Saga LC-10

Saga LC-10 Les Paul style guitar kit. I bought this kit online for $170 from Instrument Alley.

Disclaimers: I am a part-time professional acoustic guitar builder (steel string and classical). In my day job I am a mechanical engineer. I???ve been playing guitars for 11 years, mainly fingerstyle. I have a Rivera R112-55 amplifier and some nice stomp boxes including a Visual Sound Route 66 Overdrive+Compression. My other electric guitar is a Telecaster. I???ve been building guitars for 10 years (about 6 per year through that period.) I have no connection to either Saga or Instrument Alley. I???ve always wanted a Les Paul but didn???t want to pay the bucks. I???ve always wanted a wider neck on my electric guitar. This kit looked like a good solution to both issues.

This is a kit to make a full-featured Les Paul standard copy, right down to the very nicely flamed 1/2-inch thick maple top-plate on the guitar body. The pickups are probably not the greatest (but, hey, they sound very good!) but this kit will get you a perfectly respectable Les Paul standard copy if you put it together correctly. You could, literally, do nothing but put all the pieces of this kit together, set it up, and play it (but put on a new nut.) You could do it in a few hours. (Making my custom neck and finishing took 95% of the time that this kit took to build.) The body finish would be clear satin; but you can see the flame in the maple and it???s otherwise acceptable.

I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the flame in the top plate is: It really looks quite nice and I chose to use a transparent color so that the flame shows. The back of the body has a veneer of mahogany on it to give the illusion of a mahogany body (like the real thing.) The bulk of the body is made up of various chunks of basswood glued together into a solid block. Some of this basswood shows dark staining from fungal growth; but this is a visual defect only and won???t be visible to anyone who isn???t making a close examination of the guitar. The routing of the cavities in the body is nicely done and very accurate.

The kit neck is hard maple, whereas a Les Paul standard has Honduran mahogany. The stock neck has a nice rosewood fretboard, large frets, binding, and nice pearl inlays. 22 frets on the neck. The nut is plastic and should be discarded. Make yourself a good bone nut or buy a commercially-produced drop-in replacement: This will really improve your sound.

The only thing I noted as a flaw on the guitar is a few spots of tear-out of the maple top wood when they routed the edges of the top for the binding and purfling. But this is minor and is not objectionable in the final product (and what do you expect for $170?!) Really, this is the only flaw in the kit. Otherwise the binding and purfling are just fine. It has several black/white stripes for purfling and ivoroid (white-ish) plastic binding.

The body has clear sanding sealer all over it, smoothly sanded to a matte finish of about 400-grit. Some reviews have complained about the thickness of the sealer. These people have never had to prep a guitar body for finishing!! This is one of the hardest things to get right: final prep and sealing for finishing! As it is, the guitar is fully ready for top coating. This saves you AN IMMENSE AMOUNT OF TIME. The finish out of the box provides a nice tooth for the top coats. The thickness of sealer we are talking about would affect the sound of an acoustic guitar; but has essentially no impact on an electric guitar.

I chose to spray shellac with a bright royal blue aniline dye before I sprayed top finish (be sure to use the product Shellac Wet if you plan to spray shellac ??? without this wetting agent shellac will not flow-out when sprayed.) The colored shellac went perfectly over the stock sealer. [continued in sound section ...]

continued ...: Then I carefully scraped the color off the binding and purfling with a single-edge razor blade (works much better than masking!) and sanded the color off the sides with 320-grit. Then the top-coats went on. The surface prep of the body (out of the box) was so good that top-coating was done in no time with very few coats (5?). Then I rubbed and buffed the top to a high gloss finish. Finishing is THE HARDEST part of making a professional quality guitar. Take your time and practice on scrap before working on the body. A proper buffing setup is essential to getting a clear, high-gloss finish that you are used to seeing on top quality guitars (not that it does anything for the sound or the playability! It???s just bling! -- But very pretty bling it is.)

The wiring is all color-coded: You join red to red, white to white, yellow to yellow, purple to purple, etc., and each color is unique (it???s pretty darned fool-proof). The kit comes with shrink-tubing to insulate the connections and these work nicely. The wiring has plug-in connections. These seem decent; but no connector is anywhere near as good as a soldered joint. Soldering is easy to do, take the time to solder the wiring together: This will also significantly improve the sound and the durability/reliability. Search the web for advice on how to get good solder joints. A simple soldering kit costs less than $10.

