Building A Kit Guitar Is A Skillbuilding Experience

I'm going to explain why I believe it's important to learn to build your own electric guitar, and why the best place to start is with a guitar kit.

Kit guitars come with all the parts.  Everything needed for a functional guitar is included in a kit, meaning assembly is required. All you need is to finish the wood with your choice of dye, stain, paint, lacquer, or oil. Then assemble the parts. Some soldering will be required as well.

You learn a lot from building a kit guitar. You learn about wood, metal, simple electronics, wiring, precision, and patience. Yes, building a kit guitar can teach you patience, because there's no hurry, no judge, no jury. Just you and the guitar. 

Kits are the perfect entry into creating your own bodies. Designing is the creative aspect that sets your guitar apart from the others. You use your own perspective and create what you want to hold and play. And to top it off, there's nothing quite like playing your own creation.

After a kit, you may want to move on to to a fully designed and created body. You'll build the body, but you'll source the neck. It will be a bolt on neck in the Telecaster or Stratocaster style. Any guitar style that uses a bolt on neck qualifies. 

You'll design everything about your new guitar, including the following:

1. The shape or "style" you're into. Whether that be Tele, Strat, LP, or flying V. Whatever turns you on.
2. The hardware (bridge, pickups, tuning machines, volume and tone pots, switches, and configuration.
3. The wiring schematic, based on Seymour Duncan illustrated wiring diagrams or any other wiring diagram you'd like to use.
4. The type of neck you'd like to install.
5. Customization of the neck to reflect your tastes.
6. Stringing and string types and how to decide what gauge to use.
7. Finishing techniques, from oil finishes to Solarez to polyester to traditional lacquer and even painting with automotive paints or "rattle can" styles.
8. And more...

What tools do you need to accomplish all of this? For a kit guitar, you need very little. I'll go into detail in a separate course. There are hand tools and power tools. You'll need some basics for a kit build. You'll need more power tools to build your own body. 

This course is comprehensive. It covers the entire world of guitar building, from A to Z, including all of the sources you need to get started, recommendations, tips, techniques, tools, and includes everything I know and have gleaned over the years.