Worth the upgrade?

[Diggydude]

Hey there.



I'm planning my next guitar kit to build and sell and I need some advice/have some questions.

Background info-
The kit in question is the one picture (AIB-1Q), a mahogany body and a quilted maple veneer. Mahogany bolt on neck with a 24 fret ebony fretboard. I plan on a tru oil finish. The fretboard needs some work, it has some imperfections which should sand out. This means removing frets, cleaning it up and then re-fretting. This process isn't much of an issue though.

The issue-
I'm planning on selling it's final product. I have done this before but only with the stock, chinese parts that come with it. As this will be the first I've sold since graduating high school (finishing up exams now!), I wanted to do a bit more with it. I'm considering ordering name brand parts with it. This would include

• Babicz hardtail bridge
• Tonerider Generator pickups
• Grover Locking tuners

This will double the price though, from $250 up to $500. This is excluding any other small bits (sandpaper, fretwire e.t.c) so overall it may go up even more.

What could I sell the final product for (assuming it's good, I like to think my work is good)?
Would getting these upgrades give me a greater profit when compared to chinese parts?
Is it an issue that the parts are sort of mix and match? The parts are all from different brands.
Thanks in advance

[Simon Barden]

Probably sell for $400 max despite the extra component costs. You are competing in a market where mass produced low-cost guitars are so good that a kit guitar build isn't going to compete with the quality. Unfortunately, adding on expensive aftermarket parts adds almost no value to the build. Mods to bought guitars rarely add any value to the used price, and can often reduce it's desirability.

The Babicz bridge upgrade is really a waste of time. Worth doing on a more expensive guitar, but not a low-price kit you are trying to make money on. Benefits will be minimal. If the guitar doesn't sustain well, then it's unlikely that a fancy bridge will make a significant difference. If it does sustain well, then its not going to add much. Standard bridges, even kit ones, normally work very well as they are. If you do anything here, find a nicer looking Chinese or Korean bridge to replace the bent-plate e.g. something along these lines https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dilwe-Guita...uments&sr=1-22. This type normally requires drilling string-though body holes and fitting ferrules, but it looks good IMO and doesn't cost much (and you'd have to do that for the Babicz as well).

Pickups - yes, I'd like to see decent pickups fitted. But I'd also like to see CTS pots and a Pure Tone or Switchcratft jack and a decent CRL or Oak Grigsby selector switch.

Locking tuners. No. A good selling point with a trem, but apart from making string changes a bit quicker, they provide no extra benefit on a hardtail guitar.

I'd only go with the more expensive upgrades if you were building the guitar as a commission, and they were parts the buyer wanted adding.

I bought a used partcaster Tele made from a Warmoth body and neck, Bare Knuckle pickups, Joe Barden bridge, Nitro finish, Stainless frets, locking tuners etc. I costed it up as £1400 of parts with the included Hiscox case, and I bought it for £400.

I'd concentrate more on getting a great finish to sell it rather than concentrating too much on the parts. The kits themselves are too variable in quality to guarantee a good guitar at the end of it. The bolt-ons are generally better than the set necks, but even then misaligned tuner holes are rife and no-one wants a $500+ guitar with wonky tuners, even if they are locking ones. If you want to move into guitar building and selling, then use the kits to practice on, but switch to making your own bodies and necks as soon as you can so you have full quality control. Only then will you be able to charge reasonable prices for the time and effort you put in.

[Diggydude]

Thanks for those words of wisdom. I believe I'll order the kit and the better pickups for now, I'll leave the rest as, like you said, the stock bits function properly anyway.

About own bodies, I plan on it. Once i save enough for the necessary tools and machines, I'll be getting onto it.

[OliSam]

Im with Simon on this.
Most fancy upgrades are good for the owner only and not as a way to increase value on resale


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[McCreed]

Not to flog a dead horse here, but I can concur without a doubt that there is no money to be made in selling kit guitars.
Even selling them for the cost of parts and materials, you'll be hard-pressed to get your money back.

Unfortunately most consumers are extremely brand focused. Even if it's just Squier and Epiphone, the quality of "budget guitars" has become ridiculously good in the last decade.

My personal experience with this is I had 4 extremely great looking, great playing guitars I built (2 kit, 2 partscaster) and had them listed on FB Marketplace, Reverb and Gumtree for 12 months. I had a fair number of inquiries which was usually followed by a number of stupidly low-ball offers.
It's worth mentioning that I wasn't asking outrageous prices. They were all within Squier/Epi prices (roughly 20-25% above my costs). In the end, I pulled them down and decided they're just my guitars now. The real sad part is if I parted them out, could probably recoup a majority of my investment - certainly more than selling them as complete instruments.

I'm amazed at the number of independent luthiers out there making absolutely beautiful and stunning all hand-made instruments with price tags anywhere between $2000-4000. I would guess this is a very niche market, and probably not your average gigging musician or weekend warrior. I'd be interested to know how many guitars they sell per year.
FTR, I'm specifically talking about electric guitars. Acoustic guitars are a whole other world.

The only way I would contemplate selling a guitar I build now, would be one that was for a specific buyer. (clarification: someone paid me to build them a guitar for an agreed price)

[wazkelly]

A great number of upgrades tend to be more bragging rights than genuine added value.
Agree that pickups can make a big difference but no point spending plenty on brand names when there are plenty cheaper options that are just as good.

Cheers Waz

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[DarkMark]

I once heard someone say, “The easiest was to make a small fortune from Luthiery, was to first start with a large fortune.” I can’t remember who said it.

[McCreed]

I once heard someone say, “The easiest was to make a small fortune from Luthiery, was to first start with a large fortune.” I can’t remember who said it.

I heard it differently many many years ago, but have no idea of its origin.
It went:
"You know how do you make a million dollars playing jazz (or blues)???
Well... you start with a million dollars..."

[Cliff Rogers]

Yeah, it has been around for a long time & has been used for all sorts of things.

And speaking of playing Jazz....

A Rock band plays 3 chords to thousands of people, a Jazz band plays thousands of chords to 3 people.

[McCreed]

Yeah, it has been around for a long time & has been used for all sorts of things.

And speaking of playing Jazz....

A Rock band plays 3 chords to thousands of people, a Jazz band plays thousands of chords to 3 people.

Uh-oh. The mods might to move this over to the Naughty Room's "Just for a laugh" thread!!!