Saga PRS-Style Kit

i,ll just say i should have saved my money the saga prs kit i purchased could not be made playable the neck that came with it was twisted a guitar luthier looked at and said not only is the neck slightly twisted but after taking a measurment from the nut to the bridge he said the neck was to long after a few emails to saga they sent me a new neck the new one was longer then the the one that came with the kit its been sitting in my basement for 4 years anybody want it

Sheesh, some people seem to think that they can spend $140 and get really high quality components. Well you get what you pay for. The machineheads on my Rickenbacker are $100 a set, this kit is $140, you are not going to get machineheads that nice!

That said, the machineheads are actually okay, they're not great but they do the job well enough. The body is a flat basswood body, with a carved maple cap about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Finally on top of that is a flamed maple veneer and no it's not very thick, but these things cost money and you did only spend a $140.

The wiring harness in my kit did not match the colors in the instructions, but they were color coded and simple enough to hook up, all it takes is a little thinking.

Yes the the nut is plastic, but then again this is definitely not a Gibson Les Paul. And no, the pickups are not potted, but frankly a set of decent humbuckers are going to set you back at least $100, and this kit only cost $140!

Seriously, who on earth expects to get a $300 body, $100-$200 pickups, $100 machineheads, etc, for $140?!

Well, my pickups are a little microphonic it actually sounds rather nice, gives a nice dirty blues sound. Sustain is average, but better than I would expect on a $140 guitar, sounds more like a $300-$400 guitar in my opinion, but it is subjective.

Okay, again more odd comments from other people...

* Cannot stain it - the weird thing is all the saga literature I have seen make it quite clear that the body is covered in sealer. If you thought otherwise I'd consider the seller remiss.

* The neck didn't fit very well - erm, people keep saying this because they are trying to attach them incorrectly! The neck does not slide in from the edge of guitar/neck cavity, it slides in very nicely from the body's carved top. Took me a few minutes to figure that out though!

* The neck is bowed - erm, that's what a trussrod is for. If you want to learn to make guitars you will at some point have to tackle the setup. If you expect the guitar to be setup as a kit in a box, why on earth did you buy a kit?

* The trussrod was loose/broken - yeah I found that too, turns out it just came loose during shipping. Try pushing it in and tightening it, worked very nicely for me...

* The screws ran into the pup cavity - yes they do, but a few minutes of checking will show you that they don't interfere with the neck pickup anyway, they basically are still too far down in the cavity to be a problem. They don't actually need to be cut down, (although you might want to).

Don't know yet, my main concerns are my own work not being up to par. But hey, it was $140 and will be great to work on/learn on.

Haven't tried them.

There are far too many critical comments on here. If you want a "great guitar", then go out and spend $2k on a professional quality instrument. If you want a cheap and fun project to get started in building/repairing guitars then this is for you.

I learned a bunch and made a fun backup guitar in the process. While it will never rival a professional quality instrument, it certainly holds up to lower end midrange guitars, plus it does offer a learning experience and something different.

Made in ..not sure. Laminated top. Basswood body. Decent chrome covered humbuckers. Overall, not bad, especially for the cost. A nice first time project to see if you want to get into building/refinishing guitars.

Overall Warm sound. A bit bass-heavy on the neck pickup, but not bad, reminds me of an old Silvertone. Pickups are not too hot, decent output. Playing through my Fender Frontman 25R, Boss Blues Driver or DOD Grunge, it's sounds pretty good. Remeber though, tone comes from your fingers/soul. When I play this, it sounds like me, playing this guitar...lol.

Action, fit and finish...well, it's a kit, so if it stinks, it's your fault. I had to work on the nut, lower it, cleaned up the slot etc. Fretboard was radiused a bit lazily, but doesn't hurt anything.
Also cleaned up the neck pocket so the fit was better (it was a bit too snug). Polished the frets, oiled the fretboard, and finished the top in translucent blue, with black on the back and faux binding. Turned out really nice. As far as action, after doing a setup on it, it's almost as nice as my MIM strat.

Feels very solid. Seems dependable, not too sure about the pots and switch, obviously they are cheap, or the guitar would cost more.

