Saga TC-10

Tele clone, same features as a Tele. 21 frets,rosewood fretboard, basswood body, two single coil pups. Comes ready to finish. I give it a 8 because the features it should have, it does have except for the string through body and the ferrules.

I picked a Tele kit cuz I have two strats and no teles. It sounded kinda crappy, like a cheap squire. The neck was worse, thin and brittle. The neck wasn't so bad actually. I replaced the pups with Fender Vintage Teles, the ones on the '52 RI, and big difference. A/B'ed to a '52, the '52 was brighter, probably due to the maple fretbaord and ash body. My kit sounded like a tamed Tele, with a more "woody" tone, less highs, more mid-grit to it. Single coils are noisy, except for noiseless ones, but then most aren't really single coils. 7 is with the Fender pups. I suspect that the sound will improve with better wiring and pots, and a better bridge made of brass. I was able to get a similar sound to Albert Collins, which I like, through my Deluxe Reverb and Fulldrive, again not quite as bright, but it sounded good.

Setup, after I put it together was crap. It needed the nut to be filed, the neck needed to a shim, the frets needed leveling, the pickguard didn't fit right, the bridge pickup almost didn't fit, and the pots and switch have a lot of static noise. I sanded/filed the edge of the fretboard and frets to give it a smooth rounded feel like the American deluxes. I finished it myself with vintage cream from reranch, and it looks pretty good. Better than I expected because I am not patient, and I'm not very good with my hands. The action was really high, 8/64" at the 17th fret. I took it my luthier, he did what was needed, and now it's at 3/64", lower than Fender spec. Take it to a good luthier and he can work magic. BTW, my '57 RI Strat is at 2/64" with no fretting out. After $20 setup, playability is 7.

I think this guitar is reliable enough. It's a little noisy, cheap wiring and pots, but works fine. Always have a backup cuz of string breakage. It stays in tune, and I got it to intonate well enough to play chords in tune at the 15th fret. Tuners are cheap, but they keep in tune. I plan to swap the bridge, and put in good pots, switch, and wires.

NA

Been playing a long time, went through many Fender strats, and a Tele or two. This was a project to see what it's like to build one since it was so cheap. After taking it to my luthier, it's actually a nice playing instrument, probably on par with a mexi fender. I would strongly recommend drilling the holes and making the strings go through the body. This was a big problem for me to get it setup right at the bridge. This will also increase sustain. I plan on doing that when I replace the bridge. I think the limiting factor for me was not having the right tools to what was needed, but I think I can get one setup well next time. Advantage to these are they are cheap, you can replace any parts you want to easily, and you can make it any color you want to.

The neck was stamped 2/2003, I'm guessing it was made either in China or Korea. Basic Tele Copy. Solid Basswood, not the prettiest wood, several large chunks, glued together, lots of blemishes, not really suited for a clear finish, it did however have a good sealant on it which painted up nicely with very little sanding. The only ding in the finish was one I put in it myself! I painted it with 3 coats of cream colored auto paint,some GM model#. I sanded between each coat w/ #1000 steel wool, and then 4 coats of clear, also sanded between coats, and finally polished w/ rubbing compound. I must say it looks damn good. I want it to weather some because it looks soooo new!
The neck appears to be maple. I traced a Tele headstock and cut it by hand with a coping saw and then shaped it with a palm sander and #80 sandpaper. It turned out great with 5 coats of Automotive clearcoat and lots of sanding and polishing. I also applied a fifties era Fender decal.( It's only a forgery if I claim it's really a Fender.) The bridge totally looks like a Mexican Tele. I don't know who made the pick-ups, but the sound fairly decent. I have to remind myself that this whole project has only cost me about $150.00 total, "What do you want for nothing??"
The hardware is decent EXCEPT for the tuners. I'd have to agree with the others, the tuners are cheap. I found some decent Kluson copies on eBay for less than $20.00, they make all the difference in the world. The ones that came with the kit look like Mexican Teles. I think that rather than including a cheap cable, which I don't need, they could pop for better tuners.

