The FretWire DIY Electric Guitar Kit - DIY Build Your Own Guitar, Guitar Setup Kit, DIY guitar Kit for Beginners and Professionals (6 String)

A very nice kit. The body appears to be laminated basswood with a solid basswood core block. The construction should be strong enough to handle the extra tension of a 12 string. And still make a guitar that is light weight. The flame maple veneer top is very pretty. I'd use a stain or transparent finish so that the tiger striping stays visible. And the body binding look very well done. The body and neck feel like they have been sanded to about 180 grit. No grain filler or seal coat has been applied. Use of a light colored grain filler is required. There are lots of very tiny holes and voids that need to be filled, particularly where end grains were cut for the binding rabbit. The hardware looks to be typical entry level guitar stuff. Probably made by Grover or someone similar. Nothing special but perfectly acceptable. And it can be upgraded if you want to spend the extra money. The online instructions are a bit sparse. For example: it tells you to glue the neck into the joint pocket, but gives no advise on checking the alignment of the neck first. Something that absolutely needs to be done. I've built about 12 kit guitars, so I know what I'm doing. But the instructions with this kit are inadequate for a true beginning builder. All the parts needed for the wiring are provided, but you need to do the actually soldering yourself. The neck is assembled with the truss rod, rosewood fretboard and the fret wire already installed, The fret wire ends need dressing to get rid of rough edges and several frets were not fully seated. This can be fixed with a rubber mallet, but using a fret press would be a whole lot safer and less likely to damage the neck. The fretboard is ready for some wood conditioner and it's done. Like the body, the neck is pre-sanded to about 180 grit. Mine hardly accepted any grain filler at all. Be sure to tape off the fretboard before finishing the neck. DO NOT apply a finish to the rosewood fretboard. Use a conditioner only. Overall I'm happy with the kit and I expect I'll buy others in the product line. If you need a case to protect your custom made guitar the "Crossrock Cases CRW600SA Hardshell Arch Top Wooden Case", sold by Amazon is reasonably priced and fits well. Though it is a little loose, so some extra padding would be a good idea.

O.K. These are my first impressions of this guitar kit, my first, right out of the box. About me: I own about a dozen guitars, both acoustic and electric, including 6 string and basses. I know a little about construction, as I have been studying, and have been wanting to build my own guitar for some time now. Building from scratch seemed a little optimistic so I elected to go with this kit after studying the Internet for days. I wanted a chance for a great result with my mediocre woodworking skills. Kit arrived quickly and undamaged, good packaging and the components were bagged nicely. First, The Neck......Amazing! Seriously, the rosewood finger board with both abalone and what I am sure is fake mother of pearl is extremely well done. Not perfect but really, really well done! Head stock seems perfect, neck appears to have the right slight bow for stringing and there are no twists etc. in the neck...looks straight as a pin! Frets exhibit some minor flaws but nothing some really basic fretwork will not resolve. I would say that 90% of the sanding on the neck is done. You will be working with fine grit and removing minimal amounts of additional wood to get the neck perfect. The Body: Here again, I cannot believe how well this body was assembled and finished! The wood, top, back and sides, is perfect! No imperfections at all. The maple top exhibits some nice open grain so you may spend some time sanding here if you want a super smooth top. Back and sides, which appear to be basswood as described in the product description, are smoother with no openness to the grain. All sides have some nice attractive grain patterns, which should really show up and "pop" with any nice transparent finish. Binding around the guitar was also excellent, even in the F holes! The Hardware: At first, I was going to change our much of the hardware and upgrade it as I built the guitar. But, as I closely inspected all of the materials I started having second thoughts. I spent way too much time checking out the components and the bottom line is this. While all of it is no doubt Chinese or Korean, the quality seems to be O.K. I was going to change out the tuners for Grovers but decided to try the originals. I was going to upgrade the pick-ups to Humbuckers but here too, after really looking over the stock ones, I changed my mind. And so on and so on...... Now what I will say is that upon inspection I was not impressed with the 3-way bridge switch. It felt horrible throughout the transitions from neck, to both, to bridge pick-up and had a lot of slop in all positions. Might have been O.K. but I chose to order some that appear to be much nicer Korean made units from Amazon at a whopping 2 for less than 7 bucks! So.......there are my first impressions. I am really excited about this kit and it's apparent quality right out of the box. Giving it a 4 star review for now as there are hours and hours of work to be done to find out just how good this kit really is. I will definitely update my review for everyone once I get this baby completed! Stay tuned...................

