Saga T-Style Kit

This is a follow up!
The tuners are in fact locking, and now I've adjusted them, they stay in tune OK! with a bit more oil - they are OK.
Got the bridge earth wire connected OK
I've got the neck pick-up connected and working!
I can use it with the bridge pick up - but not on its own.
Not sure if it is the wiring or the switch I need to look at - still trying to find the right wiring diagram.
I will say it is good value now! i have given it a couple of coats of clear satin varnish and it looks good!

Sealed Matt finish to basswood body - looks good. It is a semi hollow body telecaster style, three piece body. Solid 3 piece top
Tele style bridge - you can string it from the back of the bridge, or it has the holes so you convert it to string through the body.
These are non locking unbranded tuners, not so good quality, hard to get in tune, feel a bit rough, but just about do the job.
Matt finish maple neck looks good too:
21 fat frets, standard scale length, smooth c-shape neck feels good -I like! scale length 25 1/2 inch.
Sent with tools - 2x allen keys - 1 for the bridge saddle adjustment, 1 for the truss rod adjustment.
Made 2007 brand new stock made to order! I had to wait 2 1/2 months for delivery cos it was out of stock, but it came in the end!
Not sure where it was made - it was imported to GB, I think they are a U.S. firm.
Bridge and neck pickup volume pots with metal knob controls, 3-way selector switch. S/S neck and bridge pickup, neck pup has chrome cover, bridge pup is uncovered. pups are unbranded. passive electrics

I want to play rock and roll with it! I have got the bridge pickup working and I like the twangy telecastery sound!
Used with Crate half stack amp so far to test.
Noisy - get hum when put guitar near amp - i will have to check earth wire connection, maybe i can fix this properly, not sure i have connected it right yet! - no electric shielding to cavity.
no hiss tho
sound is quite full and rich on bridge pup - I havn't managed to get the neck pup working yet! i'm sure i connected it ok, but i will check. Had to solder all the wires, there were no solder free connectors despite what the dealers advert said.
Like the look, shape, natural wood appearance of body and neck, feel and weight good too. don't like neck pickup not working

Wasn't set up at factory cos it is a kit! easy to adjust height of bridge saddles with allen key provided - sets up fine, havn't needed to adjust neck truss rod cos action is ok.
Well I had to pack out the the pick ups with cardboard to get them to sit in the cavity. foam pad for neck pickup is too thick (sent later as was missing from original delivery, as was jack socket. as for adjustment, well bridge pickup works ok, but no sound from neck pup yet! will have to fiddle with it and try to fettle it! so overall sound too bassy at momemt - need bright trebly sound from neck pup to balance and mix it.
Top very well fitted, bridge well routed.
Some of the screws holes drilled slightly wrong place - eg jack socket plate so had to redrill, control plate holes just about ok, scrtach plate dosn't fit at side of bridge by 5mm for a v. small length n=but this is a small prob. had to drill all holes for scratch plate screws. had to fiddle with wires where they solder to pots from pups - had to separate from sheath with knife wrap tape to insulate bare copper strands - bit awkward but got it done. Now they should send full instructions for this and other assembly - i had to download the wiring diagram from fender.com which isn't quite the same and just do my best! nut is well fitted. tuning pegs bit too much play in them.

Guess this guitar will withstand live playing, body and neck and joining bolts seem good. Tuners may not last so long, but don't know yet as I have just finished assembling it.
Satin seal finish looks durable - no need to paint if u don't want to.
Strap buttons ok, screws look a bit weak - time will tell.

I had to wait ages for delivery and dealer kept saying it would be a month, then 2 more weeks etc- but to be fair the ad on the web site did say it was not in stock yet. Came missing two parts, but they arrived within a week or two of contacting dealer about it. not sure if there is a warranty, suppose 12 months for individual parts, not as a whole.
Had to email several times to chase up, but when I phoned they were very friendly helpful and honest, and they did send a coupla email replies, and they came good in the end. I think they didn't get delivery from importer when the were promised

Playing 15 years. have yamaha acoustic, fender cyclone HH, Tanglewood TH-501 semi acoustic, have had Fender Squire/jap strat, Park amp, Hohner Se-35 semi acoustic and other guitars.
I really like the body and the neck is good - what i am fed up with is the neck pup dosn't work yet!
Got it as an inexpensive home build tele copy - had lotsa fun making it as a project - a few snags and hassles, but i am glad i did it! i WILL get it fully sorted! Good learning experience to build n fix guitars, fair value.

