Saga TC-10

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!

I put this together about a year ago and it was my 2nd Saga kit, the 1st being a strat. I got a Fender vintage Tele Bridge for it and ran it string through body and used Schaller locking tuners instead of the ones that came with it and I went with Fender Vintage Noiseless Pickups. Turned out very good. I painted this vintage blonde and cut the headstock similar to a Fender Tele but not quite the same. I didn't put any decals on the headstock, left it blank. For $120 you can't beat this, especially if you enjoy with trying to come up with something on your own.

Sounds very good. I play classic rock and blues, mostly late 60's through mid 70's. Run this through a Hartke G60 Piggyback rig, a Marshall MG30DFX and a Marshall MG10CD. Does well on all the amps. Nice twang on the bridge pickup and bluesy tone on the neck. Middle is somewhere in between. I'm rather proud of myself on this one, even though everything was cut out for me. It sounds really good.

These kits are not as easy to deal with as the ads make you believe but they are good for learning something about how guitars work, constructing them, etc. Nothing really fits that well together, so it takes some sanding and refinishing to get everything to work properly and you can't go overboard - it has to be perfect or you will have a loose guitar. If you get one, be patient and take your time. Don't get frustrated and you can have yourself a good little guitar.

Don't know. I'm a physician by trade. I just play at home. I think with the Fender Vintage Bridge and Schaller tuners as well as the Vintage Noiseless pickups, it will be around for awhile. Strap buttons are fine. I think it's dependable but if I were to gig, I wouldn't gig without a backup.

Been playing for 40 of my 45 years. I have also the strat and PRS style Saga guitars as well as Fender MIM Strat and Tele. I also have a Korean made Epiphone Les Paul. I use Martin and Takamine Acoustics. This is a great kit to make your own guitar with as long as you maybe change some hardware out and be patient when making it. I still plan on making one of every kind.

Standard basic Tele features. Made in some unknown asian country. The tuners were such a joke, I tossed them into the trash as soon as I saw them. I replaced these with some Grover Mini-Rotomatics. The neck was actually really nice, no sharp fret ends. Pretty flat radius on the fingerboard, but I like it that way. Multi-piece Basswood body actually had nice maple veneers on the front and back, which strongly tempted me to just put a clear coat as the finish. Top-loading bridge is cheap but very sturdy, and even has holes in the bottom so that you can make the strings anchor through the body. The body isn't drilled for this option, but its an easy mod to do with a drill press. Electronics are ultra-cheap, but actually work quite well. Snap-together wiring was easy to hook up. The wires are of such a thin gauge that you could use them as dental floss. Some of the pre-drilled screw holes were a bit off, but these were an easy fix with some careful measurements. The cheap plastic nut on mine was cracked, but still works ok. I'm going to have this replaced with a bone nut.

I was expecting this guitar to sound like a crappy bottom of the barrel Squier. I was quite surprised to hear how good the pickups are. The bridge pickup is nice and jangly, with a rich full sound. The neck pickup isn't bad, but not as nice as the bridge. These pickups of course aren't going to compare to expensive "boutique" brands like Duncans or Fender Custom Shop models, but I'd say that they compare favourably to the Mexican Fenders. I was also happily surprised by how little noise these pickups made. I have not yet sheilded the guitar, but the noise is manageable. I'm probably going to replace the pickups with something fancier (probably something hum-cancelling to be on the safe side), but the stock pickups are quite usable out of the box. The pots work OK, they're not scratchy. I'll replace the pots, switch and wiring with quality components when I change the pickups, but again the stock electronics are usable for now.

I won't give a rating here because this is a kit: any finish flaws are my fault. I painted the guitar with cheap rust paint (Tremclad) from Home Depot. Do not do this! Use something more resistant like automotive paint, or better yet get some Nitro from ReRanch.com. My paint job looked really good when I finished it, because I followed the finishing instructions on the ReRanch web site. However, the cheap paint I used is already starting to chip off where it rests on the guitar stand. I've never been a fan of "relics", so I'll probably repaint the guitar when I have the time. Painting the guitar is the longest part of assembling this kit. If you patiently take your time, follow the instructions on ReRanch.com and use good paint, you'll have an amazing finish. If you rush and try to finish your paint job in an afternoon, your guitar will look like crap. Make sure to assemble the guitar to see if every thing fits in the right place before taking it apart to paint it.