This kit was well cut and fitted. Makes a beautiful finished product. Book matched maple veneer was surprisingly thick .Headstock was cut in a (traditional) design. All holes cut neatly. Binding glued well. On f-holes, too. Hardware was a little inexpensive, but, hey, it's a kit guitar. You can always buy aftermarket pups or hardware to suit your own needs. Bridge and stop block holes drilled properly off the centerline. Good buy for the money. Great DIY project. . But,....a CAUTION, to all you first time builders.... If you have never built a kit guitar, and do not have luthier tools and have no experience with sanding and finishing veneer and/or curved shaped tops, I would suggest you start with a strat, tele, or LP style build, with flat surfaces and bolt on necks.. That way, when it doesn't turn out the way you expected, of you sand through the finish, or glue the neck in crooked, you won't blame the kit manufacturer. And you won't be disappointed. Some of these kits require some skill,specialized tools, patience, time and knowledge of the design , math, and set up, of the basic playable guitar. But, if you're feelin gutsy, this is a great DIY kit. Youtube has some great how to videos. Just take your time, and have fun.

The top is plywood, not a veneer. The sides look to be a maple veneer over basswood. The back is probably plywood also, but I can't tell without cutting this into scrap. So many issues, deep sanding scratches, crooked truss rod hole, veneer peel, factory veneer sand through in an area that needs more attention. It's a kit to have fun with, but don't expect anything else. To be continued, as I make a silk purse from a sows ear. *Edit after assembly, and play testing Still needs a lot of fret work, not sure the neck will be able to stand up to 13s only 11s on there now. The neck pick up hole needs to be moved/ re cut to properly align the pick up. Ordered a set of "fret wire" p-90s for this build. It actually is a nice sounding guitar, but still needs a bit of work to make truly playable,

Great kit! All parts fit neatly. Had to go online to get some build info and how to solder the wiring. Needs some previous experience with soldering since the electronics are not pre-soldered. Need some woodworking skills to glue in set neck and clamp. Also how to finish the body/neck. I chose a tung oil finish - and used some yellow stain to bring out the nice looking maple top that was a book matched maple veneer. The headstock on the neck is already cut to a traditional shape so no need to cut that. Tuners and all hardware including the 2 humbucking pickups are gold. Overall this looks great and plays nicely after completion and set up. If you have not built a guitar before either from a kit or from scratch this will be a deep learning experience. If you have built a guitar before but not a 12 string this will be some challenge but not too hard. All in all very happy with the kit

First inspection of materials showed frets that are nicely crowned and leveled without polish. Only 1 fret required additional leveling. The fretboard is made of multiple pieces of rosewood glued together with noticeable cracks, glue stains, and gouged sanding marks that do not follow the grain. I am disappointed in the fretboard itself, but the overall neck feels nice. Once the cracks are filled there will be a noticeable glue line that cannot be hidden. I have never seen such a line on any guitar I have ever seen or played, but upon assembly it is not that noticeable. The body of the neck is 3 different pieces glued together with one of the joints at an awkward location that is difficult to hide from the rear. The truss rod works perfectly. The neck itself feels better than the $200 Ibanez 7 string. The tuners are a bit cheap. One tuner did not work properly, but the seller was very accommodating to replace it. Additionally, they provided me with plenty of help on how to dress the fretboard appropriately and took care of me for the cracks in the fretboard. I was extremely pleased with their customer service and willingness to make things right. I will certainly buy from them on my next kit build. The body of the guitar is as pictured. Smooth and only needing a light sand. Good contour and the neck pocket fits snug. The body is the quality I expected from the description and the picture. The pickups and wiring were fairly simple to complete using the diagram on thefretwire.com. They are 2-wire pickups so no coil taps unless you want to tear them open. They also provided solder, but you will need to know how to solder and ground things properly. The covers and cavities are not lined with foil tape so I added that myself. The instructions are not a perfect step by step, but youtube videos are simple to follow and easy to find. The pickups sound fantastic and with a little lubrication the bridge is working perfectly. I am quite satisfied at this point. I would have given 3/5 stars if the seller hadn't made things right. Now 5/5 because they have made significant effort to rectify things. Project is nearly complete as pictured!