Unfinished body and neck you'll be lucky if they actually fit. Junk tuners and horrible pot metal hardware with very thin plating which you can almost scratch off with your fingernail. 2 pots which are basically on or off. 3 way switch which is broken and will not select bridge pickup without jamming a toothpick in it. Lousy pick ups, they ought to be ashamed to sell such trash.

Sounds a little like a tele if you can make it produce sounds at all. Pots are noisy and don't do anything tuners will spin out of tune. All in all, Horrible.

Guitar comes in kit form , the jokes on you, after you build it you will wish you bought a different kit and not have wasted your effort on this.

See above.

What Support?

Do not waste your money on this. Even $89.00 is too much for trash. If you want to learn how to build a Guitar, look elsewhere. There are plenty of quality kits available, this is definitely not one.However if you do a good enough job on finishing it might make a nice wall hanging. If it were stolen I would laugh. I am embarrased at throwing 89 bucks away. Been playin' since '66. I know my stuff

This was my first Saga kit and I was very surprised at the quality. It is basically a duplicate of a Telecaster. The only real modification I have made to mine so far has been converting it to a "string through". I mounted the bridge and drilled through the holes under the saddles with a drill press. Then I countersunk them from the other side and added ferules. It turned out perfect and I am still using the stock bridge.

It took me a while to get the bridge pickup adjusted to the sound I wanted. The neck pickup is only adjustable by removing the pickguard so I am planning to drill a couple of holes in the pickguard and rig it so that it can be adjusted externally. As of right now my guitar has all the stock electrics with the only modifications being copper foil in all the cavities and everything is hardwired instead of using the pigtail connectors. I could probably spend a lot of money on pots and pickups and get a better sound but I am perfectly happy with it like it is. I would also like to mention that this guitar has the most resonent sound unplugged of any of my other electric guitars.

The neck fit flawlessly. Every screw hole on the entire guitar lined up perfectly. I did end up shimming the neck just a bit to get the action exactly where I wanted it. I sanded the edges of the fretwire, leveled and polished all the frets,and cut the headstock in a tele style. All finishing supplies came from Reranch. I used their primer and nitro paint and clear coats. I used the amber tinted clear and a few coats of just plain clear to get a vintage look to the neck. It came out really beautiful. The body was done in Sonic Blue and I used the stock white pickguard. It really looks great. This has actually become my favorite guitar to play. I love the string spacing and the neck "just feels right". I also own a Strat that I built from parts purchased here and there, a 1976 Gibson LP Deluxe, a Yamaha Pacifica, and a few assorted other toys.

I can't see any reason this won't last my lifetime and probably be left to my son one day. The only thing that I didn't do during construction that I wish I had was glue the frets. I have developed a buzz on my low E because of a proud fret. I will be glueing them all soon and I will be doing that as I build future Saga kits. I am going to build a S-style kit and another T-style kit with a Bigsby tremola. Future modifications include a tusk nut and roller string trees. I may change the tuning machines eventually but for now they seem to work just fine. I have been running Fender vintage nickle wound strings in extra light (.009) and I love the feel.

Never have tried to contact them. I would feel silly calling them to complain about a guitar that I built. I suppose there could have been issues with some of the componenets but there certainly weren't any problems with mine.

If I was going to replace this with a "storebought" guitar, I would have to look at the USA Teles to find something at all comparable. Including the paint I have about $150 invested in this guitar. I will probably spend another $15 on string trees and a nut blank. I think that the kit is perfect as it comes. The fact that it is so inexpensive gives you the flexibility to customize it. Even if you only want to use the neck and body and scrap the rest it is a good value. I have another one that I am building for my son and I plan to build at least a couple more Saga kits for myself. They are fun to build and produce great instruments. I have been playing for about 30 years just for my own entertainment. If I were a working musician, I wouldn't hesitate to rely on it although I may keep another one backstage in case I break a string or something. If I was asked to play with a country, blues, or classic rock band, I would show up with my Saga.

I purchased a Saga Tele kit as my first project guitar. The instructions were first rate, all of the pieces were there, although I did upgrade the tuners to some E-bay special Groth tuners. I wouldn't recommend staining the body because of the iron-like sealer they used at the factory. The screws for the strapp buttons were too short in my opinion, and pulled out after a few uses. A little longer screw and some nail glue fixed that issue. Also, the ground wire from the pickup was too short and I had to lengthen it reach the control. Other than that, an excellent product.

