I took the clamps off this morning and started the final assembly. I installed the pickups, finished the wiring, installed the pickguard and trussrod cover, installed the strap locks (Dunlop is my jam), and strung it up.

There are a few things left to do, I need some screws for the back plates, and the knobs don’t fit my pots unfortunately.

Overall I’m happy with the result, and it was a lot of fun getting here.

It looks pretty good. Now for the bad parts…

The kit was supposed to be ready to go, but I had to do some surgery on the neck. Apparently, I didn’t do enough surgery
I think the angle is too steep because the bridge is WAY high.

Because the bridge is too high, the pickups are not close enough.

I’ll have to remove the neck to fix this, and it’s gonna be a giant pain in the ass. Not looking forward to this.

Also, I think I have a bad ground connection or something because o have a HORRIFIC buzz when it’s plugged into the amp. I’m not sure what kind of pickups are in it. I assumed they are humbuckers by the size and shape, but they only seem to have 1 set of magnets.

Soo… Looks like I’m gonna chase a wiring problem.

Point of no return here (or at least a real pain on the ass to go back). I glued the neck on just now. Thanks to advice from some helpful redditors, I didn’t use the wrong glue! I used Titebond original glue because it can be undone with water if I ever need to take it apart (hopefully never).

I’ll let this sit and cure until tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!

I installed the tuning machines just now. My trusty old $3 egg beater drill and the ruler I use for string height are the best tools for the job. The tuning machines are Grover 18:1. The tuning machines the kit came with sucked and felt loose.

I started wiring up the body. I installed the 3-way switch, volume and tone knobs. I suck at soldering. I’ll probably install the jack tonight.

I scraped the binding on the neck and body. It looks really sweet, but there are now some scratches in the lacquer that need to be cleaned up. I scraped the lacquer off the body using my wood marking knife. It was very tedious.

I also put the bridge and tailpiece bushings into the body. I dropped in the pickups and pickguard to see what it will look like and I like it!

The chinesium tuning machines that came with the kit are pretty bad, so o got a set of sweet Grover tuners.

I put a bunch of clear coats on the guitar and it looks good! I lightly sanded between many of the coats just to knock dust spots and high spots off.

I’m going to let the lacquer harden for a while (the say 7-10 days). Then I will sand and polish a bit.