Setup wasn't too hard. I had to do the usual adjustments (truss rod, intonation, pickup height, etc.). Take your time with this, you can't expect the guitar to be properly set up the moment you are done assembling it. If you're not sure how to do a proper set-up yourself, take it to your local guitar repairman and have him do it. There is some buzzing on the lower strings because of the cracked nut that came with this guitar, but other than that it plays quite well. Since the nut is cheap plastic, I'm going to replace it with a properly cut bone nut.

If you take your time putting this together and replace the stock tuners with quality components, it should be quite usable live. The strap buttons didn't look very trustworthy, so I changed these with straplocks. I haven't played live in 10 years, so I haven't actually gigged with this guitar. Seems as solid as a Mexican Fender.

Never dealt with Saga, so I'm not providing a rating. I bought this kit from OnlineGuitar on Ebay, and this guy's customer support wasn't very good. My kit had some missing screws and this guy would never answer my emails concerning this problem. I would recommend buying this kit from someone other than OnlineGuitar.

This was a really fun kit to make. Keep in mind, though, that this isn't something that you can just pull out of the box and assemble a finished guitar in an afternoon. It will need to be finessed to make a good guitar. Be prepared to replace some of the components, especially the tuners. This isn't of the same quality as a Carvin or Warmoth kit, but the price is so incredibly cheap that even after paying for upgrades you'll get a good guitar for little money spent. I plan on buying some of the different Saga kits, maybe the Strat copy. The best part of this kit is that when you're done, you'll have a nice guitar that you'll have built yourself.
I've been playing since high school (I'm in my mid 30s now) and I own lots of other gear, including a 1980 Gibson Explorer, a 1974 Fender Precision bass, and an Aria Pro 2 SB-Elite-2 bass (similar to the ones used by Jack Bruce and Cliff Burton). I've owned tons and tons of amps, but I've sold most of them because I only play at home now. And believe me, a full stack is just a little too loud if you want to stay on good terms with your neighbors. I currently have an all tube Fender Pro-Junior, and a solid state SWR Workingman's 10 combo amp.

Not sure when it was made. It has a basswood body and maple neck with rosewood fretboard. It came with all of the standard tele parts. Included pack of strings and 3 fender picks.

The sound on this guitar was surprisingly good. It was more than what I expected from a kit. It has a nice, warm tone. I don't think I would change the pick ups. They are pretty decent. It is pretty quiet too. I use a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amp with Boss Stomp Boxes and it gets the job done.

The factory set up was aweful. I had to spend about 2 hours getting it to work out the way I like it. The neck bowed right out of the box, so I carefully adjusted the truss rod. The bridge was a little off, so my 1st string (E string) was slightly off the fret board. I had to adjust that and it is still slightly off, but works just fine. I also had to adjust the pick plate, as some of the holes were a little off. The machine heads are aweful and the guitar does not stay in tune. I will have to replace them. The wood seems to be pretty decent. Everything else is great.

Once I change the machine heads so the guitar stays in tune, I will gig with it. The hardware seems pretty decent, but I may change it out over time if it wares. No biggie... The finish is pretty darn good. I used some automotive paint with a clear top coat. It came out pretty good. The strap buttoms seem to be solid. I would not gig without a backup, but then again, what guitarist does? That would be foolish. However, once I change out the machine heads I think that I could get through a set without having to use a back up guitar.

I bought the kit from onlineguitar.com and they were late on shipping the kit. The customer support was aweful. They did not do anything to rectify the problem. I have not had to deal with Saga Guitars directly for anything.

I have been playing for 17 years. I own several guitars, including fender strats, and gibson les pauls. This guitar does not measure up to them; however, it is well worth the money and is better than some of the cheaper versions that you can get, such as the fender squire model. Once you tweak this kit to suit your needs, you will have a very playable, enjoyable kit that you can brag to your friends that you made on your own. Overall, I love this guitar and I am glad that I bought it. It was fun putting it together.

