioned earlier and say Guitar Madness humbuckers. You would probably like the 57 Specials. I have the 1984's and they SCREAM! Also, they are cheap. Some are ceramic magnets and others alnico, not sure your preference.
Abraham Watson good thinking those guitar madness pickups suprisingly are not bad! i put a set of there p94s in a customers double fat tele and was thinking why change out a 4 lead humbucker guitar with push pull pots for a cheaper pup and pay for it for a less expensive pup? i was very suprised when i plugged it in gave the 🎸 a whole new vibe sounded 👍
Hey man, I’ve been watching your channel since the first time I saw your videos, and I’m going to guitar building school in a couple years. I love what you’re doing, so keep on keeping on!
Finally, Les Paul style guitar building video has released! It looks and sounds amazing! If I were you I would paint it in blueberry burst or white with gold-plated hardware.
Identical to my kit, right down to the fret buzz on 2 or 3 spots. I have swapped out the pickups but it is still a bright sounding guitar .... just has more output. As for color, you can't go wrong with a deep blood red. Brings out the tiger stripes in the maple.
I built a kit, a "cheap" one. But I was surprised how well it plays at the. The kit I was building came as bolt on. The only problem I got with my build is that they don't include a set of capacitors. I did add them and have good tone and amazing sustain. Better than my store bought strat. Btw, we miss the guns. (RU-vid 😒)
This kit is also available branded Muslady. It's exactly the same including the bad neck joint, potentiometer reversal and loads of glue. I did build it after shimming the neck etc and it sounds great but it took a whole lot of work to make it decent.
The only reason I can think for them not to drill those holes is so it gives you the option to put in some sort of Floating Bridge setup, which would look really nice even though it wouldn't necessarily be how the guitar should come.
Given the level of play available in the neck pocket, anyone who glues the neck in without very careful placement will be very glad that the bridge mounting holes were not pre-drilled...
put some old candles in a jar melt it in a pot of water on the hob and just dunk the pickups and agitate them and that will wax them enough to stop the feedback - done it about 5 times so far and it's yet to fail on me, don't need a big wax bath like seymour duncan or any vacuum equipment to quiet down those pickups and make them usable
@@GunsandGuitars Get the wax to like 150f and let the pickups set for like 10 min. It works even better if you go 20@ Bee's wax, the Bee's wax is a bit harder, the candle wax penetrates better so the combo works well. But just the candle wax should fix the feedback. And I JUST realized how old this it, oh well posting anyway. LOL
I made one of these a few years ago and put a 1950's style trapeze tailpiece and a real gibson tune o matic bridge and it turned out to be a really nice guitar.
Hey Dan, why don't you have a go at wax potting the pickups as a DIY project? Also, the colour should be black paisley wallpaper with a black burst. Great work, keep it up
I did one of these les paul kits when I was 15 and for a first try I'd say it cam out ok. Mainly I made some pretty dumb mistakes like getting the wrong solder and not letting the lacquer cure enough before bringing it back inside. Aside from that these kits are super, super easy to put together as long as you do your research, I can't stress it enough DO THE RESEARCH BEFORE YOU BEGIN!!!! If I can put one together at 15 it shouldn't be a problem for most people to do it.
Enjoy your build, tips and tricks videos. Good information for the builder who doesn’t have a lot of room or tools. Do you know of a PRS style single cut hollowbody kit build?
For the pickups, I'd just wax pot them. Either dip them in melted wax and wait for a half hour, or dip them in melted wax with a vacuum seal for about five minutes (or until the solid wax around the pickups melts away). Then let them sit for about 15 minutes and wipe them down. Saves you more money, as opposed to buying replacements.
you should go for a cherry sunburst with clearcoate sun burst ,like a Les paul should be, you could take the chrome cover off and in stalling blue poster tact between the pick up and the cover. This is actually because of the cover vibrating that you are hearing.
That's a good idea, but for a different scale you need a different neck with differently spaced frets. Unless you thought of this and that's what you're suggesting lol
For fret board wood might be a poplar laminate. Here in England, Gear4Music guitar kits have recently been changing all their kits to this wood so my guess would be there!
Dan I have a similar kit to build. I noticed that the bridge has got a slight angle to it on the LP and the Flying V Kits. Could you explain what the measurement is? Love the show man. You have inspired not only myself but my brother and another friend to all build their own guitars.
So glad I found this channel! Guns, guitars, gear reviews, and really well made "how to" videos! You got notifications on, my friend! Keep up the awsome content and rockin' tunes! You should do a review on the explorer model kit! I wanna get one and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it! And for the Les Paul in the video, you should paint it blue and throw an EMG 85 on the bridge!
this will be interesting! You've come up with great mods. To see you work on a Les Paul-isch kit is going to be interesting. Great work so far. You've been a inspiration for me to start building and modding guitars.