Never had to call them

I've been playing for 14 years. My main guitar is an MIM fat strat. I play blues, rock, old country and sometimes metal. This was a really fun project. You will have to do more than snap it together though. If you take your time and make the needed adjustments, it's a pretty nice guitar. It's still WAY easier than building from scratch.

-Made in China?
-22 frets.
-Thin laminate top that may or may not be actual maple.
-1 vol/1 tone. 3 way switch.
-2 humbuckers covered with chrome.
-Maple neck, three piece.
-Rosewood fretboard.
-Tuno o matic bridge, stopbar tailpiece.
-Generic tuners.

Pretty standard features. All I need and nothing I don't.

-It plays pretty nice. A little bright, but not too trebbly.
-The volume pot is pretty lame. It goes from really quiet to really loud. There's not much in between. No pops from the pots though.
-The tone pot is much better. It has a decent range of tone making the guitar more versatile than I expected it to be.
-It actually sounded a lot better than I expected. The pups are actually wax potted and they have a decent tone, but since they are ceramic, they tend to be a little hot and cold for me. I'll probably replace them with alnico Duncans sometime down the road.

Here's where we start to see the problems with cheap guitars.

-The neck was straight, but needed a ton of fret work done. I put on medium guage strings and they all buzz at the second fret. I'd adjust the truss rod, but it fell out. It completely broke off and is utterly worthless.
-I bought this guitar planning to stain it a nice, warm brown but it came factory sealed and the stain wouldn't take. I read the reviews posted here and decided against risking sanding through the wafer-thin "maple" top to try and remove the sealer. I opted to spray it instead. It did take a decent paint job though and doesn't look half bad. But you can see none of the grain of the wood.
-The neck didn't fit and had to planed down to fin in the pocket. I broke off two screws trying to tighten them into the hard maple of the neck butt. I couldn't find my screw extractor so I had to drill new holes, making the neck plate useless. I used some brass washers and steel screws I had laying around to mount the neck to the body.
-The screws that came with the kit were too long and they ran through the neck and about 1/8 inch into the pup cavity, making inserting the pup impossible. I cut off the ends with a pair of nippers and all is well.
-The instructions were pretty bad. The wiring harness had different colors than the pups, so it was a guessing game trying to hook up the electronics. Luckily, I have assembled a few guitars in my day and I know what I'm doing. But this would seriously frustrate the novice guitar builder.
-The nut was broken off during shipping, so I found an old graphite one laying around and used that instead. The one that came with the kit looked like it was cut well so I kept it for another project.
-The fretboard is a nice, pale rosewood and seems to be in really good shape. The frets needed work, but the wood is decent. The inlays are solid and well done.
-The pickup trim rings didn't fit and they don't cover the gap between the neck joint and the body. I will be buying new ones.
-I left the tuners in the bag and put on some Grovers that I had on my workbench. I don't mess around when it comes to tuners and always buy the best I can afford. They are an often overlooked piece of hardware, but integral to a guitar's ability to play. The ones that came with the kit seem ok and I may use them on a cheap project down the road.

-The combination of the poor workmanship, inferior parts and trouble caused by this kit makes me rank it very low.

-I would never play this guitar live unless my Gibson Les Paul and Agile both burst into flames or something. It simply doesn't have the tonal depth and warmth that I desire. But I keep it around as a beater to slam out some distorted metal. It works ok for that. Plus I don't care of my maniac dogs knock it over while rasslin' in the living room.

I imagine the guitar will las a while and I may put in some beefier electronics some day, who knows.

I bought it off ebay.

I've been laying for a couple of years and have built a number of guitars, so I know the difference between a legendary axe and a piece of junk. This falls somewhere inbetween, leaning toward the junk.

I have a Gibson Les Paul Standard (dude, it don't get better than this), an Agile LP copy (great guitar for the money), a Saga kit Telecaster, and a cheap, spruce-top acoustic. I play through Kustom amps with a minimum of pedals, I use a Danelectro Fab Tone and a vintage Dunlop CryBaby wah. (Both highly recommended).

I wish I would have looked at the reviews on this site before buying it so I knew about the sealer/stain issue. Oh well, live and learn.

If it was stolen, I'd drink a beer, curse the thief, and get on with my life.