The main reason I bought a kit is that I want a neck that is customized to my preferences. I play with a wide neck on my steel string acoustic guitars (1-13/16 at the nut, 1/8-inch wider than standard Martin or typical for electric guitars.) And the only way I can have that is to make my own neck (if not the entire guitar.) I did not want to do the carving and routing on the body ??? that does not seem to me (as an acoustic guitar maker) to be a satisfying expression of my craft. Making the neck is; and it gives me what I really want: a wider neck.

I made myself a new neck of Philippine mahogany (very, very similar to Honduran mahogany) since I prefer its look, feel, sound, and workability compared to hard maple. It???s also the material used for the real thing: the Les Paul standard. I also made my own double-action truss rod, which is normal for me when I build acoustic guitars. This would be tricky for a novice; but you can buy truss rods from Luthier???s Mercantile and Stewart MacDonald (search the web). You would need to have experience doing precision wood working before trying to make your own neck. Straightness, alignment to the body, fit in the body cavity, headstock angle and joint, tuner positioning, and of course shaping the neck are all critical to a good result.


SOUND:

This guitar sounds great! I am very pleased with the result, even with the total POS strings that came with the kit. (That will be the first thing I do: change the strings!) The pickups seem to be pretty good LP humbucker knock offs. They sound very nice! The pot controls work smoothly and have no issues. I have no excess noise ??? no different from my Telecaster. For those complaining of noise, I suspect that they did not successfully ground the circuit to the guitar tailpiece (or they mis-wired the circuit in some other way.) I did not add any shielding. I strongly recommend snipping off the plug-in connections on the wires and soldering them together.

All the parts fit exceptionally well, in my opinion. I???m a mechanical engineer in my day job (25 years in industry). I know a lot about build tolerances. This kit far exceeded my expectations. I see the complaints on fit in some other reviews. I had none of that. (Maybe it was an issue with earlier production?) I was amazed, frankly, at how well turned out this kit was for the money.

I would say the front-back angle set of the neck and neck-pocket in the body are near-perfect. On the side-side angle of the neck, I???d say that it was within 1/2-degree of dead-nuts on. That???s about as good a tolerance as anyone can hold on a wooden object of this size. The neck fit into the body cavity (for the stock neck from the kit) was near-perfect. It took some force to insert it (from the top only! The neck and cavity are tapered and they only go together form the front, not from the headstock direction!) but it went in smoothly and was still easily removeable. Be careful not to dislodge bits of the maple plate on the thin areas by the cutaway and the neck pickup: the wood is very narrow in these places and it???s easy to knock chips out.

The support/adjustment posts for the bridge and tail-piece went in with just a few light taps from a very light rubber mallet: I would consider the fit essentially perfect. The bridge and tail-piece fit onto the posts with a nice, snug snap: It took a little force; but only a little, and they fit tight without slop: perfect fit in my opinion.

The selector switch and the pots went in perfectly: the remaining body plate thickness, the cavities in the body, and the protrusion of the threads on the switches and pots were just right. Nothing to complain of here. The output jack also went it flawlessly. There was enough extra wire length in the wire leads for me to snip off the plug-in connections and solder the wires and then shrink the heat-shrink tubing over the connections, without having tons left over to stow in the cavity.

I used my own neck, so I can???t comment about the tuners or the truss rod or the fit and finish of the neck, or on the fretwork. It all looks fine from a visual examination.

The action of the guitar is dependent upon the following factors: adjustment of the bridge (very smooth and easy on this guitar, adjustment of the nut (not easy for a novice ??? a piece of cake for a person with building or set-up experience), leveling and re-crowning of the frets (the neck from the kit may not require much work; but I doubt it very much). There???s a reason why almost all pros have technicians adjust their action: It???s not an easy thing top do well. So, unless you are competent at setting up a guitar, you should expect to either have it set-up by a shop ($50 typically?) or being not perfectly satisfied with the results.

