I’ve always wanted a carved-top-single-cutaway-set-neck-mahogany-solid-body of the type sold by the brand that dare not speak its name, so I splurged some Christmas money on a kit from China. Looked at the Artist kit but wasn’t super-keen on the bolt-on maple neck, and I didn’t really like the look of the cheap eBay kits.
Kit is ‘musoo’ brand (aka “Beijing Palace Musical Instrument Company”), the damage ended up at AUD250 incl GST & shipping and arrived in Perth in just under two weeks. My impressions (bearing in mind this is my first kit) are:
- It’s pretty good! Machining seems tidy (it’s allegedly CNC), neck fits the pocket pretty well, centre-lines look right etc. It was nice to find kits available with P90 routes rather than attempting to fill humbuckers.
- Neck is made of two pieces with a visible join on the heel, the long tenon is a separate piece to the rest of the neck. Truss rod & adjustment hole seem slightly off-centre.
- Fretboard looks like rosewood, although not A grade with a few knots. Frets, binding etc all appear okay at first glance. The inlay routing is a little untidy in the corners, although probably in line with what you get for a couple of hundred bucks.
- No idea what sort of wood the carved top is made of (other than ‘not maple’, although wasn’t really expecting it for this price). The veneer is super-thin, I think this is like most kits though.
- The veneer looks pretty nice, I’m obviously painting but it would make a decent looking burst. I haven’t checked for glue spots (there may be one at the cutaway) but I can if anyone’s interested.
- Hardware is really junky, I don’t think I’ll use any of it. The plastic is all black (and I’ll go cream), there was no pickguard included, the pre-soldered controls look budget, the tuners are very sloppy etc.
The plan is to do a Goldtop, after reading the Guitar Magazine Greco conversion I’m partial to the idea of a ’54. No post holes drilled yet so I can do the wraparound (though the kit TOM/tailpiece actually looks reasonable). I’d like to have a go at doing a MOP headstock inlay as well but that may depend on the level of enthusiasm remaining once I hit that point.
At this stage I have several projects around the house I have to finish before the boss will let me work on a guitar, and I obviously have a bunch of bits to collect, so I won’t be starting immediately. Just thought I’d get the ball rolling with a post.