When looking for a cheap copy of a PRS guitar, I would never find anything even close to the quality of an original, but I thought that I'd be able to have a fun kit to build and come out the other side with a decent guitar. Well the kit was not fun to build, but the guitar is decent, so I guess it's ok. However this will be the last Saga kit I ever buy. Next time I'll just piece together a guitar from ebay.

There is no way anyone should ever pay over $100.00 for this kit. It's certainly not worth $140.00. If you can find one for $75.00, you'll be ok.

22 fret. Laminated (theoretically maple) top which is very thin. One volume and 1 tone pot. A 3-way selector switch. Two humbuckers, unknown make. Body is basswood with the aforementioned maple effect top. The guitar comes finished with a clear lacquer primer. The body is a PRS style. The bridge is akin to a Les Paul - stop bar tailpiece and tune-o-matic bridge. The tuners are die-cast and reasonable, but not great. The neck is maple and is finished in a satin coat (which I left "as is" as I quite liked the finish. The headstock comes as a plain paddle. The idea is that you shape it to the stype you fancy. However, you can't make a PRS style headstock easily because of the shape of the paddle. The PRS headstocks get thinner and the paddle lends itself to a LP style headstock much more. Also, I was never great at woodwork as a kid and I didnt' want to screw it up!

My main other guitar is a Gibson Les Paul. It hasn't quite got the refined sound of a LP, but what do you expect for under 200 quid? The bridge pickup is quite bright and has a bit more bite to it than my LP. The neck pickup is quite bass heavy, but I haven't altered the height of it a lot to compensate. I'm using it with a Marshall TSL100 head and a 1960A cab and stupid though it may sound, it produces quite a good tone and sounds great if you're trying to emulate Gary Moore doing "Still Got The Blues" stuff like "Moving On" and "Walkin' By Myself". It actually sounds more accurate to the record than my LP, which is crazy as that's what Gary used! As I've said before, the bridge pickup is quite bright, but the background noise isn't distracting. Between the two picups you can get quite a variety of tones. No big complaints for the price!

Being a self-construct guitar, I could say that most of the flaws are mine! The body and neck fitted together well. However, the neck retaining screws ARE slightly too long under the pickup and need to be filed a little. The action so far is pretty spot on. I haven't needed to adjust the truss rod (but that could just be a fluke). It plays almost as well as my LP, and that's been professionally set-up! The quilted top isn't very prolific, but it's noticeable. The only complaint is that it IS thin. However, unlike other reviews, it isn't green or grey in colour and the finish on it is actually pretty good. The fixtures and fittings did fit first time, with the exception of needing to file out the pickup holes a little, and the tuner retaining screw holes being slightly out of sync with the tuners. No big problems tho. They just needed re-drilling. The nut was pretty accurate (but it IS only plastic). The tone control gives a wide range of sounds, so that's a bonus, as my LP doesn't have quite the range of this. The hardware is only basic stuff, but really, for the price, it's a lot better than guitars I've bought in the past.

I've only played it for a few hours so far, so I can't really comment! However, next week I'll be taking it to a gig and using it alongside my LP. What the hell! It's not got quite the solid feel of the LP, but once again, it doesn't cost over 100 quid!

Bought from the Manchester Guitar Tech http://www.manchesterguitartech.co.uk. He provided me with some excellent tips and tricks and he also sells the nitrocellulose lacquers to finish it how you want. Infact, I can't fault his service!

I've been playing for 15 years and this is the first guitar I've bought from a kit. For the price I paid it far outweighs guitars I've played in the 400 quid bracket (including Fender Strats). I'[m sorry, but it does! I wont be putting this one down a lot in the near future. If it were stolen Id buy another, but I'd spend more time trying to get the finish exactly how I wanted it (but I was just impatient at the time!). What do I love about it? I made it, and so far it sounds and plays damn well! What do I hate about it? The pickup switch is too close to the bridge and difficult to change mid-song. Anything I wish I had? - Yeah! A real PRS but its out of my price range! Honestly - if you want to make your own PRS style guitar and customise it a bit - go for it.

