BexGears DIY ST Style Electric Guitar Kits, Mahogany Body maple neck & composite ebony fingerboard

This was my first guitar build and here’s my take:Overview: All in all- the quality and ease of assembly is better than another major guitar kit company that costs 3 times as much. Better pickups, better neck. Otherwise, the quality between the two is about the same, though the frets were MUCH better dressed on this Bex Gear compared to the more expensive company.Pro’s:Simple build, no unique tools required, all the pre-drilled screw holes lined up perfectly, the neck feels good (frets are all nicely finished, beveled and crowned), the neck fit perfectly into the neck pocket of the body and the pickups sound really nice for such a budget price. Also, the electronics all plug together, so if soldering or wiring intimidates you, this kit removes that frustration or worry.Cons: the hardware is generally not great. My kit was missing all of the pick-guard screws (which meant an extra $10 for like 100 screws, of which I only needed like 10). The wood (basswood?) is really soft, making it prone to gouges even on light impacts. This would probably be less noticeable if you stain and poly the body instead of lacquering it like I did. The string trees kind of suck, but that’s a small gripe and doesn’t affect the playability or tuning stability. Oh and the tremolo system is terrible, so I’d stay away from this or any other budget build if you want to use that feature.For anyone who’s wondering, I used 2 cans of black Rustoleum lacquer and about 4 or 5 cans of clear rustoleum lacquer over the top of that. Wet sanded to 2000 grit, then used a buffing compound to shine it up. None of that is necessary, I just wanted a shiny black Strat-style guitar. BTW- rattle can lacquer is both soft and somehow brittle at the same time, so it scuffs and chips easily.Hope this helps someone

This is a $58 guitar kit. I wasn't expecting much.It arrived yesterday and my 13-year-old son and I assembled it in about 30 minutes. We only needed a small screwdriver, a large (power) screwdriver, and a pair of needle-nosed pliers. That plus an amp and we were able to test out the kit immediately.The only issue was the instructions weren't 100% clear about some order-of-operations involving the rigging of the ground wire and the resonator. If you are going to assemble yourself, read the instructions involving the resonator and ground wire all the way through at least once before you do anything and you'll save yourself from having to withdraw screws and re-do it. It only wasted maybe 5 minutes of head-scratching.The electronics are surely not world-class. I'm a beginner and this is my first electric, but I have some years of acoustic experience. If you want better pick-ups, connectors, wires, shielding, knobs, etc. I'm sure you can replace them individually at any point. But there no hissing, buzzing, crackles, etc. other than those expected from single-coil pickups (all strats hum; that's just the deal). The strings are surely not top-quality. Spend $10-$20 and get yourself some nicer strings if you think you need them.I assembled and played on day-1 because I wanted to know if (a) I had everything I needed and (b) the thing actually worked. The next step is to disassemble it, add finish the body, then re-assemble. But so far, I'm impressed by a $58 kit.The body is solid and not particularly heavy. All routed cavities look well-cut and nothing feels flimsy. The neck is straight as an arrow. The frets are smooth and required no sanding or filing. The action is adjustable to your liking in several ways. If you like really low action, you will want to sand-down the nut, but if you know you want lower action, you already knew that. The parts fit together snugly. The pickup-selector switch is firm and stays in place. The volume and tone knobs feel like they have thick grease in them, but they stay in place as expected. The pick guard is strong enough to hold the electronics, but not any stronger than that. It's also very soft. I put a big scratch in it with my fingernail while removing the plastic that protects it during shipping. The pickups are sitting at odd angles and aren't perfectly flat. I suspect with a little adjustment under the pick-guard, I can get them "perfectly flat" but I'm not sure it really matters that much to me.If you are a beginner, please remember a few things:1. Installing strings is easy but requires some attention to detail. Watch an online video for how to do it to make sure you do it right the first (or second, or third) time without bending your strings out of shape nd getting frustrated. You do not need any special tools: just insert the string and do a bunch of twisting.2. New strings always go out of tune pretty much immediately. This is not the guitar's fault, it's just physics. Install the strings. Tune-up the guitar. Play it for 3 minutes. It will be out of tune. Tune it up again. You will repeat this process probably 5-10 times before the strings relax into their long-term state where you won't have to re-tune every few minutes. You can do yourself a favor by tuning it, then grabbing each string and pulling it sideways (towards and away from the other strings) gently back and forth a little. This will de-tune it, but it will accelerate the process of stretching the string so you only have to re-tune maybe 5 times instead of 10.I focus on the strings, here, because I thought my first guitar was junk because it "kept going out of tune". I thought there was something wrong with the machine heads or whatever but it was just the strings stretching out a bit when they were new.If I'm ever in the market for another guitar style (e.g. Les Paul) , I'd definitely consider another kit from the same vendor. I don't have particularly expensive tastes... yet.

Fit, finish, parts quality are impressive, particularly at the price point. Only glitch is a biggie, at least for anyone not tool-handy. Pre-drilled holes in body and neck don’t line up and neither line up with the finish plate at all. Only solution is to plug holes in both body and neck with glued dowels and then re-drill all four holes using the plate as a guide. Body had no flaws to mar appearance and looks great with stain and poly. Maple neck is dead-straight and twist-free, frets are all level and properly finished. Couple minor rough spots on the underside near the tailpiece, but some 800 grit followed by a coat of finishing wax will do the trick. Do wish it had a bone nut vice plastic. Neck feels like my Fender Telecaster…nice! Only other thing is that there’s no shielding in the body cavities so electronics might hum. Easy fix is a generous coat of conductive paint in the cavities, or copper foil if you’re more adventurous.

Was a lot of fun putting together and looks great. Plays good too!This kit is not perfect, and it's not for beginners. It's a project. You should probably know how to set up a guitar, because it will absolutely need it after being assembled; it will be unplayable until it's properly set up. There are also definitely things I would change. I really wish the pick guard had the plastic protective cover removed before the electronics were installed on it; it was a huge pain to get that off cleanly without taking it apart which kind of defeats the purpose of having it prebuilt like that. I also needed to track down a couple missing pieces of hardware, and I also had to drill a couple holes in the headstock for the string retainers, all of which I ought not have needed to do.That all being said, I loved the process and result so much that I legit ordered a second one with humbuckers and a fancy engraved pattern, gifted a third to a friend (who also loved putting it together) and even bought their smaller kids version of the kit to put one together with them. Absolutely worth the money.