Do a grey burst with like black stripes inside it across the body, paint the back darkish matt red and headstock black. Also emg active pickups for a wicked metal guitar
is there a template to drill the holes/measurements for the bridge and tail piece? what is the correct angle? this would be my first build, just concerned if I should just spend a little extra and go with the pre-drilled holes, but kinda like DIY
You should make a "Jimi Hendrix style " for right handed people , like you take a left handed guitar and put everything for a right handed ( but looks like a left handed guitar )
That sounds like a really cool concept (especially as a right handed player who admire a lot of left handed players like Tony Iommi and Omar-Rodriguez Lopez)
I haven't watched one of your videos in a while...sorry, my bad! It was great to watch you do another kit guitar. The pickups are similar to ones I have on a Les Paul copy, although mine were wax potted. If anyone is interested and on a budget, there are cheap alternatives. I just installed a set of zebra style humbuckers in mine yesterday. I bought them on Amazon. They're sold by Kmise. You can get em for $15...delivered in about 2 days! If you didn't know the price, you would think they cost way more! They sound pretty good and better than my stock ones. There are plenty of reviews on RU-vid on them. Thanks for the cool video...like how you solved the sloppy neck pocket by bolting the neck on...good idea!👍😎🎸🎶
I'm actually considering building an ES 335 kit but I'm going to change a few things starting with the neck, tuners, and the bridge. for the neck I'm replacing it with a Birds eye tele neck, for the tuners well I'm going with some M6 Schaller in line tuners, and finally for the bridge I'm going with a floyd rose 1. I may replace the pickups with something that may sound beefy.
Finally, a les paul :) Can you do a lemon burst colour?:D Do you think that the neck can be fixed with just glue if you use some wood inserts? If yes what type of wood will be good? Only basswood? Cant wait for the next bulid:D
Great vid as always. I’m actually a fan of unpotted pickups. It forces you to work with less gain, but the sound is a little more acoustic? But I do more funk blues, less high gain stuff.
I’m currently building a purple quilted maple top LP for my daughter. Maybe a blue or a green burst on this one. I’d also like to see some GFS pickups in this but Stew Mac makes some great pickups. I put one in my LP Jr and it sounds amazing.
For all you nerds out there, Volume (dB) is a logarithmic scale. We hear changes when things are 10x louder not 10% louder. So you basically hear no change then the pot is designed to switch off all sound pass through (for tuning on stage and what not)
Hey Dan, the Solo Music Gear website has sub-200 kits, and there are stuff other than LP, S, and T style guitars for once. I found a Parker Fly and a Mockingbird kit. Also, I think that you should get a waterslide of your logo for the top of the neck or an inlay. This is a pretty cool kit, wish I could get one myself.
I've built 2 of those kits, both neck pockets were nice and tight. Both sets of pickups were potted, thou I never installed them, I went with Seymour Duncan hot-rodded humbucker set for 1 guitar and the other DiMarzio 155 + 153 I think. I installed 1 of the sets in a ultra cheap strat copy since they were just laying around, sounds good. Not drilled for bridge and tail piece was a non issue for me. Good kit.
It's kinda nice to have the choice to use a different (better) with a cheap kit and no holes beats holes in the wrong place, but not for a first build.
I always love watching these kit videos, but it really disappoints me that these websites are so aggressive toward firearm owners, especially considering you don’t condone any type of violence or unsafe use in your videos. Really sad that they target content makers like that, but even with these restrictions I’m really glad you are still able to make great videos!
Maybe you could try warman pickups for this or a future build. I used their pickups in my bass and they sound amazing! I highly recommend them but I'm not sure about the shipping to the US though....
Do a light blue finish...and howz'about a set of Fishman Fluence p'ups? Actually a sweet looking/sounding plank for the 139 bones. Really cool vid...I'm diggin' your channel!
I've used ready made necks from Warmoth, Stewmac and various Chinese ones and I check & level the frets on all of them. The bridge & tailpiece holes are left undrilled to allow use of any choice of hardware. Pickups can be potted yourself, it's not difficult. 2
They probablyblet you do the bridge and tailpeice holes yourself so you can set the scale length to what you want. That would be a good idea for a guitar business to include especially a custom shop. I want the credit for that
There is a reason for the not drilled tailpiece holes. If youre not able to glue the neck exactly how its supposed to be, youll get problems with the intonation. Have seen that often on set neck guitar kits. Cheers from Germany!
because this kit has that cutout on the neck so that it sits perfectly against the body, there would be no reason for intonation issues, if all necks are cut on the same cnc machines, then they would have consistent scale length when installed.