Made in october 2004
Stadard tele features
Basswood body, maple neck, rosewood fretboard

The first thing I changed on this guitar was the tuners. the stock tuners are junk and not very useable. I used tuners from an old washburn Mg-25. I also replaced the nut and the saddles.

I play mostly metal and punk. This thing has an amazing sounding bridge pickup. It has a lot of highs great definition and tons of volume, great for distortion. The neck pickup is a lot quieter but it gives a really mellow sound good for blues or jazz.

To me it sounds better than many guitars costing ten times as much.

I am not going to give a rating for this section because I feel it is up to the builder to rectify any flaws.

I had this guitar for about a year and have upgraded a lot of the parts i thought were lacking. I would compare the basic kit with all of the stock parts to a squier. Once you put some time into doing a proper set-up and replace the tuners, nut, and saddles it becomes an amazing guitar.

I would definitely gig with this thing without a backup.

The only thing that prevents me from giving it a 10 is that the strap buttons are crap. You should replace them with straplocks if you value your guitar.

never dealt with them

The instuments that you can make out of these kits are an amazing value. I am so impressed by this kit I am going to buy the strat and p-bass kits as well. It is a great way to learn how to build and set up a guitar. If it were stolen or lost I would buy another in an instant.

My favorite feature is the pride in knowing that I built it myself.

If you have some free time and are ready to put in quite a bit of work setting it up, buy one.

It was cut out in Japan, but put together in my Garage. Pretty good pots and switches. Bridge pickup is good, the neck is okay. I need to play with the neck pickup some more.

I ordered replacement tuners before I even purchased the guitar on Ebay. Good thing because the Saga Tuners make the crappiest guitar tuners seem really good.

Clip together electronics, they work well. I plan on soldering these as soon as I recieved a new neck pickup or get it to sound better.

I also cheated and purchsed a Fender Telecaster Water decal on Ebay. Anyone close up can tell it is not a Fender, but I gotta tell ya, from even 10 feet away it is hard to tell. However, I had one guy just yesterday ask how I liked playing a Telecaster?? He thought it was a Fender. Like I say, this kit is what you make it.

The neck pickup needs some help, I will probably replace it. The bridge pickup has that twangy tele sound. I would say I am impressed for the cash I shelled out $100. Sounds pretty damn good to me. But again, you put this kit together.

It can be a little noisy, but not bad. I have been playing metal since 1984 and I was looking for a Tele sound that did not cost $1000.00. I wanted something a little different than my BS Rich Plat Warlocks or Les P's. I can screw around with my Samick custom strat and my multitude of effects pedals and come close to a Tele sound, but there is something about the general shape of this guitar that has its own tone and feel.

I really like it so far.

I just finished the action on my guitar. It came around pretty good. Worked on it carefully for about 1 day. I have heard horror stories about the truss rods breaking. I took it easy with my truss and it came around nicely. I painted it with car laquer spray paint from Wal-Mart and a clear coat from the same manufacturer. Turned out pretty damn good. If I could do it all over again, I would go with just clear all over and a black pick guard. The key is, it is what you make of it. I was expecting darker wood, it was a light tone basswood.

I have not owned it for more than a week. Would I gig with it? I actually might, again, the guitar quality and sound is all up to you, its a kit. I haven't "Gigged" for about 10 years now. I replaced the strap screws with a bigger and longer one on both. If you ever have had a guitar fall off a strap or had a strap button fall off you know what I mean. For $100 each it would be easy to have a backup. I just might too.

Bought this on Ebay. Slashmanmusic was the seller. They have great communication and I plan to buy the PRS clone from him in about a month. I don't work for them, I just had a good buying experience with them.

As for sagamusic.com, I have never contacted them.