Note that the fretboard radius is 20-inches (compared to anything from 12-inches to 16-inches that I have seen quoted for the Les Paul standard from various sources.) Luckily for me, 20-inches is my standard radius and I have the jigs to create it on my new neck fretboard (African ebony) and it suits my playing.

This guitar is solidly made. If you take basic care of it, it should last a lifetime. Basswood (the main portion of the body) is softer than mahogany (the material of the Les Paul standard body, excepting the maple top-plate) and care must be taken to not strip screw holes if you are removing and replacing screws.

I did not need any customer support. The manual that came with the kit was clear enough. I think someone in the US wrote it, since the English was good, unlike many manuals from goods produced in China. I have only a single complaint on the manual: it should tell you which way to orient the selector switch (which color wire at top and at bottom relative to the guitar body) and which way to orient the switch plate (???Rhythm???/???Treble???) to give the correct result. I got it right by luck.

As previously stated, I am amazed at how good of a kit this is for just $170. I couldn???t buy the hardware for it for that kind of money, if I had to buy the bits separately. The Gibson website lists the 2009 Les Paul standard at $3900. I just saved myself over $3500 plus I got a neck customized to my needs. I am very, very pleased with this kit. I was thinking that this was going to be a stop-gap before I felt like spending the big bucks on a Les Paul standard. Now, I doubt I will ever do that. The only thing I???m still contemplating is a pickup upgrade (which will cost more than the entire kit!) I got a very decent hard-shell Epiphone case from Amazon for $74 with free shipping. The fit is perfect, which indicates that the shape and size are the same as a Les Paul.

I purchased this kit from an ebay store, the cheapest place I could find. It's a standard Les Paul setup; two humbuckers, two volume, two tone, three-way switch, 22 frets. Mahogany body with flamed maple veneer top, and maple two piece neck. The hardware is nickel plated and the pick guard, compartment covers, truss rod cover, pick up rings, and black speed knobs are all standard ABS plastic. Everything looks nice and seems to fit well.

I thought the sound of the pick ups was very nice, warm, full; especially for the price. I have installed aftermarket pickups in guitars (I'm partial to DiMarzio) and I thought these were fine. I doubt that I will ever touch them, as long as they hold up.

If you have a bit of experience with guitar setup, you shouldn't have to many problems with this kit. Granted there are going to be some issues, I feel that these issues are expected and shouldn't contribute to a poor rating. If you don't have some exposure to guitar setup, I suggest you do a little research on the internet for information on working with wood and electronics, as well as setting intonation, nut height, neck relief, and adjusting string height to your personal preference. I thought everything fit together very well, that is everything was easy to get right.

I feel as though it will hold up fine with proper maintenance and care. Of course I think any instrument will be fine as long as you take care of it. My guitar seems to hold tune very well, and the electronics seem to work very well. I've heard a lot of horror stories about the electronics and I think problems may come about if you don't follow the instructions very accurately. The wiring diagram was actually pretty nice compared to some I've had to work with in the past.

Haven't dealt with them.

I've been playing for about 13 years. I own a '61 Gretsch Corvette, '59 Kay Speed Demon, two different Arbor guitars (I love these things), Tele-star Hummingbird, and I also play a '65 Baldwin Baby Bison. I enjoy working on guitars about as much as I enjoy playing them. If this one was stolen, I would probably buy another one to build. I will probably buy another anyways. This is a hard deal to beat.

If you are reading this you have considered buying the product or you have bought it and are trying to figure out the wiring diagram. As for the structure, my LC-10 arrived pretty well done. Neck fit right, everything was routed properly and holes were drilled accurately. The hardware is cheap stuff. It's standard parts that you can buy on a budget. You can make this a nice guitar by giving it a good paintjob and redoing everything else with higher quality items. As another reviewer said, the input jack is trash. I recommend replacing the entire electronics with quality stuff. The pickups are decent. They meter well. I think mine is right around 12-13 on the bridge and around 9 and a half on the neck p/u.

It has a typical Les Paul kinda sound on completion. Not a Gibson Les Paul mind you, but it has a good warm tone and has the capability of good bite with topped out gain. The cheap electronics make it very noisy if you use the stock stuff. I had to replace the input jack right from the get-go because they built it with bad one. It also had a weird feedback screach when I wired it like it should be wired. I had to redo the grounds to get the noise down to a tolerable level. I have plugged it into several different types of rigs from tube amps to solid states with Boss pedals and various stuff and it still has typical noise associated with cheap electronics.

