Electric Guitar Kit Single Cut : Les Paul Kit

I had previously helped my son to build a flying V kit. I wanted to do one for myself, so I went for the Les Paul.

The kit came with instructions, but they were in German. I had previously made the flying V without instructions, so this wasn't a real problem, but I now know they are on the internet.

The body and neck were much better wood than I was expecting and the finish was very good. I just used some extra fine emery paper to give it a bit of extra smoothness.

Varnishing was the trickiest thing and took the longest time. There is a lot of fiddly masking if you want to retain the colour of the plasting edgings. I wanted a light coloured wood grain finish and I used about 4 coats of lacquer, which was just right for the colour, but not enough for protection. It needed several more layers of clear varnish. It was also difficult to get the masking perfect, so I need to learn how to get that right next time.

Everything worked except for the volume pots, which were poor quality. I replaced them with some better ones, which work really well, so I had to brush up on my soldering skills. Otherwise everything was connected using in line plugs in the cables, but I had the good sense to mark the connectors in the loom so that when I pulled them apart for assembly, I could connect the right ones back together. This is not mentioned in the instructions.

I could not work out which way up the selector switch goes (even with English instructions), so that took a bit of trial and error.

There was no drilling for the ground connection to the bridge, which is shown in the instructions. I did not want to risk drilling, so there is no earth on the bridge. It hasn't caused me too many problems.

Some screws were missing from the kit. I had to improvise.

The sound is good. The action is easy and I am pleased with the result. I want to do another one now.