So far so good. I'll update when done. No issues so far. Amazingly well crafted. Follow their guidance and test fit all parts before you do anything else. Hollow Body - this is going to be tougher to finish than a solid body due to the bindings, and tougher to install wiring because it is a hollow body. Finish - I started with a water based dye and quickly abandoned it because the wood did not like it, and it was staining the bindings too much (yeah, you try and mask off the top and bottom bindings on this). I went to Watco Danish Oil and it was amazing. Barely colors the bindings and what does cleans up with fine sanding (220 or 320) or scraping with a blade (videos online). I didn't clean up bindings until I was done. Many coats of the two colors were used; 5 I think. I used Red Mahogany and Fruitwood. I then applied 7 coats of Minwax Wipe-on Poly - Clear Satin. At coat 5 the poly really changed the look. Things I learned: the instructions are poor so it takes lots of research if you don 't know anything about wiring a guitar, like me. There are two A pots, and two B pots. The A's are tapered and used for volume. The B's are linear and used for Tone. The volume pots are located closest in the circuit to the pickups. The green squares are where the orange capacitors go. The diagram they give you is poor when it comes to indicating anything, especially grounding, so look up 'Les Paul modern' wiring diagrams or 'Les Paul 50's style'. I could not find one single diagram online that was 100% what I needed so compare multiple. I am posting my marked up diagram. As most online info shows you, people bend the ground lug back to the pot body and solder it, but you cannot bend these back so I soldered a wire to every lug, and a separate wire to the back of every pot, and brought all grounds together to one point. I'd give it 5 stars except glue on the body kept the finish from taking in spots.

I haven't really started the kit in earnest, but I've checked the neck fit and string alignment and all is well there. The nut will need lowering..not a problem. Now to decide on a finish... Related to a previous question, I'm not sure about this as a gift. It would depend on the recipient. Update 1/22/2023 Finished the kit back in July or August. It was a challenging but rewarding process, and the photo shows the visible results. The feel of this instrument is incredible. I couldn’t be happier. The electronics need replacement, I’ve reviewed the pots elsewhere, it’s not a difficult or expensive fix. The Fretwire apparently is not around anymore, but I’ll order a six string cousin for it soon.

the hole required to connect wires from the volume to switch were not drilled. The input jack is the wrong jack. Very disappointed. Hubby put alot of time and money into paint and finish and when he went to put it together he couldn't. Contacting seller

The neck joint fits well. The figured maple veneer is very thin (⅛"), but not a problem. Hand sanding is required for the entire guitar, including the neck. An electric sander would definitely damage it. The frets are very sharp and will need a lot of filing. The hardware is not high quality, but that is to be expected at this price point. It requires some very basic finishing and sanding skills, and some knowledge of wiring a guitar. I'm very happy with the purchase.

My guitar arrived very quickly and in great shape. The build is more challenging than other kits, but mine went together with relatively little trouble. You’ll probably want to upgrade the electronics, but that’s what projects are for! Very satisfied.

Well it was hard to argue with the price ($150 Can). Build quality is decent. Hardware is basic. Neck pocket is tight. Neck is straight. (was my biggest fear) HOWEVER. The top face of the body has a significant dent in it. Definitely happened before being shipped. As the packaging was not damaged at all. So. Instead of staining. I’ll probably have to paint now. Stain and wood filler don’t usually work well together.

Good kit. Neck cut was a bit off but nothing a little creativity couldn’t fix! Sounds pretty good considering, and even stays in tune!