Leo Jaymz DIY Electric Guitar Kits with Mahogany Body and Maple Neck -Pluggable wires - All Components Included (SG)

I really like the Leo Jaymz kits! I have purchased 3 so far and plan on purchasing more. The necks have fit well in the pocket, and the kits arrive numbered, showing the pieces are mated somewhere along the way. The neck set angles have been correct, and 2 of the three had well dressed fret boards, requiring essentialy no dressing on my part, the other had a small high spot, which is something i expect with similar kits. Like almost all inexpensive and 'raw' guitars I have purchased the fret ends usually need some attention, but this occurs on many guitars as the humidity changes. (a fret end file would be the single tool i would recommend - though other neck tools are most helpful in really building these kits) Finally, the pickups sound surprisingly good, and record well, though many people do upgrade. I particularly like that Leo Jaymz has solderless connectors which make this part effortless. Beginners can absolutely assemble this, though if you have a few guitar specific tools and a bit of experience you can make something truly solid and unique!

On a whim, I bought this Leo Jamyz kit. The last thing I needed was another guitar. I loved the burnt wood look. Wasn't sure where I was going with this but started out with a coat of Tru-Oil and the grain just came to life. I lucked out and got a good piece of wood! I decided not to push it and just added a couple of coats of Wipe-On Poly to lock it in. This kit required no soldering as everything already had connectors on it. It was total plug & play. I was sure the electronics, especially the pickups, were going to be crap but I went ahead and used them so I wouldn't have to replace everything right now. I can always upgrade later, right?I used some StewMac shielding paint like I do on all of my builds. Connected the pickup cavities with some wire and copper tape and everything grounded out properly. Connected everything and strung it up. Damned if it isn't the quietest strat I've built to date. No single coil hum at all. Probably not the best pickups but they'll do for my needs. Overall for $110, I think I got a pretty decent guitar. Certainly worth of hanging on my wall with the rest of the herd.

This is an OK explorer kit, but with some important flaws to point out.The good:1- Nice wood, with decent CNC work.2- Neck is thin, similar to LTD or Jackson.3- Tuners are decent.4- Little soldering necessary5- Electronics are fine for the price and everything works correctly.The bad:1- Tuner screw holes were drilled crooked, so I had to fill and re drill to make my tuners aligned.2- Neck pickup cavity is too narrow, so pickup fits in very tightly against the neck. Neck was glued in correct position to allow for correct scale length, so this is an issue with the actual cavity.3- Bridge pickup cavity is slightly shifted upwards, so pole pieces don't align with high e string.4- Nut was extremely high.5- Bridge is super cheap and rattles.6- Lots of play in neck pocket, had to fill in a sizeable gap between neck and body.

Overall, this kit was fun and relatively easy to build. With a few mods it will eventually be a pretty good guitar. The hardware and electronics are what you might expect at this price point. Everybody knows throw away the strings. The tuning machines are rough. I had to enlarge the cutout for the bridge pickup in order be able to adjust it properly.The biggest problem I encountered involved the body. I did not notice until I was dying it that there was a 2-inch a crack that went all the way through. The dye went into the crack and magnified it, clearly visible on the front, edge and back of the guitar. I hope that it does not cause any problems later.I contacted the seller and was told I could apply for a return. At this point, I had already shaped the headstock and finished both the fretboard and the neck. I wasn't interested in returning everything.This is a good kit for the price.

There’s no getting around this guitar playing like $150ish guitar. Ultimately, you get out what you put into it.TLDR: obviously requires initial setup which can be intimidating for some people and has some QC issues but is by nature very open to personalization.That being said:The Neutral:• Some holes were drilled in the wrong places. It’s easy to fix by filling the holes and redrilling but it’s worth stating because it’s a clue to the level of QC.• The ground wire does require soldering just by the nature of selling a guitar as a kit. There was a seemingly unnecessary extra wire connected to the trem claw which I removed by desoldering.The Negative:• The instructions leave much to be desired. They were poorly translated and the pictures were so small and poor definition that they might as well have not been included. The wiring diagram was somewhat useful. It’s pretty easy to figure out without instructions at any rate.• The bridge tends to scrape against the pickguard a bit which causes some discomfort and scratching sounds when playing• The pickups don’t feel very solidly attached.• The screw holes on the neck were stripped and needed filling and redrilling. This is a bit more concerning in my opinion than the holes for the pickguard.The Positive:• I was worried that the frets would be oddly placed and make notes go slightly out of tune but this ended up not being an issue. The fretboard seemingly has the best QC of the whole build.• The guitar sounds fine through an amp. The pickups aren’t seriously special but they don’t sound bad enough to immediately replace unless you’re more of an audiophile.Overall it is what you’d expect from an instrument at this price point. It does require some setup— even after fine tuning there is a lot of buzzing in the first few frets but it seems fixable. You will 100% get out of this guitar whatever time and effort you put into it. You can redrill holes, adjust the truss rod and trem springs, and make this a very useable instrument if you really want to. If you want something that is high quality and comfortably playable out of the box, get a brand name from a music shop. If you want to make it your own and don’t mind putting in the time and effort, get a kit like this one.