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ARRIVAL - LIKE ABBA, IT'S HERE
And so I made my bid on eBay (at the very last minute, naturally) and won the auction. I stumped up via PayPal and two days later the kit arrived; my Strat-to-be-built, and seeing the list of parts and multitude of screws, I have to say I wasn't feeling so confident that the easy option was living up to it's billing. Looking at the kit, I was pretty impressed though. The neck is nice and has no dodgy frets, the body is neatly smoothed and the neck and body fit firmly into place without too much fuss. No woodwork needed there, a bonus.Given my Strat prejudices, I would point out that I didn't totally sell out. Although a Strat it most definitely is, I did manage to throw myself one curve ball. I bought a left-handed kit, when I am of the right persuasion. Why do that, you may wonder quite reasonably, and I can only say that I've always fancied a Hendrix 'Monterey' Strat - where he played a right-hander upside down, so I figured I'd do the same in the reverse. I never make things simple for myself; it’s a well known fact of life.
So there I was, box of bits before me, wondering where to start. As it happens, I did the obvious thing and checked off the parts in the box with the list that came with the kit. A couple were actually missing, but the super-helpful chap at DIY promised to sort out replacements so it proved to be no problem. Always worth checking up front though.
As an aside, I was a little worried about DIY Guitars as a company, as I couldn't find anybody initially who had built one of their kits, but I have to say they have been excellent despite me trying my best to confuse things, which I often do.
But to the guitar, for the fact junkies. The body is Basswood on the leftie kit (it was Ash on the right handed one. Not too sure if it makes much of a difference or why they differentiate, but it probably isn't my biggest concern right now.) It has a maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard and everything is well presented and tidily finished. Pickups and pots are already installed on the scratch plate (I should say 'loaded' I expect, but I'm not really a guitar nerd and the language doesn't come easy), with this already fitted to the body.
With screws.
Why does that worry me?
Taking it off to paint the thing, I guess.
Hmmm.
All the other parts seem as you'd expect - tuners, strings, plates and trems and stuff. I've never taken a guitar to pieces before of course, so it is actually quite interesting to see what goes on 'under the hood' and I'm surprised how little that really is. I was expecting loads of PCBs I guess, but no it is still very 1950s in there and I suppose it was always going to be given guitarists wish to stop the clock in the '50s.
Luckily for me, the other thing in the box was a set of instructions which having read them, somehow haven't managed to leave me in a daze although I did glaze over here and there, but more due to my lack of an attention span than their writing style. These break the whole process into four quite logical steps:
1. Finish The Body
2. Customising & Finishing The Neck
3. Assembling The Body & Neck
4. Basic Setup
Sounds simple, lets give it a go...
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