I just got and assembled this last night, no finish yet. It has a basswood body, average. The joints on the maple neck are sloppy and uneven. The "flamed maple" (laminate) top is really thin and has a weird yellow/green/grey tint. The instructions were messed up, and the wieres don't all connect properly and oren't correctly color coded. The screws for the neck or too long, and started to emerge from the top. The top of the guitar has odd black and red marks, so I might just paint it a flat color.

So far I haven't been able to get any sound from it at all, it doesn't work.

The action sucks, the neck is bowed the wrong way, and it buzzes badly.

I've been playing for 6 years, and this is my first kit. Honestly, it's discouraging.

Standard features for the saga guitar kit: flamed maple top (yea right, it's laminate..) humbuckers, ect..

sounds pretty good actually. I would recommend playing it through a nice marshal tube amp, it really helps. It's got perfomance quality sound, but wouldn't be that great for the studio

this is where my main problem with the guitar comes in. Not only is the maple top extremely thin laminate, my top had a number of severe problems. The whole bottom section of the maple is discolored an ugly grayish green, and the seam between the maple and the edge of the guitar is really poor, with chunks missing in the maple. There were also a number of red chunks and particles embedded in the finish on the guitar, that I tried to dig out with a knife, with limited success. I ended by simply spray painting the body a solid color, as the finish problems were too severe to remedy. If the top was a little thicker, I might have been able to sand out the blemishes, but any sanding and you go right through it, so no dice.

it's well made and solid, no problems here. The tuners do suck, but what do you expect? Otherwise, it's pretty much fine. I've set the neck in with epoxy, which I think helps make the guitar more solid and improves sustain.

If you expect a pretty guitar, this is not for you, unless your willing to do extensive work. Otherwise, it's a fine guitar, and sounds suprisingly good.

This guitar was made this year by me. It has a 22 fret maple neck with rosewood board. The body is basswood with a thin flame maple top.

It has 2 wax-potted humbuckers with volume and tone controls and a 3-way pickup selector.

It looks a bit like a PRS and I finished it in transparent lacquer.

It has a Tune-O-Matic bridge and stop tailpiece.

Although the tuners were die cast and sevicable I swapped them out for some Gotog Grover copies I had.

The neck is quite slim with a 25" scale.

The kit came with strings and a lead.

I like to play indie type stuff and this guitar is fine for that. I use it plugged into my Marshall 50W combo.

It does make some decent sounds and there is a good difference in sound between the pickups.

Well I have to say that there were a few errors in the instructions that came with the kit but any problems were easily overcome and the kit went together fairly easily.

As others have said the maple top can't be stained with water-based stains but I used clear tinted lacquer which really brought out the flame in the maple top.

Once I'd set this guitar up it played pretty well.

Well I don't gig but it seems tough enough! The hardware is all decent quality and I don't see any problems.

The guy I bought it from was very helpful but I haven't tried or needed to contact SAGA!

This guitar was fun to build and made for an intersting project. It will never rival a real PRS (no kidding!) but I think anyone who took their time and some care could build a pretty good guitar.

I purchased this kit on ebay for 140 dollars and I guess I got what I payed for. THe flamed maple top was pretty thin and the neck had some flaws in it. The body is basswood, so it's average. I would have preferred ash or alder.
The guitar has two humbuckers and a standard PRS set-up for electronics. What surprised me was that the pickups WERE NOT EVEN POTTED!!! I had to take the pickups apart and pot them in wax. Not good for the first-timer. THe pots and switch were crappy. I got new ones off of steward macdonald.
The hardware is decent. The tuners are pretty similar to the epiphones that i've worked on. Not crappy, but not that great. Definitely better than the tuners on the strat and tele kits!

After I tweaked with the pickups, I got a pretty nice sound. The lows were deep and the highs were very nice. A generally warm tone. I use a marshall valvestate amp and digitech 300 pedal. It can definitely take some hard distortion. The clean was nice once I tweaked my pedal.

HA!! Who set up this guitar! There were so many problems with the body and neck. There were parts of the body that were not put together right. A part of the body wasn't glued!!! THe cavity was done right, but the pre-drilled holes couldn't of been done by a computer. The neck had piece chipped out and there were scratches on it. I had to do a lot of sanding.

