Saga TC-10

yes, the telecaster kit. basic guitar, but really all one needs...i set it up and got everything right and am not painting it witt duplicolor spary laquers. white and clear coat.

UPDATE 9/01/2008:
oh, something else i found out on my ALDER body tele kit that's being sold on the internet...(and that i assume is made by saga too.) the headstock has the tuner holes WAY far apart in comparison to the neck, compared with the basswood body kit i put together. the basswood kit parts were sized just perfectly. so, to get a tele style headstock shape on this guy, i need to plug the holes with 5/16" wood dowel and redrill the holes out in the right places. when it's all finished the repair won't be too noticable, but it's another task that's going to require patience and time.

i have to say the quality of the alder kis is very good, but it's like the neck and body are just slightly oversized. i'm not sure what's going on here. cbs era fenders tended to be like this. everything got REAL BIG.

they may have fabricated it this way to discourage people from making copyight restricted fender clones.

it souds superb. it was a bit tricky getting the action set. but that is something that takes a lot of tinkering and experience.

i eventually loosened the truss rod about a quarter turn to let the neck have a slicght concave radius when tuned to pitch. at first, the plastic bridge pinched the top two strings. anyway, it is set too high so i filed it down and recut the string slots and then, finally, adjusted the saddle heights..

it felt 'scratchy' at first. but if yoiu burnisf the frets bu pressing the strings down and rubbing them back and forth across the fretboard this sets the 'crown' of the frets and smoothes that out

i got the action pretty low. but these are medium sized frets...and the neck is what fender ay have graded close to a 'd' size-meaning it's on the larger size in section. that's not to say you can't shave the neck, but i'm not into speed metal, so the neck is fine as is for me.

being a 'purist', i wanted to get the headstock shape as close to vintage fender. i got a few detail pics of a reissue model headstock.

the most time-consuming task thus far was to get the back side of the neck/headstock like the fender style. 150 grit sandpaper and patience and i think i did a pretty nice job.

it seems as solid as anything. the upgrade jack should take care of any problems. the truss rod was effective.

i put the caps in that fender uses. the kit came with one cap on the tone pot. fender uses a .05 picofard bridging from the volume to the tone pot and a single .001 picofarad cap on the hot leads of the volume control. it's available as a diagram on-line if you are interested.

btw, the pots do have a very nice feel and taper. i'm not going to swap them out for now.

i'g give this a 9....but i think the tone is mostly due to the pickup upgrade. that's well worth the money to do if you want good tone. playing it thru my marshall jtm 45 with a doug hoffman hand wired board set up and slightly moded by jame's audio in Dallas,i have to say there's really not more i could ask for tone wise.

so, $100 for the kit, $90 for the pickups, $4 for the caps, pots and jack, $12 for the paint and the neck will have gloss clear and amber provided br reranch...and maybe a fender decal off the web that's going to be another $20 or so...a bit over $200 sunk into the project.

yes, the kit arrived very quickly! i bought it on ebay on the internet, and i've also seen it a few other sites but for more money...

i was very pleased with the overall quality of the kit. the neck is indeed maple. it does have some brown streaking in the wood, but overall it looks fine for a clear finish. the frets are medium...but they were dressed well. there was a comment somewhere that the frets 'seemed to be wearing quickly'; well I guess i'll find out, but they look fine. i've bought a lot of after-market fender style necks, and this neck is one of the better...

the body is solid and laminated from 5 or 6 strips of basswood. one comment was that the 'body couldn't be clear coated'...well, it looks fine to me. sort of nice. the sealer is a lot better than the sealer on cbs fenders. anyway, for now i'm dry fitting the whole thing together and after it's all set up i may decide to have it painted.

the whole thing bolted together. the routing is very clean and tight fit is common. you need to use that screw driver that has a t-handle to get the larger screws in.

i tightened the truss rod up a bit. once it's all strung i'll set the final tension.