I say go for it. Buy this sucker. I have played Squier Tele clones that sound worse. I have been playing since 1984. I own 7 guitars from Warlock to Strat. I own 3 bass guitars. I play all my intstruments through Crate 4 BX-25 amps with several effects, Tube preamp. I have too much stuff. Remember to get different tuners. The tuners that come with this are servicable, but why mess around.

If someone stole it I would try to chase them down and try to kill them, but after about 2 hours of searching I would realize it only was $100.00.

I love this guitar. You get out of it what you put into it.

Built July 2005

22 frets
solid top, volume, tone, three way selector. Came with lead, strings, 3 plectrums, allen keys for bridge and truss rod. Was missing three screws, which was not a big problem and cost pennies to supply.

sounds OK, nice crunchy sound, quite bright and crisp.

No real dislikes. frets need to be polished as they are a little rough.

action set up took some time, longer than the build, satisfactory. decided to try the supplied tuners and replace them later, after fitting they work OK, remembering this is a ?50 guitar, it was far better than I had been expecting.

strap buttons very secure, was able to shake holding by the strap, no sign of working loose

not been used very long, no signs of weekness. thre finish looks ok but time will tell. May strip and paint later if it doesn't last out.

n/a

excelent value for money, none of the quibbles expressed by others seemed to be valid with my build. body a nice looking piece of wood, neck excellent. was going to paint when I read reviews but when I opened the box I was totally impressed and decided to leave it natural.

I did a Brazillian rosewood top, which eliminated the pickguard and all the original holes and especialy the ugly grain the top had. I did the back vintage tabacco burst. The basswood body comes sealed with a polyester or epoxy . Unless your're lucky, plan on a color or some other solid finish. Very usable body and neck for the price. As we all know, ditch the tuners,pots,and nut.

Very quite, replaced pots to cts and changed wireing. Neck pickup is weak compared to a hot bridge- a keeper. Neck pickup does get some muddy humbucker sounds just not clear. Bridge does tele spank. I put a strat pup in neck, suits me better. The basswood body sounds very good. I will put some G&L Asat MFD p/ups in.

25 1/2" scale. wannabee maple neck, med jumbo frets needed alot of time to suit me. Plays very good, fast neck, thinkin a 20" radius. Action, Fit & Finish is only what you make it!

Solid. Don't like the bridge all that much,
gonna try brass saddles next.

Nah

This is my 3rd guitar project. I do finishing and repair for a living.
For under $100 + tuners, nut, finish and the time..its well worth it.

Not sure of the year or where exactly these are made. It is a solid body kit made from basswood. The body is already sealed. I looked at several offerings of this kit and I picked the nicest wood. I don't think that any are of a quality to add a transparent finish. I immediately replaced the tuning machines with Gotoh units. Then I added a set of Fender Texas Special pickups. I did have to consult the Fender website and figure out the neck pickup wiring. The kit comes with a two wire neck pickup and the Texas Specials use a three wire neck pickup. I soldered all of my connections. I just like that better than using the supplied connectors. If you don't change anything and use the stock pickups, the wiring is color coded. So, wiring is a no brainer. I finished mine with an automotive enamel with several coats of clear in an orange and white EVH style. The body is a Tele style and is made pretty well. Some of the screws are not of good quality, but that's not a big deal. The controls are a three position switch, volume and tone controls.

I've only been playing for about a year and play mostly rock and some blues. I use it mostly with a VOX AD30VT which is an awsome amp. This a modeling amp with lots of built-in effects. There is a lot of noise mostly on higher gain settings, but I can live with it. The middle position is kinda high for my tastes sounds more like my Strat. I mostly use the 3rd position which I belive is the neck pickup and it kicks a$$. I find myself playing it more than my Standard Strat. I have friends with tons more experience and they love it too.

The fit was very good. The screws for the strap buttons were too small, no big deal at all. I took mine to a local luthier and he adjusted the intonation, pickup heights and strobe tuned it for me. I used a set of Eddie Ball Super Slinkys. The kit comes with strings, but hey, strings are not expensive, so I went with a good set. I set the action low and it works well, again, I get real good comments on how fast the action is an how well it plays. As for my tastes and style, I love it.

