Electric Guitar Kit DC Style : On the whole I'm very happy

I bought 2 of these some time back as Christmas presents for my two boys. Then I found out the eldest doesn't like the LP style so had to get him an SG. This meant I had a spare so kept it for myself lol.

I've completed the first one and nearly finished the second. The whole thing could probably be put together in an hour including setup but I've spent a good deal of time on painting, using two different techniques for the finish.

Using water based dyes and Waterbourne clear gloss laquer, on one of the bodies I sanded off the sealer, applied several coats of blue stain direct to the wood and then added a very small amount of stain to the laquer of which I sprayed about six coats. Removing the sealer meant that the wood grain raised up and required flatting between applications. Whilst it is now very smooth to the touch the slightly raised grain is very pleasing, giving it that real wood effect and the darker colour of the grain is a lovely contrast. I finished the back with a black tinted clear gloss which built up to a nice dark contrast to the front but still shows off the wood grain to good effect.

On the second body I left the sealer intact and added more stain into the laquer coats, again in blue for the centre but with a dark red burst effect on the outer edge. The colour choices were my son's and I wasn't sure how it would look but it actually looks pretty cool. This method was much easier as the sealer keeps the grain from raising and gives a glassy smooth finish. This one was painted with the same red on the back as I used for the burst effect to which I added some black to darken it to match the front as the underlying blue made the red a lot darker. This finish completely covers the grain on the back.

The headstocks were finished in blue on mine and red on my son's and a few coats of clear satin laquer on the neck to seal the wood against dirty finger marks and general grime and to aid sliding your hand up and down the neck.

The necks supplied with these kits are a superb quality and have'nt needed any fretwork at all. I have, however, cut the nut string grooves slightly lower as the strings sat too high over the first fret making chords sound a little out of tune when played open.

Now for a few minor grumbles.

The beading on the body of both kits was very poorly finished around the neck pocket, mostly because the wood itself was poorly cut at this point and they required re-glueing onto the body at this point.

The wiring harness was already connected between the pickups and the selector switch and having pair marked them before detaching to feed into the body channels I found that when connected back in the original pairing that only one pickup worked. This meant removing everything to analyse and correct the error during which one of the pickup wires became detached and needed to be re-soldered and shrink sleeve sealed. I'm hoping for better fortune when I help my son with assembly on his tonight.

The majority of the pre-drilled screw holes were just slightly miss-aligned meaning that most of the screws went in on the slant. When fully screwed in this is hardly noticeable but annoying all the same.

On the plus side all the hardware worked perfectly, I may switch the volume pots from linear to audio taper as the sweep control all takes place in the first quarter turn of the knob and is difficult to set a balance when using both pickups together and for some strange reason both volume controls need to be turned up above zero together when soloing the neck or bridge pup. I was pleased with the smooth operating quality of the tuners and the overall tone is very nice all round. Needless to say, the stock strings supplied are not the best quality, I fitted a set of daddario XL's.

Discounting all the labour (which I really enjoy anyway) and material costs (approximately £40 for the pair) the finished guitar is excellent value for money and gives added pleasure when playing having put a piece of yourself into its soul.

Just realised that this review is on the wrong product. It was intended to be a review of the LP style SC kits that I purchased. If an admin proof reader can correct this I would be grateful. I have tried to cut and paste to the appropriate item but this option seems to be disabled in the text editing window. Sorry if I have misled or confused any readers.