The sound is great; reminds me of the 60's Tele's. It has just the right crunch for surf or rockabilly. The pickups do need a bit of adjusting from the stock position.

Set up was easy with the instructions explaining intonation and string heighth.

Should last as long as my other Fender products.

No need for customer support.

For the money, I think I spent $100 on the kit, $20 for the tuners, and about $20 for paint and supplies this is a great value. The finished product plays better than any Squier I've played and better that the "copy" bullet strats that are on the market. I highly recommend it.

It is a nice, stripped down typical Telecaster knock-off. 2 single coil pickups, sealed -not finished- body, pre-wired electronics. Spend a day putting it together and viola! your very own Telecaster.

It comes with a really well written set of instructions too. I believe that they were originally written in English too, (not Engrish or Chinglish)

In putting mine together, I swapped out the stock bridge and put a 6 saddle string-through-body bridge in there, just my own preference. $20 extra to the price.

The neck, fretboard, and frets were all very nice on mine, no adjustment necessary. Nice pots, switches and jack. Smooth, not scratchy, reasonably high quality.

My greatest complaint is that the body is sealed with a coat of laquer about 5 mm thick. I had wanted to stain it, but that would have required a lot of sanding. To its credit though, the wood grain is really handsome. I am going to get a black pick guard for it and it will look really snappy.

Very nicely shielded pickups, very quiet. The bridge is very bright and snappy, fairly powerful too. The neck is much thicker, darker sounding. In between, it has a good mix of the two. I am becoming a Telecaster only kind of guy. My main guitar is an Alverez 3 pickup Tele copy which I thought couldn't be beat, but that is more my 'idealized' Tele sound. The Saga has the 'traditional' sound and it is really good.
I went down to my local music store to play their Teles, and the only one that this could really compare with at all was the Fender American, seriously.

This really depends on the person who sets it up. I spent a fair amount of time on getting things to go together nicely. To assemble and finish the guitar to my liking I used a miter saw to cut the headstock, a cordless drill with a tiny drill bit for pilot holes for my mods and a phillips head to screw things together, I used a drill press for the string-through and the same cordless drill with a large bit to mount the ferrules, a little sandpaper, and a soldering gun to improved the electrical connections.
I agree with the previous posts that the tuning gears are cheap, but a little oil in them smooths things up nicely. I spent a good deal of time rewiring the guitar, since it came pre wired and color-coded, finishing it was a snap.

This also depends on the person assembling it. I took my time. I have about 10 hours invested into it. Re-wired it. Made sure all the screws were properly tight. I would use it without a backup on stage. And since it is so cheap, I probably will. I might even buy another to have as a back up for this.

Bought on Ebay from Slashman Music. Nice guys who ship very quickly. Saga has a nice website too.

Fantastic value and a wonderful learning experience. This seems like a good 'Father and Son' activity. If I had a kid, I'd buy this for him or her. Patience, attention to detail and a little experimenting gets you great instrument, and if you totally botch it, you won't be broke, and you'll have lots of good left over parts.

When I ordered it, I was afraid that the components would be so cheap that I'd have to put another two hundred bucks into nice components, boy was I pleasantly surprised that I didn't have to.

Although a completely good guitar on its own as it is, I wish that either the reseller or the company would offer a bunch of options to personalize it, such as different routings for the pick ups, different pickups, the string through bridge, upgraded tuners, upgraded pots. But, that said, the guitar doesn't NEED any of that to be what it is -- a great standard Tele at a price that is unbelievable.

This is an update on a prevous submission.

I had to sell my gear because of financial problems and was in need of a good, cheap guitar.
I am a regular gigging musician.
I got the kit on Monday and was gigging with it on Friday.
The only things that needed extra work were replacing the tuners and filing the fret edges.
I gigged with this guitar many times with absolutely no problems.
I play through an older tube Marshall half stack.
It sounded and played excellent.
I put a Fender decal on the headstock and nobody knew the difference.
I have updated my gear and rarely play my Telecaster these days but it is close by when I need it or want to change guitars.
This was the best guitar investment I ever made.
I have been around a long time and had 60's to 90's Fender guitars.
This is as good as any of them.

Standard modern Telecaster features, budget hardware and woods. Wood is sealed, quite useable as it is. Easy to finish if you want.

These pickups really sound the business. There was a review somewhere on the web by some college professor who tested the Saga strat-kit pickups on some computer, and he reckoned they were comparable to 50s Fender pickups. I can believe that of these pickups!

