Leo JaymzDIY Electric Guitar Kits with Mahogany Body and Maple Neck - Laurel Wood Fingerboard and All Components Included (BC)

I have been building one of a kind guitars for last 4 years as extension to my 40 plus years of woodworking. I decided to buy and try out this kit. It came a few days later almost no damage to shipping box. Everything was neatly packaged and the assembly manual was best I have seen for any type of kit build. The description on Amazon said kit was poplar body but box label said basswood which it was. One could easily build this guitar from instructions. I modified the body for better playability adding a back horn scallop and heavily tapered neck attachment. I also increased the size of the perimeter radius. I decided to spray paint the body using duplicator metallic blue paint as a first for me. Because I’m not too familiar with their products I contacted their customer service and they recommended if I was to clear coat the paint I should use their match color acrylic lacquer. Back to build. I found the basswood not the easiest wood to sand. It took 2 times the amount of sanding I do typically do for dyed figured maple and walnut or genuine mahogany. The wood is prone to grain rise and feathering lacking it difficult to get a really smooth finish. You have to use scrapers and go up to 600/ 1000 grit sand paper. Spraying the duplicity primer and sealer with sanding and the metallic blue took again more time to do than I wood have thought. Once done I had very good results. My big issue came with the clear coat. I would not recommend using the clear coat I got per customer service. The first can even after mixing for 1-2 minutes like directions sputtered finish on the body which caused small darkened circles in the paint. I would spray one pass then have to dry the nozzle. I ended up using 2 of the 3 cans and during wet sanding and buffing experienced some issues with the durability of the finish. The neck has an artificial ebony fretboard which you may or may not like. The frets were close to being level but needed a fret leveling job which inexperienced guitar builders might be a problem. After leveling and polishing and sanding the neck I applied a light yellow dye to give it a bit of aged look. I cut the head stock to one of my designs and sanded it and finished it in polyurethane. I have to say the info said it was a maple neck but it looks more like birch. The neck was well carved almost a perfect Fender C shape. Frets finished like they are stainless and are at least medium jumbo. Assembling the guitar was easy as all holes are predrilled no real soldering is necessary as electronics are plug in type. The only item s I changed were nut to bone and bridge to a new one I had which is heavier and saddles more block like. The included bridge is adequate. A pleasant surprise was they included copper foil tape for lining the pickup , input jack cavity and back of pick guard. The finished guitar with stock pickups and small pots sounds very good. I did use Daddarrio 9/42 strings. I did add the bridge to the middle pickup tone control. The tone pots with green capacitors have a good tone sweep. Except for the clear coat issues the guitar came out very good. With my set up at 1.25- 1.5 mm at 12 fret the guitar easily plays and sounds like a medium priced guitar. I can recommend this kit to someone wanting to build a guitar with minimal tools. I can’t recommend painting and clear coating with the dupli color match clear coat.

The media could not be loaded. This was my first kit guitar build and I would say that it's a great kit at a good price but mine did have a couple issues. Again this a great kit and people looking to get a kit will be very pleased with the quality and overall packaging. My first and well biggest issue was that the frets were so out of whack that I had to level, crown and polish them. I know that this is a kit and that is part of the building process but from many reviews and videos across the board everyone said the neck was good to go out of the box. Most people I know that would want to try a kit guitar would have big problems with this step. Now for a positive on the neck the flamed maple fret board is gorgeous, I mean really beautiful. So that's a big + for the kit and I would guess not all the kits are going to have that neck. The second issue is that the neck pickup is not working very good. This could just be a one off in my kit but for sure test the output when you receive your kit. I built the whole thing thinking it was all good then found out in the end that the neck pickup was lacking. (Very low output compared to other neck pickups I've heard and the tone is off} Again this could just be in my kit and your kit will probably have great sounding pickups. Tuners I can't say good or bad as I swapped out with locking tuners from the beginning of the build. Strings are basically set up use only and then replace with quality strings. Pots seem to be good and work as they should. I swapped out the 3 saddle bridge for a 6 saddle as I prefer having more control on intonation. I think for the price and the overall kit it is definitely worth the money, just know that you might need to upgrade a few parts to have a great playing finished build.

I've now built three of the Leo Jaymz kit guitars - the SG style (my first build), the T style (2nd build), and the Explorer (AX) style. Overall, I've hugely enjoyed them and I'm definitely addicted to these things :)The good:- Complete kits, at least for me everything fit together well- Good quality woods. Maybe I just got lucky, but all three of my kits had nice grain, no knots, no issues with the woods. The maple neck on my T style has some quite impressive grain once stained. The AX kit had a small glue stain on the front, but since I was going for a "beat up, reclaimed wood" look, it was no big deal.- Good fret boards - other than polishing the frets and cleaning up 1-2 sharp frets, there was nothing I had to do other than oil the necks.- The price! My wife would tell you it was a relatively cheap way to keep me occupied for weeks :P- The AX guitar had quick connects for the electronics. A welcome surprise!The less good:- The instructions, especially for the SG style, leave a lot to be desired in their clarity. There are definite suggestions on how to make instructions clearer to reduce mistakes. Because of my mistakes on the first guitar, I didn't make any on the 2nd, so that's a plus. The AX style guitar had no instructions at all. So don't do that one first.The subjective:- After the builds, both guitars are quite playable and sound very good. The SG has relatively tame pickups (~9.1k & 9.5k), so hotter than an under-wound PAF, but not super modern either. Sounds very good with some overdrive. I ended up swapping the TL pickups with an aftermarket set since there was a specific sound I was going for. I put an Alpha/Omega set in the Explorer, and they sound epic. I didn't bother checking the output on the stock pickups.- Hardware is all serviceable. If you asked what I would replace, in this order: Tuners, nut, pickups, anything else. That said, both guitars stay in tune just fine.Some lessons learned:- Mock up all the components before you assemble or paint anything. On the SG style guitar, it turns out if you just use the measurements in the instructions, at least on mine, the neck gets glued too close to the pickup for the pickup ring to fit. It also means the intonation is slightly off now that it's all assembled. Similarly, on the T style, the aftermarket bridge pickup was slightly larger than the cavity in the wood. No big deal, i just shaved a couple mms of wood off and now it's a perfect fit.- On both guitars, there's a ground wire that goes to the bridge. Forgetting it on the T style bridge isn't a big deal, since you can just remove the bridge with a few screws. On the SG guitar, you can't remove the bridge screw holes once they are in, so i had to get some conductive adhesive to make the ground wire work.Now that I've built a couple, I will definitely build more. Particularly for guitars in a style of music I don't normally way, it's a great way to get an instrument you like at a good price, and get some good enjoyment along the way. If you are trying to do this to get a PRS 10 top instrument for $200, you'll probably be disappointed. If you are doing this for fun and to come out with a totally great playable instrument, you'll have a lot of fun doing this.