the hardware is well made and has good plate on it. btw, the guitar string thru the bridge, not thru the body as is the case on the standard tele. drilling out those 6 holes so close together on a basswood body...well that's tricky. good chance they'd chip out even if you used a good dripp press. so, i'm sticking with the kit's configuration here.

the pots are 'mini' type. they seem well made. i'll have to see how well they trim the sound. if i don't like it i've already ordered a set of replacements...250 audio and 250 k linear taper. also, an 'orange drop' capacitor. it's only a dollar, and they seem to be the rage among amp builders.

the jack-that's a thing i advise you replace. the one they send with the kit is a bit lightly made. a switchcraft plug costs 2 or 3 dollars but once it's in it will last years. i replaced mine. if you think of how many times you plug and unplug over time...

the tuner keys...well, a little light gauge but i popped the backs off and have the gears exposed so i can tighten the screws...i'm going to give tham a chance, but may opt to get a set of gotah's.

pickguard-very nicely made, usually these things cost 20 dollars at guitar center. all-parts probobly buys their pickguards from the guys in china who cut the one that comes with this kit.

one commet: p'ickguard didn't match cutaway.' actually, that 'hump' at the inside the cutaway where the neck conects to the body is a characteristc of an 'authentic' telecaster. if you look at any telecaster, that's the way the pickguards really are fit.

one comment 'screws seem cheap'; actually they're the same you get at lowes or home epot. i noticed the pickguard screws look like they have a nickle plate, not a high gloss chome plate. the large screws are chrome. the p-g crews do seem a gauge too small, but they fit fine and i can't complain.

the pickups: well, i bought a set of fender vintage telecaster pu's, so i'm not going to be able to say anything about what they sound like.

i saw a company that sells this kit with a set of 'upgrade' pu's for $260 or so...i paid about $90 with shipping for my pickups.

I had to trim out the neck p-u opening slightly using a sharp knife...the fender unit is just a little bit lareger at ends. on the positive side, it was easy to do and there's a super-tight fit there that looks very nice.

i downloaded and printed out a template to cut tele head shape. if your using a jig saw, try a 14 tooth per inch blade-it will go slow but you won't have any chipping. also, if you use a jigsaw, you will need to cut from the back...so your template has to be a mirror image. if you have a band saw you can cut from the top...and use the regular template.

so, it's all assembled except for the tuner keys...

haven't wired it up yet...

pretty darned good by any assessment. darned good for a kit that is mass produced in china and costs under $100. the body has a carved out back like on a strat...i guess they do that to avoid copy right issues with fender. but it's nice...sort of an upgrade in a way...

should be fine. everything is solid. neck is hard rock maple (you'll find out when you cut the headstock-that's hard wood)

possible down side: tuner key...
pickups-may not sound as good as real fender units. the 1/4 jack should be replaced with a good quality one like one from switchcraft.

i didn't need customer support

25 years, lots of fender stratocasters...including a couple with after-market maple bodies. guild deep body jazz electric, guild d-55, j-45...a gibson les paul, es-335 dotneck with soapbar pickups...

i play a marshall jtm 45 with a hand wired point to point doug hoffman board. also, i had a twin reverb i sold. for just messing around i use a small solid state crate combo.

okay, well i'm enjoying this project...i'm sure it will sound great. i may decide to get it painted, but maybe not. it's a good choice if you have some experience in setting a guitar up. correct set-up is always the key for any guitar at any price. but the basic guitar assembly is made about as easy as it could be. hyou'll need that phillips head screwdriver with the t-handle to get the neck screws in.

well i've been reading the comments on the saga tele kit here...i ordered one on ebay last night...so for $95 plus $24 shipping, it's got to at least be an interesting experience.

i had a ash body telecaster years ago and i traded it in for a giuld d55. since then i've boucgt 6 or so strats and set tem up with different pickups...fender custom shop, stock fender, seymore duncan, etc...but i've always had this longing to get another telecaster.

