Performance anxiety...

stimpsonslostson

With child 2 imminent, my social life and financial freedom are about to take a hit- I need a project! A HOME BUILD! I've seen you guys building and producing pretty awesome stuff from the Gear4Music kits. (I'd MUCH rather do this than mod a Squier for example- I want the natural finish & stripping poly doesn't appeal!)

I'm looking at this:

http://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/Knoxville-Electric-Guitar-DIY-Kit-Ash-Body/WT3

I'm planning a tele (the simplest option) with oiled plain wood finish (again, hopefully the simplest option)- aiming for a natural finish means that I'm planning the Ash rather than Basswood kit- it's only £10 more & hopefully will be a nicer bit of tree. Ideally I'll be going for a Bruce Springsteen- Born To Run vibe.

I have a few queries... 

1. Barring my own mess ups, are the finished guitars generally decent (frets, nut etc)? I'm pretty handy with most things- woodwork/finishing/soldering etc, but levelling frets and cutting nuts :0 are outside my skills. 

2. Is it relatively simple? (Reassure me that I won't balls it up!)

3. Are the routes for neck & pups standardised? So IF I do a decent job and eventually decide to upgrade the pups/ replace the neck with a Warmoth (for example) it'll all fit.

4. Are Gear4Music kits the best option? I'm operating on a fairly tight budget... so a bespoke one is out!

Amazingly "She Who Must Be Obeyed" doesn't HATE the idea- She likes the look of natural telecasters & is reassured by the fact that it'll be "relatively" cheap (I have the tools I THINK I'll need etc) and that I can gradually add bits as needed later- providing a source of potential birthday presents etc for her to buy me.

Andyjr1515

Hi, @stimpsonslostson

I think you'll be very pleased with the kit.  The experience we've all had is that they are perfectly playable with no major modding at all - just need a decent set of strings and a basic set up approach.  The frets will probably be a bit uneven but, to be honest, that will probably simply result in the need for a slightly higher action than optimum.

If you read @WezV's thread from the 2014 Challenge, he starts off building his as is, before then taking it apart again and doing his magic with the mods.  His thread is here. 

I think the routings are standard size so you shouldn't have any difficulty for future upgrades.

Keep us all posted!

Andy

jd0272

Just get it bought. I'm sure if you have ANY difficulty, there's a reasonably timely and responsive online resource you can rely on to 'sort it' for ya...

RedRabbit

Mine needed (and still needs really) quite a bit of fret work due to a low point on the 3rd fret causing a lot of buzzing on the G and D strings as they clatter against the 4th fret when fretted at the 3rd. 

However, I think I'm the only one who had such problems so I think I was a bit unlucky.  I'm still considering buying another kit to do something a bit more adventurous with.