I play mostly rock-a-billy and twangy stuff so it fits my style fine.
I play it thru a SUNN Studio Lead (solid-state) Good clean sound, haven't tried it distorted. The pick-ups are relatively quiet. The neck pick-up is a bit weak, bit I'm going to experiment with it.

Obviously, there is no set-up. It's a kit, but I've done lots of guitars, it took 30 minutes, piece of cake. Fit was very good, I've seen complaints about this, but either I got lucky or they've gotten better. The neck fit was really tight, so was the pickguard.

Don't know why it would survive live playing. I'm not Pete Townsend. I don't really have a problem with the solderless connections, the kit came with shrink tubing to finish the connections. They should hold. The paint will probably wear off but I think Teles look better that way. Look at all the "relicizing" going on now. As far as playing a gig without a back-up. I never play any gig w/o a back-up guitar, strings break, etc..

Don't know about this. Hey, I paid $75.00 for the kit. Who cares?

I've been playing 20+ years, lots of guitars.
I would like to see them offer a maple fretboard and better tuners, but, hey, it's a cheap guitar, IMHO a good deal. You can make it as nice as you want. I can't rationalize buying a vintage Tele or a $1,200.00 reissue. I'm going to build a few of these so I can have all the different Teles I've always wanted. I'm about $150.00 into this one and I'm satisfied. As good as a Mexican Tele or a Squier with the pride of having built it.

Probably made 2001-2002 dont know where it was made
21 frets
the body comes sealed for painting (or at least spray painting with auto paint which i did)
1 volume 1 tone 3 way pickup selector
pickups are some crappy wanna be telecaster pickups
body is telecaster style
everyone is right that has posted so far the tuners are horrible!
Cord Included

I play metal/jazz/improv/jam band stuff little of everything
Im playing through a fender roc pro 1000 head and peavey BV 4x12 cab
It isnt that noisy and actually plays pretty well
The sound is very twangy and at some times a bit hard to control It is great for clean setting on amp, but for distorted sounds you need to do a bit of tweeking to get what you want. For the price the overall sound is good. Although the tone control doesnt have enough control over the sound as i would like it to.

Its a kit so nothing was set up. A Lot of the holes wernt drilled so that was kindof annoying. You get what you pay for though and in the end i got everything set up the way i like it. The body comes ready to spray paint a finish on it, and i did that and it came out really really well. Everything seemed to fit ALRIGHT some of the holes were a bit off and the routing was a little big at some spaces and the wiring chamber had large hole broken off of it from a careless routing job where the jack is soposed to go.

This would be a backup guitar for 1 or 2 songs that need that twang sound. No way i could use this for my main axe. When playing live it would be very hard to control.

You get what you pay for. It turned out alright and its playable. The directions arnt the greatest and if i hadnt put together a few other guitars before i would have found them hard to understand. Ive been playing for 6 years. I bought this as a continuous project/add on guitar and i think i have my work cut out for me. Better tuners would be my first wish.

- 2002 Telecaster style guitar kit made in 2002, presumably overseas. I'm guessing Korea, based on the tuners.

- Body is made of basswood (looks like 3 pieces), includes tummy contour not found on traditional Teles. Body has been sealed with what appears to be polyurethane. It's already sanded and ready to be painted.

- Neck appears to be maple with a 21 fret rosewood fingerboard. The headstock is an uncut paddle type. Truss rod is accessed near the headstock.

- Standard tele pickup and control configuration. Pickups are generic foreign type. Electronics are attached with cheesy solder-less connections which are supposed to be covered with shrink tubing. Do yourself a favor and solder the connections -- it's not that hard to do.

- Bridge is a more modern style -- has 6 individual saddles rather than 3. However, the bridge is top-load rather than through the body. As an interesting note, I found out that late '58 model and all '59 model Fender Teles were top-loading.