first, a lot of comments are saying the body sealer is real thick. well, i think that's cause basswood (if indeed it is real basswood) is really soft...and will ding unless there's a hard shell on top. i'm hoping it will look interesting/decent without needing to get it sprayed, but we'll see. apperantly it's pot luck how many wood chunks go into a particular body, which is common with aisia manutacturers because they want to waste no wood at all. some pic i've seen of the kit look like the body is made from balsa wood! others. the wood has a nice warm color to it. bass wood comes in a wide range of colors...so it's usually painted.

i'm hoping the neck and fiingerboard are at least equal to older fender stuff--made in the 70's under cbs, the equipment was sooo poorly made fit and finish wise...anyway, i think the new generation of customers doesn't appreciate how well even a fender squire is made! today everything is carved on a computer controlled lath...so fit and finish tend to be pretty good.

on the electronics, i always was thinking of an upgrade. i'm thinking about klein pickups-it's a company in north texas that specializes in custon windings and stuff. they price at about what anythng from seymore duncan would cost-maybe a bit less in fact.

as a side note to comments about the board being really rosewood...lest us not forget that even rickenbacker usus bubinga on their fretboards-that's a wood usually reserved for the lowest priced instruments. frankly, if they seal the board too, it tells me the fretboard most likely isn't rosewood, but some other wood that has a stain on it.

i have so many strats, and i really want a tele...so, i thought this project maty be fun..i'm expecting to not use the pickups, and maybe needing to bu a set of tuners because there's a lot of negative comment s on them here. also, i'll most likely put in pots from, again, klein. it is after all a very simply wired guitar so the swap is no big deal, and one of the nice things about the tele is how well the volume control works. you can really set the tone with the volume pot.

anyway, when i get the kit and put it together i'll try to write some non-biased comments here.

in my opinoion, the order of how any electric solid body guitar sounds is: 1. player skill, 2. amp/speaker type & pickups, 3. overall set-up 4. wood type (species), and 5. quality of wood (number of laminate chunks).

well well see

hoping for the best. expecting possibly a trip to the local refinishing shop. sometimes these folkes will cut you a deal and spray you the color of the day for a low price. or sometimes they just may want to groove a bit and do a 'vintage' finish at a well price.

i have to believe the wood parts are fine. the neck will be playable, the frets relatively even set and not too rough...but we will see. i'm expecting to replace the pots and selector switch.

i don't expect much from saga-from what i've seen their business model is to source out manufacturers to get these kits together for the lowest possible price. it is a kit after all.

well we will see!

Basic Tele kit from Saga

Stock pickups area crap, so figure on upgrading. I put in a set of vintage Seymour Duncan I got from Timber Ridge Custom Shop and they really made a difference. Now its really not a bad player.

Bad out of the box, but I can't say enough for the ebay guy I bought this from. He puts in the kit a set of tips on building that really make you think about building and are very helpfull. Plus he actually answers his emails and kinda long winded ! All in all, pretty good service.

Like most Asian stuff, its middle of the road. The only advantage is building to your taste.

Nothing at all from Saga, but the guy I bought this from, Timber Ridge Custom Shop, is great. About the only guy on ebay you can trust.

Well, its still a Saga kit, and you get what you pay for, but the experience was pretty informative and fun. Don't expect this to be a Fender like ax out of the box. Its not. But I do think if I made another I could make it as good or better than a mexican fender. Its really not too tough to do !

Tele-style guitar kit. White pickguard, tele controls w/o tophat style, bridge with 6 saddles and strings through back of bridge. Chrome of decent thickness, maple neck w/ rosewood and white dots, ALDER body prefinished. Head stock was paddle I cut to G&L shape, 22 frets that needed dressing, I pre-lubed the tuners, used graphite Ts instead, Big Bends nut sauce on the nut and back of string holes. Riuted body and pickguard for white open coil 10 Ohm humbucker I had. The wiring diagram was backwards and the neck adjustment was backwards on the directions, too! Only one hole had to be toothpick filled and re-drilled 1/16" over. I ran a ground from under the bridge plate to the common grounds and drilled for two extra mounting screws for the bridge, left it natural and put tung oil on my headstock cut. Intonated and set the pickups for proper influence. Dunlop 65 on the strings given. Shorted 6 screws!!! Required soldering which the strat kit doesn't.

