TL Thinline Style Electric Guitar Kit

I was really surprised with the overall quality of the kit. Granted, I didn't even bother with the electronics on this kit and bought stuff from GFS to throw in this. But the wood is really quite good. Its all basswood, so it has really good grain, but it dents really easy. If you want to relic the finish, this is the guitar for you. The bridge is a top-loader, and the saddles aren't very good, but useable.

Don't buy this and expect something on the same level of a USA Fender. But this is in the MIM Fender level, especially with hardware upgrades.

This is my very first ever guitar! It was a wonderful challenge to build and I noodle on this guitar at least once a week. Took Dragon from the 320grit factory sand to 400, then 800, then 1500 by hand. The grain popped so gloriously I simply HAD to stain instead of paint.
The provided wires and electronics, however... Dear God, YUCK! Oh, the provided electronics are FOUL!! I had to replace everything. Still working on getting the new humbuckers.

THAT SAID, I would build this guitar all over again if given the time machine to do so.

Overall: Know what you are getting into. This is not really a kit for a beginner. You will need some knowledge of its specifications and skill with guitar set up, configuration, and appropriate adjustment to have a successful build.

The Good:

The kit arrived with all parts, and all fit well.

The Challenges:

Body - The mahogany of is quite soft. Mine arrived with one of the horns thinner than the other. I had to level the back of the guitar. The top is maple veneer. Nothing wrong with that. But you have a limited ability to sand because of this. Mine came with an odd discoloration in the grain from the base up to the middle of the f-hole.

Neck: The maple neck is quite nice. However, the nut is way too high. It had to be lowered by about .75 mm to be playable. I also had to spot level one fret. More importantly, the heel was almost 2 mm too thick for Fender spec. I planed it down about 1 mm. Because the neck pocket on the body is about 1 mm too deep, this allowed the neck and the body to line up almost perfectly relative to the bridge. If I hadn't done this, I would have had to raise the saddles in the bridge to their maximum or beyond. The neck profile is very chunky. A classic C-shaped baseball bat. Again, nothing wrong with that. I reshaped mine taking off between 2 and 3 mm in thickness and making it more of a modern C.

Hardware and Electronics: In general these are ok. Also, even though properly grounded, the electronics still have quite a bit of hum.

I now have a tele-style electric that plays very nicely. :-)

Things pretty good out of the box:
o Neck was straight
o Truss rod fully functional
o Frets fairly level and not too sharp needing only minimal leveling and touch up
o Body only needed minimal prep before stain, finish
o Tuners workable
o Strings adequate for set up
o Most pre-drilled holes in the body were in their proper places
o The Fretwire's customer support was good

Extra work needed:
o Neck fit the pocket well but the angle was not quite right causing insufficient pressure on the saddles, which caused string buzz at the bridge. I had to do a neck reset with a shim approx. 1 mm thick at one end, 0 mm thick at the other.
o The pre-drilled screw holes for the bridge were a bit too close to the neck, which left the Low-E and A saddles impossible to adjust for proper intonation at the 12th fret. I had to fill those five holes and re-drill new ones 2 mm farther from the neck.
o I had to do just a touch of fret leveling (and then crowning and polishing).
o The nut required extensive lowering by filing.
o The supplied strings were fine for doing final set up, but mine would not play in tune when at pitch. A new set of name-brand strings solved that.

In all it was a fun and challenging project that required getting (or making) some specialized tools: fret-leveling beam made from a cheap aluminum level, nut files (mini & welding tip files), 6" machinist ruler, notched straight edge & crowning file.