Like other reviewers have said, you need to set this up to get the best out of it. Cutting the paddle headstock to shape wasn't a bundle of fun; that rock maple is rock hard! The edges of the fingerboard are quite sharp and need sanding for that rolled-edge feel. It's probably as friendly as a Squire-type guitar before setting up.

Machine heads poor. I wouldn't use it live myself as I haven't bothered to set it up; over the years I've been using Strats, Teles, 335s and Les Pauls and I just bought the kit for a bit of fun. I've had my fun, but this would probably would be fine for gigging; it's just that it doesn't suggest 'quality'. But why on earth would you expect it to at this price - it's a workhorse.

I've been playing since I was 6 in 1968. I got exactly what I expected from it - a bit of hobby fun building and spraying it. I didn't do a great job of the spraying, and I'll probably sell it on cheaply as a project guitar. Whatever you want out of it, I'd recommend it.

I like this guitar. It rocks my socks off! Except for the tuning peggys THey seem cheaper than market shoes in the discouint aisle. Holy smokes thats cheap!

Sounds like a double cheeseburger going through a car wash on saturday night with phil collins jammin on my accordion. Yes!....that good!

More action than a dolph lundgren/jackie chan whack-fest. This baby blows it up. THe best thing about it is the action once you file the frets down, but other than that its ok for a while.

This thing is so reliable that if I needed a ride home from pork school this dandy boy would pick me up a pizza before getting me and then a shake too. I love the way it takes care of my fingers. DId I mention the frets hurt?

About as much support as saran wrap would give to dolly parton doing jumping jacks...but it comes with directions, and I found my way there. Not bad for the time of day that it was either.

Despite the shoddy tuning pegs and the sharp frets I found this guitar to be a real cinch to assemble and an even greater joy to perform to. There is that saying that when you have 3 friends you really have 5. Well..now I have 6. ANd then I also have this great new electric hand maid buddee. THanks to the powers that be that let me buy my friends for real cheap.
Other than that its not bad, but it makes the women like me cuz I am musishun and lets face it. All the girlz like that kinda story book ending.

First thing....The headstock comes uncut in a big paddle shape.
After reading other reviews I asked the seller if he could cut it in a Fender shape for me.
He said yes and that I should include an extra $20 to have it cut.
It came uncut and I had to spend more money to have it cut.
I asked the seller to return my $20 because he did not have it cut.
He said he would but nothing.
I asked him a second time and still nothing.
If you should buy one of these kits do not send extra mnoney for anything.

The kit.
It comes exactly as described.

I am amazed at how good it sounds.
I play through a Marshall tube stack.

To make a good gigging instrument out of this kit you need to put a lot of work in to it.
I finished mine in a copper metallic/clear coat and added a tortoise shell pickguard.
I also put a Fender decal on the headstock.
It is beautiful.
Assembly was no problem.
Everything fit the way it should.
My intention was to use this guitar as a regular gigging instrument.
The day I assembled it I had a gig.
After playing it for over 4 hours I found what needed to be modified or changed.
First off there was something wrong in the wiring.
I had to jumper a couple wires and splice all the grounds together to get any sound out of it.
After playing it for hours my fingers were sore.
Mostly because the edges of the frets were sharp.
After considerable filing they are smooth as butter.
I oiled the tuners before I installed them and they were ok for awhile but they got to where they were not useable.
I had a 1969 Fender neck and put those tuners on the guitar.
Made all the difference in the world.
The G string is dead sounding when played open.
I haven't figured that out yet.
I raised the action and it helped some but not completely.
I am using Fender Bullets 9's and the nut may be cut for 10's.
Not a big problem.
Since I replaced the pickguard some of the holes had to be redrilled.
All in all this is one of the best looking and sounding guitars I have ever played.
It is a keeper but expect to find some bugs and take care of them as you go along.

So far so good.
I have played at several jams and gigs with it and it performs flawlessly.
I don't expect to have any problems with it.
Everything that was a problem has been rectified.
Hardware seems to be same quality as Fender.
I do not use any backups when gigging.

Read above...

I have been playing more than 35 years.
Compared to American Telecasters this one looks and sounds better than any I have played.
I owned a 1967 Telecaster and a 1997 American Fat Telecaster.
If you should buy one of these kits pay particular attention to the reviews here.
Forget about the negative reviews.
You get out of it what you put in to it.
If you just paint it and slap it together you can't expect much.
If you put the time in to it to find and rectify the bugs you will have a one of a kind excellent gigging instrument.