I played it on my Behringer stack and my Orange stack. It will twang as a regular telecaster or crunch like a demon metal monster. My other telecaster has a twinblade bridge with coil splitting 5 way, so this is a different animal, without the bluesiness of the lipstick neck. It basically has two sounds as opposed to what it would have had. It would have been twang, rock on both, and blues on neck with a weaker over-all sound. It is such that you can play lead on either pickup, metal chugging rhythm on the neck or rock rhythm on the bridge. Sounds great!

This is a kit, so I had to "set it up". Frets needed substantial work then the board red oil as usual. Proper lubing of the tuners and nut is a necessity few seem to know. Like I said earlier some of the directions were backwards, and screws missing. It took more talent to make with soldering and fret dressing,etc. Besides the body having one screw hole off, it was great, needing no sanding or other work except what I did with my H neck mod. The neck lined up well. I set the action just under 1/8". The pots were good, tuners had phillips "deluxe" tightening screws and it holds fine, good sustain with the extra bridge screws and the lubing.

Everything was lubed and set up solid by me. Drop of glue in the strap button screw holes. The lube in the tuners will last years, while the Nut Sauce goes on at every string change and the string cleaner/lube weekly. It is very solid and could easily gig without a backup. The chrome is thick and durable.

I'm customer support. The dealer was a know nothing middle man.

It is and HS tele to go with my SH tele special, to go with my strats, to go with my Les Pauls, to go with my hollow and semi-hollow bodies, to play with or without effects through class A, AB, and solid state stacks and 1x2-12 or 1x12. I started to learn 43 years ago and am still learning. It is a very nice telecaster with a nice shape and look, and what used to be a weak bridge humbucker found its reincarnation as a monster neck pickup. It is a twanger and a bone crusher in one innocent looking guitar. The regular kit would sound OK.

Kit comes with everything...

Maple neck/rosewood fingerboard
Basswood 3-piece body
Standard Tele bridge
Neck pickup
Bridge pickup
etc etc

The wires were snap-together. So I took those off and redid them with solder connections instead. The ground wire was barely long enough.

Made in China, most likely. But trust me, this blows away the Squier Teles.

I play a lot of kinds of music- alt rock, blues/rock, metal, some classic rock. My amp is a Line 6 Spider III 30. I often use a Danelectro dist. pedal. I have no trouble getting those sorts of sounds with this guitar. It's pretty hard to get the ground wire to get onto the bridge screw entirely, and it shows. Depending on the gain settings I use, it can get noisy if my finger leaves the strings. The bridge pickup is very twangy clean, but has a very balanced tone when I crank the gain. The neck pickup is not so great. Although it is less harsh sounding than the bridge pickup clean, it isn't so great distorted- unless, that is, I'm playing blues stuff. In those cases, it does it's job well.

I had to finish this guitar on my own (I'll go into that in the Overall Rating section). The manual said that the neck was adjusted at the factory, but either that isn't true or it got out of whack in transition. Intonation was far from good at first. I got it professionally set up, and it's better. I still have problems with my G string sometimes.

It can most certainly withstand live playing. I don't play at concerts, but I do play at church and I know that this will hold to quite a bit. The tuners are gonna go at some point. They just plain stink. But for now, I'll live with what I've got. One of the strap button holes was stripped, and I replaced it with a Planet Waves one that had a bigger screw and that problem is now fixed. The finish is far from perfect, but that's most likely because I was the one who finished it, and it was my first time ever doing something like this.

No warranty. I have had to go to Saga so far...

