this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2024
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This is where guitars are right now.
Both Fender and Gibson are now owned by venture capitalists. Their quality of everything, from strings to picks to guitars, has plummeted across every brand they own in the last five years. It’s sad really.
You go on Reddit and people talk about the models and which one is great for this, or why they prefer it for that, but then you find some deeper dives into more recent spaces and people who know what they are talking about have moved away entirely from both brands.
If anyone is curious, you can buy a better guitar from Harley-Benton, Cort, or Jet than from Fender/Gibson and it will be 1/2 to 1/4 the cost.
The classic "Buy a reputable brand, cut costs and coast along on the reputation until you can sell off all your shares and move on to another company". Bonus points for using ~~legalised embezzlement~~ share buyback.
I saw a headline on some guitar magazine "These are the most over priced guitars currently". Says a lot and it's true.
There's not much point in throwing money at a brand name anymore. Quality control is long gone and they all come straight out of a factory anyway. It's alright though, because factory quality is decent, and with a little know-how you can easily make them play good.
My best guitar is a $100 kit-build. Acknowledging that I'd need to do a full setup on any guitar I figured I might as well paint and assemble it myself, because I'm not going to pay several hundreds just for a paint job and a logo.
Did you like building your own? I have a used PRS SE 24, which I got for a steal due to paint scuffs, but thought about building my own.
Yes absolutely, I enjoyed it and might do it again sometime with a different kit.
I do have a lot of tools already so that wasn't costly, only good practice, but it did take somewhat longer than I expected.
I wouldn't attempt to make the neck and fretboard from scratch, so a kit with a good neck is a good starting point.
Did you find any useful guides online or on YouTube for getting started? I have a decent set of tools, but this would be a new endeavor for me.
Well aware this would be a “me” guitar and not something that would have much of a value to anyone else. Some people seem to think they are building their own K-Line guitar.
It was all pretty straight forward. The kit was made to be assembled with a bolt on neck all predrilled, so it was basically just shaping the body and headstock and then paint and varnish.
I did look up some painting techniques, but I really just wanted to stain the wood, so I did that with a brush and then 2 coats of varnish. I had to sand the wood first to make it more open for staining instead of paint. If you want to paint or spray paint you should probably keep or make a base coat to avoid the wood absorbing the paint.
It was a cheap stratocaster-like kit, so I wasn't too concerned with making mistakes, but I'll admit that putting the saw into a guitar was a little daunting at first.
I used a multi-cutter for most of it to make very precise cuts. And lots and lots of sandpaper by hand with different grit sizes.
It only took a few evenings to do, so it is not difficult at all, but I guess it depends on how much you want to customize it.
Do you know the brand? Sounds like my next winter project.
I want to make one with normal pickups - Out1 and add a piezo bridge with a three way switch for an Out2. Some of the sounds people are getting by blending the two are incredible.
The kit I used was a Harley Benton from Thomann.
Awesome. Thank you.
No problem. Have fun.
I don't know if there's a community for this, but anyway, this is my "surf guitar".:
It's been a few years but it still looks like the day I made it.