The neck was straight. The action needed set-up of course. The bridge had very close to perfect intonation out of the box I guess by pure luck. Frets were done well they are level and perfect. Same deal though, great basic guitar but it has alot of cheap hardware and wiring.

Yeah I plan to use it to play live. Not as a main guitar but basically because it will work in some of our material. Plus I love the finish I gave it. Solid Black and Chrome looks good and it will sound decent. I'd say I can depend on it after I redo all of the electronics. Guitar was prepped very well as far as finishing prep goes.

Well, I am a dealer of Saga and a music store owner and honestly Saga is one of least favorite companies to deal with. They are quite dense when it comes to customer service and it seems like they have better things to do when you call them for an order or product question. I've never had to deal with a Warranty issue with them, but I'd dread doing it. Just assume that this is a kit, it isn't gonna be absolutely perfect. The idea is to gain knowledge and experience of how to assemble a guitar and if you're unlucky, you'll have to do some fitting and tweaking. Thank goodness I have tools and parts and experience to do what it takes for this guitar. First-timers might be ready to toss it out the door if they see the wiring diagram mess I saw when I opened the instructions.

As I mentioned I own a music store which doesn't make me a know-it-all expert..but as I play my 1993 Ibanez Jem BFP, this pales sheepishly in comparison to quality. The one thing I can say that's great about this guitar is the fact it is immensely lighter than a Gibson Les Paul but still has the similar look. I feel like I got my money's worth overall. It's a great base guitar to expand upon, and if you want to toss another couple hundred bucks into it, you'll have a mean little axe after all is said and done and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you accomplished the task.

Decent for the money spent. A good experience. Learned a few things about building guitars

Really, not bad. I was very surprised. After playing it in, I opted for a set of pearly gates pups from Timber Ridge Custom Shop. Great price and sounded excellent after installed. Much better than the stock pups.

Some work to do here. With guidance from a luthier at Timber Ridge, I got it where it played in pretty good. The neck did'nt need anything other thann tweeking to get the action fairly low.

As good as anything made in Asia or China, so there you are.

Excellent from Timber Ridge, with some handholding via email. A great place to get one of these kits, since they inspect each one and repack it. Plus you get an inspection report and suggestion on how to finish it.
From Saga, well, it probably is a waste of time.

Without the help from Timber Ridge Custom Shop, I'd have given it a 2 or 3. Seems they really care about the products they sell.

I am a bass player starting to enjoy playing electric guitar... so instead of putting down a grand for a decient guitar I thought I could build one, so I looked on ebay. I found the Saga LC-10 and thought "cool, now I can own a 'Paul"
I recieved it quick enough and opened it with excitement. The neck was a tight fit and most of the parts were there.(there were a couple of washers missing for the pots) I also had the directions that said the wires were color coded, but mine were black too.
The book matched carved top was beautiful, but I was really disapointed with the rest of the wood on the body. it looked like there was alot of puddy used to patch, and the binding was clean enough.
I too have a problem with a warped neck. I have tried to contact Saga with no avail so I will probably use a different neck from a different company.
the pots were the crappy cheep kind so I replaced them right away.

since I haven't had a chance to play it because of the neck I don't know

once again, no neck fit, but... the finish I had a friend put on it looks awesome. it's a clear blue with a pearl finish.

the parts that count look fairly sturdy, but I'm not sure yet. I would have to have another guitar for a backup, but then again I doubt this will be my main guitar

as of yet they haven't responded to my emails

next time i want a DIY guitar I'll probably buy a Carvin like my bass

Once upon a time...I wasn't like this! I had a guitar, that was all that I could afford, it was 3rd hand (verified), with probably more than a ghost owner...but it was fine with me, no problem, it was MY guitar, the one and only, since I didn't know anything about guitars at all.

Well, 12 years have passed since then, And I've had chance to try some fine guitars in the meantime. Now my experience leads me to the following considerations:

1) Price and quality of an instrument are not so deeply correlated as I earlier thought.
2) You shouldn't EVER buy a guitar without extensively playing it.