Now...

When I bought it (by the way...if you get one of these, DO NOT buy from onlineguitar.com. Shipping took 3 weeks and customer service was horrible.), it came with all the parts that had been promised. I spent several days finishing it with 4 coats of Amber colored stain (for a Butterscotch blonde-like finish) and 3 coats of lacquer spray. I also spray painted the pickguard black to go for a '52 Tele style guitar. After spending a couple hours putting it together, I plugged it in. No sound. Took it apart and used the process of elimination. All the connections were good. The pickups, which I tested directly into the amp, worked fine. At first, we thought it might be the switch, which was of a weird design nothing like the Fender kind. Replaced that with an MIA switch, and that didn't fix the problem. Then I replaced the snap-together connections with solder connections, but to no avail. Finally, we found out it was the jack. Got a new one from RadioShack, and viola!

If it were stolen, I definitely wouldn't get this again. It was fun, but in the end, I would rather be able to just play it as soon as I get it. I put about $40-50 into this after paying the $80 + shipping.

It's a great guitar, but next time, I think I'll buy one that's already been put together for me.

About what you'd expect out of a standard telecaster.
tone and volume controls - not too bad, they are smooth, function well
and actually control tone and volume.
3 way switch - feels terrible (wobbly lever) but works fine.
no crackling, popping or anything else from the controls.
Tuners - throw them in the bin and get a set from elsewhere.
Body basswood - 4 or 5 pieces by the looks of it.
Neck appears to be maple with rosewood (or equivalent).
I would re-wire as the wiring is very cheap and thin. the plug connectors are not very inspiring either.

apart from tuners - using parts supplied in kit.
strangely I will give the sound an 8.
The pickups dont have a lot of personality but I play this through a fender g-dec and the pickups respond well to the effects.

Un-amped the body has a nice tone. I will be refitting with stl-1 and str-3 and adding shielding and new wiring at a later date.

There were only things wrong with this kit and they are small.
1. the scratch plate doesnt quite line up with the shape of the guitar.
2. the neck pocket had a wood tear which made it uneven.
This was non-visible and probably due to blunt router.
The electronics bays needed a bit of sanding to clean up the edges and seriously this was sooo easy to put together.
Neck bolts on super easy, and was a perfect fit, same with everything else.
All I did was shape the headstock, a bit of sanding, spray clear coat (and buff) and bolt together. A little work doing a setup, playing by the end of the day.

I dont play live so I dont know - I reckon with a good clear coat and stronger strap mounts it would do alright.

Didnt need it - everything was in there.

Been playing off and on for 20years. I dont gig but like to play.
I own a garrison acoustic, ep-dot studio, s&p acoustic, and a few other bits and pieces (bass, PA, g-dec etc)

If it were stolen or lost would I buy another? I dunno - I got a lot of gear and I have another tele on the way from warmoth (although it's costing a bucket)

For $200aud delivered via priority to australia and the fit of the neck and ease of setup, this is a very good buy.
Over time, I would replace just about all except the body and neck to bring this up to great status.

Same configuration as listed in other reviews. All hardware and electronics are no-name components. Cheap no-name components. This is a no frills guitar project. I had a lot of fun putting it together, but it also showed me how poorly this product was made.

Sound is pretty bright and it does have a twangy bite. It is a harsh sound, though. I don't really care much for the sound unless I put it through my Behringer V-Amp2. Even this sounds good when you use the V-Amp. It's hard to tone this sound down. The tone pot takes you from nothing to almost full on treble in about 1/8 turn. The volume control is a little better, but still not very responsive. Anyway, all the other cheap guitars I own sound much better than this. Much better.

