Saga LC-10

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