customer build Archives - Precision Guitar Kits

Posted on June 4, 2018 by phil

Steve O’s Oh So Awesome

Phil,

Really enjoying this guitar. Thanks for the making such a high quality kit available. The ‘hog is beautiful and the figuring on the pau ferro is off the hook. I radiused the board to 20″ and put in jumbo Evo frets, and went with the gold theme on the rest of the hardware. Pup is a Fralin noiseless 5% overwound. Only trouble has been getting the bridge far enough back for intonation – had to turn the saddles around and take the adjusting screws to the limit, but is intonated. Possibly because I use fairly heavy strings (11-49)?

Playability is top notch, even though the neck has almost no relief (I sanded out the built-in relief when radiusing the board!). Low action, no buzzes, can bend notes to the moon.

Finish is black grain filler, Cabot fruitwood stain, and wipe on poly. I did have to go back and add a “rib cut”, because the curve of the upper bout dug into my rib cage so bad I could only play it for 5-10 min. Would have been much easier to do this at the start, but now it is comfortable. The other thing I forgot about is adding a thin wire when pushing in the RH bridge insert, for grounding. Just didn’t occur to me until later, so it might be worth mentioning on the web site. I did get it well grounded with conductive paint & copper foil, though.

Regards, Steve O

Posted on April 15, 2013April 10, 2013 by phil

Greg’s Burst of Sun…

Phil, I was extremely pleased with the ’59 Bound & Flamed kit I received. The neck/body joint was perfect, and gluing it in place was the easiest part of the process. As you can see I opted for a classic cherry sunburst look. I am also extremely pleased with the playability, every now and then a guitar can seem to almost play itself very easily, that’s the feeling I get with this guitar. Thanks for a great product, thinking about my next project.

and a bit more..

Hardware is all nickel plated, Faber bridge, Gotoh aluminum tailpiece, tuners are Kluson copies, pu’s are Stewmac’s Parsons Street (which seem fine, but I had in mind to try some other boutiquish humbucker types eventually).

I really like the plastic I got from Philadelphia Luthier Supply – more of a bonewhite than pinkish cream, I think it looks perfect on the red and contrasts a bit with the more yellowish binding.

The burst top I did with Reranch powder stains hand-applied, 3 colors; started with amber over all, sanded that back to leave an amber overtone in the grain recesses, then applied cherry on the edge, then yellow in the middle – with a lot of spot sanding, touching up and blending the stain here and there with Q-tips.

I grain-filled the mahogany with marine epoxy, the color for neck and back was Reranch cherry spray. 12 coats of nitro clear over all of it (fingerboard taped of course), wetsanded and polished. I’ve done numerous solid color and translucent Fender style bodies before so I already had the basic process in mind, this was my first sunburst.

BTW, my “paint station” consisted of a bungee cord on a tree limb from which I hung the body for spraying, I’ll send you a pic of that later.

Also, gotta say I admire your business model; if somebody can’t glue that neck and body together – they shouldn’t be trying this. Shipping body and neck unassembled must lower the shipping damage risk (versus a full length guitar), make shipping cheaper, and lessen the likelihood of theft, plus it lets the owner say “I built it”, awesome!

Posted on September 20, 2012September 29, 2012 by phil

Dad Makes Kid Guitar and Kid Makes the Show…

Now this is so very cool. Bryan built one of our kits for his 9 year old. Check the kid out on stage…

“About 18 months ago I purchased one of your LP Jr. double cut/double rout kits and went through my first build and finish job on a guitar. It turned out much better than I expected from the work I did but, as you say, the bones lay the foundation for a good guitar and you guys did 90% of the hard work for me!

The guitar is my son’s as I’m not the musician but enjoy the heck out of the process. He goes to the “School of Rock” here in Minnesota. Twice a year they hold a fundraiser concert to raise scholarship money for students (kids) who want to rock but can’t afford the tuition to attend. At these fundraisers they hold an auction or a raffle for items of interest to the parents/students. I’ve joined forces with a father who acquires lower end guitars, strips them down, and hands off the body to an artist or an auto body shop to get a cool paint job.”

Posted on June 11, 2012September 29, 2012 by phil — Leave a comment

Hampton Guitars—Killer Lookin’ Black Limba

Check this baby out!!!

“This guitar has a beautifully figured black limba solid body and neck cut for me by Precision Guitar Kits, both stained amber. They do beautiful work, and their necks are just super! The neck has a rosewood fretboard, and features the distinctive Hampton headstock. A Graph Tech Resomax Wrap bridge with string saver saddles and a Graph Tech Black Tusq nut give great sustain and tone. Tuners are Grover Super Rotomatics, with the art deco buttons that seem to be made for this guitar.

Pickups are GFS Dream90s—fat, hot, single coils. These are significantly hotter than a standard P90, and have a little more balance in the tonal range, but still have that trademark P90 high-mid bite. The neck pickup is big and bluesy, and the bridge pickup is sharp, sweet, and full of nice overtones when no treble is cut, but the treble bleed can be rolled up to get a Fender-type sound. They are mounted with black metal mounting rings…they have a much better look than the plastic ones that come with pickups.

The volume control also has a push-pull switch that, when pulled up, runs the two pickups in series like a big humbucker. I also use a blend control instead of a pickup selector switch to give access to the full range of tones that can be found ‘in between’ those three positions. Bourns pots, Vishay-Sprague orange drop cap for the treble bleed, Switchcraft output jack, unique hand-crafted pickguard, and black metal knurled knobs on the controls complete the complement of electronics and hardware used on this latest Hampton Bel-Air Custom solid-body electric guitar.”

Posted on March 15, 2012September 29, 2012 by phil — 5 Comments

Tony’s Cherry SG Jr.

“Hey Phil,

Here are some photos of my recent build, your SG Jr. I am quite pleased with how the guitar fell together. The neck is lovely, straight and true, I have not had to adjust the neck at all. And the guitar is very light and reasonant. I’ve always loved the look of these guitars and the Heritage Cherry finish came out as I had hoped. She is a real screamer with the lollar P-90!

Thanks, Tony”

Posted on November 25, 2011August 22, 2012 by phil — 1 Comment

Eddie’s LP Standard

This is our LP kit, with a simple beautiful finish. The plain maple cap wood grain shows up so nicely on this. Here is what Eddie as said about our kits.

“Thanks for a awsome kit. it plays better than my $%$#@ guitar.

Great fret work. waiting for a prs style kit now. I used trans tint amber and cherry and mixed them till i got what i wanted it went on darker than i wanted so i took clean wet towels and rubbed it down till i got the color i was looking for.i kept the neck and back natural and the maple on the side is like binding like on a prs.

Thanks again

Eddie

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Posted on November 24, 2011August 22, 2012 by phil — Leave a comment

Jono from South Africa…Double Cut/ Double Rout

Jono has taken an old school approach to this guitar.

This is his words:

The idea is for this to be the live gig workhorse – something serious with good components and a great sound (you cant beat P 90’s for that live tone!) but withoutthe silly price tag.

I put in a shot of the neck being set – because the angle is built into the neck (perfectly) we could actually set it in a stand! with no issues!

For the finish I put on a couple of coats of “indoor polywax sealer” with a cloth and I think it looks understated and quite pretty, the strangest thing is that I’ve had the guitar for a while now and I still cant tell what colour it is! The combination of the sealer and the wood makes it look different under different lighting conditions.

I swear its the same finish in all the photos (there might be one of the raw wood in there?), it looks like a different guitar in each shot! I’ve seen this sealer on other guitars never with this effect, I love that mine came out mysteriously special… Thanks for using rich beautiful wood!

Jono