I have read previous reviews on this guitar and I see how staining can be a problem. Water-based stains won't work because the wood is already sealed. Alcohol-based dyes are the best. You can get them at www.reranch.com and they definitely work. A nitrocellulose lacquer is recommended.
The nut on this guitar was plastic. I took it off and replaced it with a bone one. THe frets were lined up alright, but I don't think they were cleaned. They was a lot of crud on them.

I've been playing this guitar at gigs and at church for a couple of months now as backup and it has been alright. The nitrocellulose lacquer is very durable and there are few, if any, scratches. The neck is still tight and the finish is excellent. I regularly use a ibanez semi-hollow body and needed this guitar as a backup until I could get the ibanez fixed.

Overall, this isn't the best kit for beginners. If you've done the others, then this isn't so hard. I make guitars as a side job, and from a professional point of view, these kits are going to need some work. Once you replace the electronics and adjust the neck, then you've got yourself a pretty-decent guitar.

I purchased this guitar on ebay as a project to do over the winter break (I am a college student). First i'll talk about the materials you get then about those i chose to replace.

they sell this guitar claiming it has a "flamed maple top". This is really a half (or perhaps 1/4 or 1/8 depending on how you look at it) truth. it is really a flamed maple veneer (i.e. very thin slice). The problem is that since it's so thin and already comes sealed it's basically impossible for you to stain with a water-based dye. i am no expert on this, but i am not even sure if other translucent stains would work. I lightly sanded to try to get to the raw wood, but I soon realized how thin the veneer is(!) and sanded through to the basswood (which happens to accept the stain very readily). you're basically stuck with the top they give you in terms of color (unless you want to put an opaque spray paint on it).

the wood of the rest of the body is basswood = not very good. oh, and it's about 4-5 pieces of basswood (we smiling yet). basswood is very porous. luckily, saga has already filled the grain/sealed it. so much of the work is left out for you. That is, unless you're a naive fool like me and decide to stain it. While it is easy to stain once you sand through all the sealer saga put on it, you really don't want to do that, trust me. It doesn't really look good, and the basswood is a pain to deal with in my opinion. Just paint the back some opaque color or something (black would do well).

the neck, so they say, is "maple". This is probably true, but I don't really know for sure. It was impossible for me to stain with a water-based stain. I think I probably needed to sand it more. I just didn't. My fault. The necks I've seen from other people look really good with stewmac's vintage amber. I would recommend this to anyone looking for that classic fender look.

The included hardware is cheap. I decided to replace the included pot knobs, machine heads, and PLASTIC nut. Don't think you are getting great components, because you are not. I replaced the volume/tone knobs because the ones that came with it are the cheapest looking crap. Instead I ordered some of those "speed knobs" like you find on Les Paul Customs. This is a really nice touch if you don't want your guitar to well, look cheap. I also replaced the machine heads that were included (they are pretty flaky-very loose, you can tell they're goingto suck) with Gotoh machine heads (black) from (stewmac.com). by the way I purchased all upgrades from stewmac. Make sure that if you buy replacements (I wanted to get Schaller locking tuners, but the pre-drilled holes in the headstock are in the wrong place for schallers. the gotoh's fit perfectly. they are called "Schaller style") I also replaced the nut that is included (plastic is a poor material for a nut) with a bone nut from stewmac. This was kind of a problem. I didn't purchase the right size nut. the one I got was too narrow (Width and height are okay, you will have to file/sand/cut it down). If you are going to replace the nut, i would highly recommend you MEASURE the original and try to get a good match, otherwise you'll have a somewhat hacked together nut like i do. THis is also another issue. Filing the nut down is a process which kind of requires the right tools/precision/patience. If you don't put in all 3 of these, there is a good chance the instrument will not play/sound decent whatsoever. So if you decide to replace the nut like me, be careful.