- Tuners are cheap foreign junk made by Jinho Music Company. Jinho is based in Korea, so I'm guessing the kit was made in Korea. Samick uses Jinho tuners (ones of much better quality) on some of the guitars they produce for others (e.g., Guitarpunk.com). Having read other reviews of Saga guitar kits, there was no way I was going to install the cheap tuners. Fortunately for me, they forgot to drill the small screw mounting holes in the headstock. The problem is that the tuner holes are 5/16". Other than generic foreign tuners, every decently-made tuner is 7/32", 3/8" or 10mm, so I thought I'd have to made the holes larger. I ended up purchasing a brand new set of Kluson Deluxe split shaft tuners through eBay (only $20 -- what a deal!). The Klusons actually will fit with the tuner bushings provided in the Saga Kit -- no drilling!

I'm not quite sure what the pickups are supposed to sound like. They definitely aren't made to sound like a traditional Tele. They sound rather generic and lifeless -- but that's to be expected from cheap pickups. I bought the kit with the intention of replacing the pickups anyway. I won't replace them until I'm done painting the body.

Despite the cheesy solder-less connections, the guitar is relatively quiet. I think this has more to do with the design of the Tele style pickups (chrome shield on neck pickup and steel plate on bottom of bridge pickup), than the actual pickups themselves.

Fit? I don't think that Saga knows what that word means. The control cavity on the first body I received was routed about 1/4" too wide -- there was a visible gap on either side of the control cavity cover -- yikes! The person I bought it from replaced the body with a new one. The second body was worse! The neck cavity was routed too narrowly to fit the neck. The routing for the bridge pickup was not straight, causing the bridge not to sit straight. I took the neck and body to a local luthier -- Jon Hill (www.hillinstruments.com). He used a router to size everything properly and now the fit is very good.

After getting the body routed properly, I assembled the guitar. Saga pre drills all of the holes for you. I wish they hadn't -- most of the holes are not put where they should be. Several holes had to be filled and redrilled.

After the guitar was assembled, I put on the strings. I did a rough set-up and intonation. I also gave the truss rod several good cranks. At this point, the guitar plays decently when notes are fretted. When striking either the high E or low E string hard in the open position, there's a fair amount of buzz. I'm not sure if it's caused by the saddles (had to set them fairly low to get good action) or if it's caused by the cheap plastic nut. I think the depth of the slots on the nut is fine, but it looks like some of the slots are a bit wide for the strings, which could be the cause of the buzz. I'll probably replace the nut with one made of something better than plastic.

The polyurethane finish on the body should provide a nice base for painting (I haven't painted it yet). Because of the sealer on the body, there's no chance of staining or using any translucent finishes. Visit www.reranch.com for great products and great tips on painting.

I don't think I would ever play this guitar live without modifications. Cheap tuners and cheesy solder-less connections don't make for a realiable axe.

I've already changed the tuners and I plan on changing the nut, the pickups and all of the electronics. Once that's done, it should be fine.

Customer Support? That's a good one. Stop by the Saga website and send them an e-mail and ask them where you can buy Saga products -- see if you get a response. The instructions to the kit just list a P.O. Box in California.

I purchased my kit on eBay from a vendor called Online Guitar. I believe that Online guitar is run by a guy named David Trent. David agreed to replace the first defective body -- but I had to paying the shipping costs to return the body to him. It then took a number of e-mails, several phones and 2 week's time to get the replacement body. Ultimately, he refunded a decent portion of my original purchase price to cover the routing problems of the replacement body that I noted earlier in my review.

I bought this guitar kit knowing that you get what you pay for. I've played guitar for 17 years and I've never built my own guitar. Ultimately, I want to assemble a guitar using parts from a vendor like Warmoth or USA Custom Guitars. Before I spent big bucks, I thought I'd start with something cheap. This way, I'll learn how to cut the headstock, paint the body, replace the nut, etc. with very little investment. The alternative was to buy a cheap Squire Tele, but I wouldn't have the satisfaction of doing the work myself. I've been accumulating decent parts for goods prices through eBay. In addition to the $20 Kluson Deluxe tuners, I picked up a brand new Kent Armstrong neck pickup for $14! When I'm done with parts and painting, I'll have about $250 in a guitar that plays far better than a similarly priced Squirer.