In short, I developed a passion for everything (guitar/bass related) that can be done by yourself and honestly priced.

Well, of course honesty is arguable, but I mean "good value stuff for your hard earned money".
Seeing SAGA guitar kits online had a big impact on me in the first place, as you can imagine.
While reviews on Harmony-central were conflictual (to say the least) I decided to try them on my own.

With such a low price in the worst case I'd have had some more wood for the fireplace...
Among the different cloned kit models one was really interesting to me: the SAGA LC-10 (Les Paul copy).
I bought it, I had a long wait, I received the box and was happy for about 125 euros.

I opened the box and impatiently discovered the content...
All the parts are there, ready to be tortured, it looks like nothing is missing, pots, tuners, even the strings and a very low-fi jack. What a rich bundle!!!

Then the assembling odissey began...

The first thing I tried was the fit between neck and body, unfortunately...it didn't fit.
I was a little discouraged but With some time and patience I finally made the neck fit (it just needed a little sanding here and there), It was a crucial part of the work, if you sand too much the fit is gonna be loose.

But the problems didn't end there, next step was shaping the headstock, which was interesting enough but needed some time and a lot of extra care.

I sticked a template on the headstock and cut the shape before sanding to smoothness, it wasn't hard.

Nest step: painting!

Painting was the most difficult part, I chose gun-spraying some nitro-cellulosic paint.
My equipment was of the cheap kind and there were some spraying problems...which I covered doing some on demand relicking
(which is pretty lame, I know, I don't give a *!#@ though).

And the final result wasn't that bad...

Final step: assembling of the kit, with tuning, ecc... the instructions were lacking enough so I had to figure out some things by myself, but when I had the guitar assembled I really enjoyed the sound...Full and rich in armonics.

Now I changed the tuners with some sperzel and I'm thinking to shield the guitar properly because it's pretty noisy.
I still need to do a 1:1 confrontation with a real Les Paul (std), which is different from the SAGA and very good of course.

I recorded some samples that you can find on my blog: http://www.simmessa.com/blog
(the guitar is plugged into my rack, a Marshall JMP-1 & rocktron velocity 150 solid state amp)

You can also have a look at the guitar during the building process in my personal gallery: http://www.simmessa.com/gallery

The sound is very good, samples at http://www.simmessa.com/blog and find it out by yourself!

I love basswood for distortion.

I did all the setup and it suits me very well, the action is low, string tension is also pretty low, I can do super-bends (a full 4th!)

The guitar doesn't feel very solid, but I could repair it in case of necessity, and that's a real plus for me.

None, the vendor was a little bit disappointing.

WELL DONE SAGA!
I love this guitar...it became part of me.

Basic guitar builders kit similar to strat version from the same company. 22 frets rosewood top and neck Les paul style kit no indication of pick up models. The neck was terrible quality and as soon as i put the strings on a bow developed which i took to two different guitar repairs who both said it could'nt be fixed. They did everything possible to the truss rod but nothing fixed the problem. Also none of the drill holes lined up and the directions were confusing and incorrect in many cases. In the dirrections it clearly stated that i was to hook up similar colored wires such as green to green yellow to yellow and red to red but all the wires were black or red! There were no other colors.

Pretty good sound overall if you ever get the thing built i didnt totally test it out as i had to send the neck back to get a new one which i havent recieved yet but ill write another review once i get it totaly checked out.

The action and fit seemed alright if you over look the major flaw in the fact that the neck had a major bow in it as i said before the problem couldnt be fixed and i had to send it back for another one.

Well i applied the finish and the strap buttons so if the wear of its mostly my fault it seems pretty dependable though.

There was no warranty and i didnt directly deal with the company itself but instead seperate dealer that sold me the product. The company that sold me paid for the shipping of the new neck and were very friendly and helpful with the many problems. I wrote to the actual company saga but got no response or help.

I havent been playing it very long mostly becuase of the neck but comparing to the other guitars i own it doesnt seem very good quality. The one thing i love about it is the finish (which i applied). I paid 145$ for it and basically got what i paid for most kits are more expensive and i suggest buying a different one the experience was educational on basic guitar building but i dont think i would buy again for this company