I finished it with stewmac's gloss nitrocellulose lacquer. (2-3spray cans were sufficient for the entire thing) It actually turned out okay.

bottom line: the materials are crappy, but it does come together (miraculously)

This guitar sounds fine. I still need to set it up properly, but after plugging it into my boogie (dual rectifier maverick 1x12 combo) it sounds pretty wicked. i had the pickups fairly close to the strings and it was a wild animal! very hot signal. i doubt the pickups are really that good, though. I just had em close :) not really noisy (anymore than my other guitars). i don't know how i'd classify the sound. it really just sounds like a guitar. the neck position soudns a lot like a les paul, in my opinion, but a little bit less warm. the bridge is pretty hot and good. i would definitely not classify either one as "bright" or "single coil"-like. overall, the sound is, well, average humbucker on a light-weight guitar.

oh, and one more thing. sustain on this thing is kind of what you'd expect: mediocre-average. i'm used to my les paul... let's just say don't expect this guitar to be mahogany or have a solid maple top.... it is basswood and don't expect great sustain.

it's alright I suppose.

the top was definitely not bookmatched correctly (LOL) they didn't even attempt to line up the veneer. it also didn't go down the center of the guitar NOR was it a straight up and down, but rather kind of angled a few degrees (you have to really be looking to notice, but it's not difficult)

I think this guitar has potential as a (relatively) cheap axe to play around with. I definitely won't feel bad going nuts with it or banging it up (except damaging good components like machine heads :)).It does seem pretty solid, though, how could it not? I think most of it will last.
I still haven't played on it enough or set it up to comment on the other parts of this question.

I definitely would not build this one again, since you are basically paying extra ($140 compare to about $80-90 for the strat & tele kits) for the "flame maple top" and other things like pickups. I might do one of the other kits, but I would not attempt staining it. If i had to do it all over, I would give it a few easy coats of some opaque color and be done with it, instead of going through all the effort of stain (which was basically fruitless anyway).

umm ya. you're on yer own dude!

here's where I'll tell you total costs. I basically spent:
$165 - the kit from ebay ($140 plus outrageous $25 shipping)
$200 finish and replacement components from stewmac.com

so total cost was about $365. Not too bad but not too good either. COuld have been halfway toward a US Strat.

Overall, this was a fun project, and you might find it fun as well.

I would definitely steer you away from it if you are looking at building a "great guitar" or something you want to be valuable. This for sure is not a great guitar or valuable by any means. It was kind of fun to put together and finally play. But I dunno. another $350 and I could have had a USA Strat. ANd that is a great guitar. It's all up to you.

As a project, i'd give it a thumbs up.
as a serious project for someone with woodworking tools and skill, I would not recommend this. I'd say build from scratch from a book such as "how to make an electric guitar" by Hyscock.
as a good guitar, i'd give it a thumbs down.

again, it depends.

The guitar was a kit. I'm not sure where it was made. It has 22 Frets. It has one volume, and one tone knob. It also has a 3 way toggle switch (the switch was wired backwards, so check your before installation!!!) The guitar has 2 nice sounding humbucker pickups. The guitar was "ready for finishing." That is, all but one spot, which ended up being a major pain to rectify during my hand finishing. The guitar came with what looked like a nice flame top, but I ended up staining the guitar so dark, to cover the "bad spot" that the flame really doesn't show up now. It has a tupe-o-matic style bridge and a stop tailpiece. The tuners are sealed. One other thing that bothered me was that it didn't come with all the necessary screws to put it together. But a walk to the hardware store took care of that. Also, many of the pre-drilled holes weren't where they should have been, they were slightly off. Once I did get the guitar assembled (it was EASY) and set up (also easy, but then again, I've set up a lot of guitars) I was suprised. It plays and sounds really good!!!

I mainly play blues and blues rock. This guitar is perfect for it. It sounds great for slide, volume knob swells etc. I play it through a Marshall. No annoying hum, etc. It just sounds great!!!

The neck supposedly needed "no work" and was ready to play. But.....I will need to do some fretwork on one fret which is too high. As far as set up, I did that, so it's ok. The bad fret is a bummer however. Due to that, it's a 7.

The guitar is actually pretty darn solid. I think it will last.

I've been playing for about 30 years, and have never built a guitar before, so I thought this would be a fun project. Other than the problem staining the wood due to it's bad spot, missing screws (other screws also stripped easily), I actually like this thing a LOT. If it were lost or stolen, I probabally wouldn't get another. Like I said, this was a "fun project." The guitar is very balanced in weight, and after proper setup, sounds great. The built guitar itself is great, building the kit had it's issues.