guitar kits?

[evin]

anyone ever bought a guitar kit where you get the body and neck and build/finish it yourself? thinking about one from precision guitar kits.

[rkk87]

I've done it with parts from a German manufacturer called Rockinger. Pretty nice to do, hardest thing was to drill the holes for the bridge and stringholes (I wanted a hardtail strat) but those from precision guitars seem to come pre-drilled. They look really, really nice.

The other though thing is finishing. I used lacquer (rattle canned nitrocellulose) for the body. First time I sprayed too little on it, so I went through the finish when polishing. I have sprayed it again, yet have to polish it. Make sure you have a nice place to spray, it's a dirty job. I used Danish oil for finishing the neck, much, much easier and feels pretty nice.

People from the US seem to mention ReRanch a lot as a great source of information on finishing. Also I see a lot of Americans using tru-oil (the same stuff used for guns I believe) for finishing body and/or neck.

Soldering the electronics/pickups etc was pretty easy though I had never done that before.

For me a great resource was the TDPRI-forum (check out 'finely finished' and 'home depot' subfora) since all tele-players are old, nice guys especially check out posts by Ron Kirn and Rob DiStefano, they know a whole lot about setting up guitars etc.

[FreeRider]

ever tried to make your own pick ups? I remember reading that Eddie Van Halen would do that and hand wind (I think) his own ( ! ) and dip them in wax or something too cut back on feedback stuff.