I have only had this one finshed for about two months. No problems so far. I don't know how well it would stay in tune with the supplied tuning machines. My stays in tune real well. I only have to tune it about once a week. I don't play professionally or in a band, so I'm not as hard on a guitar as some, but I think it would hold up well.

I haven't dealt with the company at all. No reason to.

I've been playing for about a year. I own a Standard Strat. I bought this kit, because it seemed like a fun thing to do. Since building this one, I purchased a Strat style kit to build for my daughter. I will be using an automotive lacquer finish on it. I think it will be more durable and shine more. I haven't found anything that I didn't like yet except for the original tuning machines and I replaced those during the build. I love the sound and the action. The sound is great and by changing postions on the three way, you can get a different sound from each position.

Assembled in the USA in 2005 (in my basement!). I'm not sure when the kit was made. Pretty much a generic Tele clone in terms of features. Two single coils, volume, tone, and 3-way pickup selector, chrome knobs and tuners. Basswood body, not sure about the neck, and a rosewood looking fingerboard (1/4" thick, so I'm assuming it's not real rosewood). It came unfinished - actually with a sanding sealer applied. The visual quality of the wood was much nicer than others have described (I probably just got lucky), so I simply chose to apply a clear laquer finish. I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out, drips and all! I cut the headstock into something that looks kinda like a standard Tele headstock. Close enough from a distance. I haven't decided on a decal to put on it yet. I won't pretend it's a Fender (it wouldn't fool anybody anyway). Six saddle bridge, no string-through body (not a biggie, IMO) I'm giving this a 10 because nothing is really missing in terms of features.

For a $72 guitar (+ shipping and tuners), the sound blew me away! The pickups sound great! Just the twang I was looking for and clean as all getup! The neck pickup is a little weak but that's probably because I haven't mounted it correctly yet. I'll need to trim and install the foam 'spring' that mounts under it so right now it's sitting a little low. Pots will definitely be replaced on this one since the sound pops in and out toward the low end of the volume control's travel. FWIW, both pots feel quite smooth. Surprisingly little hum.

Frets were level, although they could stand a bit of polishing. No sharp edges. A number of screws were missing, bridge screws were too small for the holes (or the holes were too big for the supplied screws), white wire needed to be soldered to the pickup selector, yellow wire was missing from the pickup selector (both easily remedied, but annoying), Blue ground wire missing the loop described in the instructions and it was uncomfortably short, but usable. All missing/inadequate hardware were readily available either from my coffee can collection of screws or from the local hardware store. Nut slots needed to be filed and the nut had to be repositioned about 1/8" toward the first fret to get it to intonate correctly (is 'intonate' a verb?). Tuners were crap (appears to be a universally held opinion). I didn't even bother to install them. Instead, I picked up a set of genuine Fender tuners on ebay for about $30, which meant that I had to drill the tuner holes to 10mm.

Since I know how this was built, I have a high level of confidence in its ability to deliver, once I change the pots. Time will tell. Given the rustic finish I applied, I'm not too concerned with looks over time. Indeed, a bit of corrosion on the chromed bridge, for example, might even add to its charm, not that I'm anticipating this.

I'm not anticipating having much of a need for customer support since I tend to handle such problems myself. Any parts that would need to be replaced can be upgraded fairly cheaply when the time comes so I'm not worried about support.

I've been playing for 30+ years. I've owned a few Gibson, Fender, Epiphone, and other lesser-known electrics, both 6 and 12 strings. Alvarez, Ovation and other unknown acoustics, both 6 and 12 strings. While not the best guitar I've owned, it's a far-cry better than the $30-ish mass market guitars common in the 60's. This guitar was fun to build. I'll be very comfortable repairing/upgrading it since I know where everything is and how it got there. It may not be an ideal project for a beginner begginner kit-builder due to the amount of improvisation I needed to do while building it, but I'd have no problem recommending it to someone who is even slightly mechanically/electrically inclined and wants a 'Tele' type guitar but is of limited financial means. Despite the problems I encountered building it, I find it hard to fault it when I consider the price.