The body is actually not too bad. The best part of the whole damn thing. The nut is okay too, but still, really cheap. I had to paint it myself, which I enjoyed. It turned out to be a beautiful guitar. Most of the screwholes lined up with the pickguard and in general, things went together, sometimes though, it was a battle. The wiring setup is so cheesy. I already had to replace the tone pot because the stem came completely out of the pot! And one of the tuning machines just broke off when I was tuning the b string. Never happened to me before in my life. I barely played this thing and it is falling apart! The neck is atrocious. It is playable, but just barely. It just looks so good.

I would leave this wretched monster at home. Better yet, somebody else's home. If you just feel like putting a guitar together, yeah, it fits the bill. It's just that you can buy a much better tele copy that already has a finish and better hardware for about the same price, if not cheaper! I know a lot of people love these kit guitars, and it is enjoyable to mess with it. What you end up with is not really a usable instrument, just something pretty to look at. I think most of these high ratings are just due to the fact people think they're getting a nice guitar for the money. I happen to disagree with that. Any Johnson or Jay Turser tele blows this one away.

I don't even know if they have a customer support.

Since it was an enjoyable experience, up to the point of actual playing, I have to give it a little better rating than it deserves. I won't ever buy another cheap guitar kit. I sunk a lot of money into another junk guitar and by the time I got it decent and playable, I could've bought a nice guitar to start with. My other cheap guitars are miles ahead of this thing. When you bang a chord on this, the neck vibrates somewhere inside. It feels like it will fall apart at any time. But it sure is pretty. MMMMM!

Standard tele stuff. I threw away the tuners, and put on a set of grovers. I really like the classic bridge w/ individual string height and intonation. It has a comfy feel to it. The frets are a bit too big, but overall nice. It only means that shredding is not what this axe is made for...and since I do not "shred", I am ok with that! I like the feature that I could shape the headstock to my own liking. The only issues I have/had w/ the kit is that some of the pre-drilled holes were not exact for the screws themselves. i.e. the screws do not lock tightly, rather set and spin in the holes. There weren't many like this, I think one of the strap buttons, one of the string trees, and one og the bridge screws, but with alert handling, it will be fine. The other issue I had was the instructions did not state exactly which screws were for which holes. This took some patience and common sense (how many screws to the ratio of how many holes). Overall a tremendous learning experience. The guitar is much lighter than my Ibanez, and VERY comfortable to play. The balance is nice, and the cut away portion allows effortless access to the highest frets!

Well, the stock pickups sound like a tin can. However, I did not get the kit with the intent of using the crap that came w/ the guitar. For a $100 kit, how good can the pups be? The bridge is WAY to loud and "tinny", and the neck is totally useless! I got a set of GFS twinblade style pups for $60 (for the pair), and they sound great! I also replaced the pots w/ 500k. The natural "acoustic" sound of the guitar is unreal! Really! I am blown away by this! So the sound potential is there, you just need suitable electronics. Even though the stock electronics absolutely suck, I will rate this a 9 because of the raw potential of the guitar. A little TLC and you will have a GREAT GUITAR!
I am playing it with a Yamaha MagicStomp II through a Peavy Classic 30, and every nuance I need out of the guitar is there!

First of all, understand that this is a pre-fabricated kit. All guitars are unique in how every little piece fits together. The company only followed a pre-laid out basic guidline. Expect to come across some snags. But in the end, you will have a truely custom guitar. The neck sat so high in the joint that the finger-board literally sat like 1/3" above the body! I had the heel of the neck planed down to correct this, then added a shem to angle it just right. Expect some sort of set backs! Other than that, which has been corrected, the guitar as a whole is great! The wieght, balance, feel and playability are fantastic. I have had several people play this baby, and all are fully impressed at the way it feels, plays and sounds! This is a thing where you will get out of it exactly what you put into it! If you want to put it right together and play it, it will be ok, but if you patiently take your time, and think the project through, it will be a great axe! I spent like a month on it. My wife said if I ever do another kit again, I will be a single man! But the result of my labor is a guitar I will take and play anywhere.