If you buy the kit realizing your getting something worth about $80, you'll be fine. If you're expecting more, you'll be disappointed.

This is a Telecaster copy Kit I bought off eBay. Typical telecaster configuration, two pickups, 3way switch, one volume and one tone control. This kit has a Basswood body, Maple neck with rosewood fretboard, 21 frets. Comes with a prefinished neck and body. The finish is very heavy duty stuff, very hard to sand off if you want to do a stain finish. I tried paint remover and it didn't work at all. If you want to do the spray paint finish it is very well suited for this type of finish. No string-thru body, but comes with a bridge that can be used to make it a string-thru, which I did. Tuners with kit are cheap, I upgraded to Gotoh. Kit comes with everything you need,parts for complete guitar, allen wrenches and amp cord.

I own a Guild d25m, Gibson SG Special, and a Springfield 300 (excellent 335 copy), so I was looking for a Tele twang to add to my sounds. I play thru a 1965 Fender Princeton Reverb and a Zoom707 pedal with pretty good results. I play in our Praise and Worship band at church and we play a lot of Christian rock. The pickups in this guitar are not that bad for being so cheap. You will want to shield all the body pockets and the back of the pick guard with copper tape shielding. This makes this guitar very quiet and it is easy to do. I have not had a lot of experience with Fender guitars, but this has a twangier sound than my other guitars which have Humbucker pickups. The tele pickups sound good but are weak. An upgrade would help out here, but for a $90.00 kit they have a pleasing tone.

Ok..this is a kit. Be prepared to do a LOT of work. The pickup pockets were not routed big enough to even put them into. Be sure you check this before you start to finish the body. I did because I noticed right away that the holes to run the wires from the pickup pockets to the control pocket were not there. You have to shape the head of the neck to your liking, I cut my very similar to a Telecaster. The holes for the neck and body were not drilled straight and didn't line up too great with the neck plate. Managed to get it together because they must have had the neck on the body when they were dilled otherwise they never would have lined up, still the screws went in at an angle. I must admit that the neck to body fit was nice and tight.HINT: use a drop of liquid hand soap on screws before you put them in. It makes them go in much easier and keeps them from breaking. The screws in this kit are pretty cheap. The wires were poorly soldered to the terminals and I had to resolder some of the connections. The neck was straight and frets were well dressed and has a nice smooth feel. Pick guard holes didn't line up well, had to fill and redrill one because it was off just enough the screw wanted to go in at too much of an angle. The hardware was packed in plastic bags with no protection...some scratching of chrome pieces. The body and neck were in good packing and in good shape when I took them out. Action,fit and finish...it's all up to you and how good you are at it.

This is a guitar that is only as good as you make it. Better tuners are a must. I am sure the pots and selector switch won't stand the test of time, but for right now they work and are very quiet. Strap buttons are solid because there is a long beefy screw to hold them in. This guitar is what it is, a cheap, fun kit to put together. That is why I bought it, to have some fun with. I could have bought a tele copy already put together for the same price, but I can have the same quality guitar, if not better, and say I built it myself. If you take your time and do it right it will take you a week or two to build it, the finish is the time consumer. Not sure I would gig with this guitar until all the bugs are worked out.

There is none, only a post office box number in California that I found on the box. No phone number, e-mail or web site that I have found. Best of fortune, you are on your own, don't buy it unless you have the time and some woodworking tools, router, drill press, good hand drill and bits, and a ton of sand paper if you plan on staining it.

I have been playing for over 35 years and know my way around guitars. This kit could be better if they would have done everything they should have done at the factory, routing and drilling holes right. I don't think I would buy another one of these kits, would be better off buying each piece and start with better quality parts. I still have a problem with the high E string sounding a bit dead when played open. Going to have to work on the nut to correct that. I don't feel cheated with this guitar because I wasn't expecting to end up with Fender quality. I bought it because I wanted to put a guitar together and thats it. I basically got what I payed for and alot of fun to boot. When I get all the bugs ironed out, I will play it for awhile and it will probably go up for auction.