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.
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