I seems built to last. And now because of this project, except for the soldwring, I can fix most anything on the guitar. So, there aren't many worries there. I think I will eventually replace the strap buttons, They are ok, but I want something that locks down for stability. I play every week with the church, and I usually don't bring a back-up...mostly because the guitar, my gig bag w/ my cords and foot controller plus kids is too much. But, a wise person would never play a serious gig without a backup.

I had some questions from Saga, so I emailed them. I recieved a promt response from someone in there marketing dept. He was very professional and polite. Through the process, we emailed each other quite a few times. He seemed very interested in what I was doing with the kit. He even asked my permission to use the pictures of my finished product for marketing. I would have to say I was fairly impressed with the support aspect of the company.

I have been playing for 12 years, and I play everything from blues, to contemporary christian, to full on metal. I would definately purchase another kit from Saga. The finished product is uniquely mine. I feel a sense of pride in that! I would take this guitar into most any guitar shop and play mine against theirs and I gaurentee that 9 times out of 10 I would choose mine!

This is a full story of the build. Saga was new this year, 2006, made in China. Typical telecaster style we all know.
This one had a two piece basswood body, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, plastic nut, and the rest of it was typical tele in every way.
I removed all the sealer from the body. Then I stained it, and beat it with sticks and tools, put chatter marks on it with the sander, carved it quickly on the top and back, sanded around on it with various grades, restained it, etc.. until finally I had it looking like a very used guitar, with a shiny gloss finish.
Your mileage may vary, but I really like the look.
I put on Kluson Double Row Deluxe Tuners, chrome, 16:1 ratio. Let me review these quickly. Dynamite look, solid as can be, really well made and operate perfectly. The stock tuners pretty much sucked.
I carved the headstock and finished the neck in gloss poly, just like the body.
The rest of the hardware and electronics work well. The chrome is all thick and nice, the pieces fit well and everything functions as should be.
The neck has a very nice feel it to, not fat, not too thin. The fretwork on this one is the worst I've seen out of ten. You might know it since I kept this one for me. (I sell these kits at my hobby shop. and I've built more than one.)
I'm giving it a 9 because of the crap tuners.

Now, the nut is also the worst of the lot so far. It's cut way high, the high e string is muted, and to top it off there seems to be at least two very low frets on the upper frets on the b string.
That being said.. you can play it. It's just not fun at all. First time that's happened, by the way. The Strat and Paul kits played just fine, with one Paul kit having unusually rough fret surfaces. (all of them need polished or buffed out.)
The high e therefore seems a tad weak, but if I crank the amp treble and hit it, it seems very much to be the bad nut slot and a possible burr at the bridge saddle. No big deal. This sort of thing really should be expected to happen considering how many of these kits they sell.
These Klusons pull the cheapo strings right into tune.. fine tuning is right there.. I love this ratio, and I love the way these tuners feel and look. They make the headstock. I put on graph tech trees, but I'd prefer chrome rollers.
The neck pickup is weak. A tad too weak for most people, I'm sure. But it doesn't sound bad. Just not very darn strong. The typical and expected Tele neck tone is there in generic form.
The bridge pickup, even much farther away from the strings than the neck, is still much louder. I don't mind that! Pretty rich, plenty of articulation, you can tele with this just fine, rock, country pop, etc.
It's as noisy as you'd expect, perhaps a bit more vulnerable than some pickups, having the open bridge pickup.. I'll sheild the cavitys with copper paint and wrap the bridge pickup with copper foil tape, and it will quiet right down, I'm sure.
These pickups are better than what's in the ST kits.. the strat style. Those pickups seemed much flatter sounding, and lifeless. But this TC 10 has to be rated better than one would have a right to expect given the price.. and that's a ten.

