Hardware and compatibility
Bridge posts, tuners, and pickguards ship pre-drilled where possible. Hardware-only kits help you rescue a body you already love — great when a tour knock-in damaged a trem but left good wood.
Body-only kits let you choose pickups from our wound sets or your favorite aftermarket maker. We publish cavity depth and wire channel maps so you are not guessing where heat shrink should stop.
Finishing and final setup
Raw bodies arrive sanded to 220 with grain raised and ready. If you are spraying nitro for the first time, our guide covers humidity windows and flash times. Email us photos if orange peel shows up — we have saved many first finishes.
When to buy complete
If you need a gig guitar in weeks not months, a finished Telecaster ships faster than a first kit build. Kits win when you want to learn every screw and still end on a instrument you trust.
Common first-build wins
Owners report the highest satisfaction when they slow down on neck bolt torque — alternating screws until gap is even — and when they test continuity before strings go on. Our wiring diagrams use color labels that match the wire shipped in the bag, not generic schematic ghosts.
Premium kits with pre-wired pickguards cut soldering time for players who still want to learn setup. Luthier kits assume you will radius-fret or know a tech who will — we do not pretend stainless fretwork is a Saturday afternoon if you have never leveled before.
Support from the bench
Stuck on a ground loop hum? Send a photo of your control cavity. Wondering if your neck pocket shim is too thick? We will measure against our CAD template. That support is included because kits are how many players discover our complete guitars later.
Bottom line
A good kit should remove mystery, not add it. These four packages are the same parts we reach for on the bench — just boxed for your kitchen table or garage shop.
Kits ship double-boxed with neck and body in separate foam bays. Hardware bags are labeled by assembly step — bridge hardware in bag two, electronics in bag three — so you are not dumping screws on a towel and guessing order.
Budget a weekend for starter kits, a month for luthier boxes with new fretwork. Rushing usually shows up as chipped finish or cold solder joints that hum when the lights dim. Patience is a tool in the same bag as your iron.
Write us with your use case — wedding band, worship stage, home recording — and we will point to the build that matches load-in weight, neck carve, and pickup output without upselling hardware you will never touch.