Really the worst neck. I can see a very high fret right below a very low fret just looking down it. It's laughable in comparison to every other saga neck I've seen. I'd have to give it an 8 just because I know that's true. But I will say, when they screw something up at SAGA they screw it up with panache!
very rough and uneven frets, possibly it will need a fret or two replaced. It's funny, but I never sell a kit without checking it completely for this sort of thing. And what did I do but choose one without checking and wound up with the problem. Way to go, dipstick.
Fit is great. everything is tight. hellova time getting the pickguard bridge control plate to fit.. that's how tight.. not a bad thing.
I wish you could see it, from just a short distance it's a very flashy gloss finish on a dark piece of well figured wood.. close up it's an old soldier, battle scars and all..
Very neat grain in the neck wood by the way.. some dramatic stuff happening on the headstock that really jumps out when glossed.
I don't recommend removing the sealer Saga puts on them. Follow the instructions and paint unless you want to do a lot of work. When you remove the sealer you discover the guitars are not well planed. sealer is used in pools to level the top or back or wherever. This requires a lot of effort and planning to overcome.
I'll give it an 8. I'd normally give a Saga a 9.

It's solid as a rock. It has just as good a feel to it as my Fender Custom Tele Special, My Custom WD strat hardtail, or any of the other better guitars I own.
Strap button holes were reinforced with a bit of hardwood and a half a dot of tite bond glue. I do this with every guitar I have so I wont discount any points on the saga.
I do the same with neck holes.
The neck maple is very hard. hard to cut. hard to drill. hard to get a screw into. that's good maple.
the rosewood looks good.. lots of these saga necks have really nice red or yellowish streaks or flecks that I like a lot. This one tends toward red and in thin sometimes vague streaks.
The chrome is thick, it all seems quite nice, really. the pickguard is even white black white. three plys.
the nut sucks. when I fix the neck I'll put in a solid bone nut.
I'll give it a ten. It's solid, It will hold up, I have no doubt.

They back their stuff up with me, a dealer, and we both will back it up to you the customer.
These guys are interested in keeping the customer satisfied and they have always dealt fairly with me.

I'm going to enter the list price below.. though I paid dealer price, and though I and everyone else sell these for less.

I've been playing since the mid sixties. I own ten of these kits, right now, and seven or eight of the ST's, and one of the LC kits.
I also own some WD custom kits, guitars and basses, an epiphone sheraton I love dearly, two squiers a taylor and I'm building a custom strat and p bass for the higher end guitar freaks.
What I love about a Saga is the consistency first. It means you should have a fun easy time with these kits and that's what's most important. It will work and pretty darn well, kit for kit for kit.
I choose consistency over quality, because there are some not so hot things about these kits.. the plastic nuts.. probably superglued in.. the rough frets.. Ok I'll give them that..but the tuners.. have to say those should change for sure.
Anyone with patience and the instructions provided should be able to assemble this right out of the box, skipping the paint or headstock carving with no trouble at all. And have a pretty nice guitar that just needs a set up.
Someone more experienced, with just minimal painting skills, could spray paint these from a can and make it look damn sharp, as well as give it that fret polish and nut replacement, add the tuners and turn this thing into a great practice guitar, or a really handy and tough back up guitar.
A skilled person could make this his main guitar. But I confess, you have to take a LOT of the thick sealer off.. and keep your paint as thin as you can.. you have to swap out the tuners and the pickups for sure. I'd add a 4 way switch, maybe a push pull with a humbuck in the bridge. the neck and body are fine.. really. strong and well made though a little rough throughout.. shortcuts, construction thats sort of made to hide flaws.. but so what.. put auto grade paint on this thing and it will look fantastic.. carve the top!
It'll never be premium grade Swamp Ash, but basswood is a good instrument wood.
The last thing I'd like to say is that I really wish this had been my first guitar. It would have played better, and taught me more about guitars and how they work than I learned in the next year and longer for some things.
High School or College, Son or Dad, even Mom or Sis can build a Saga and, given the above.. objective assessment of your skill and knowledge level.. come up with a pretty nice guitar, or more.
overall I have to say ten.. I think every guitarist or bassist should build one, at least. At this price. why not one a year until you have a full set?
I'm gonna!