****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
So first let me tell you, I started out thinking this might be an acceptable guitar for a new player. I was thinking it would be my sons Christmas present. Unfortunately the overall quality was so poor, it was not even a playable instrument. BUT it got me thinking and I decided to see if I could take this junker and turn it into a player. What I had here was a guitar with such a bad back-bow in the neck, it was unplayable. The frets were uneven and fret ends were razor sharp. The woodworking on the body was fair overall but it had one major issue. The tremolo cutout was cut short on the right side of the hole. With the Tremolo installed it was wedged up tight against the side of the pocket. It could not move. The tuners and tremolo were cheaply made and NO tremolo arm was included and the whole guitar was just begging for an upgrade.What surprised me the most was that the electronics on the pickguard were surprisingly good. Large pots and reasonable quality 5 way switch. I am not sure but judging from the attention to detail elsewhere, I must assume that the pick-guard came loaded as a pre-assembled unit and was just installed when the guitar was assembled. The cable plug was not even connected properly. The other think I will give them credit on is that they did an excellent job routing out the neck pocket and matching it to the neck. They fit together like a glove. So some good, some bad but in my mind a respectable place to start if you want to build your own guitar not quite from scratch and be a bit further along than a DIY kit.Case, tuner and picks were of reasonable quality. I got this guitar for $50 as a warehouse deal. Even with all its flaws, the low price made it worth keeping. The way I looked at it is I got an inexpensive $20 case, a $10 tuner and a parts guitar for $20.I started by stripping down the guitar into its 3 major parts, neck, body and electronics. The big question was could I straighten out the neck? I spent about 10-15 hours working on the neck. I adjusted the truss rod, replacing the nut, dressing and leveling the frets and did a lot of tedious hand work to make the neck smooth as silk. Then I added OEM Fender hardware and ended up with a very respectable fender style neck.I spent another 5-6 hours worked on the body fitting in a new tremolo system, lining the pickup cutouts with copper foil and installing a black OEM Fender pickguard, black OEM Fender knob set and OEM Fender back plate. Did a little soldering and ran a few extra ground wires. The color change on the pickguard gave this Strat want-o-be a whole look. With all the improvements and the isolation for the single pickups it gave the guitar a very good "Strat" sound.Another 2-3 hours setting string height adjustment, intonation and adjusting pickups and.... Job well done!NOW I have an amazing "Strat" that plays and sounds like it a strat should. What a transformation. Take a $50 guitar, add < $100 in parts, new strings and a lot of time, effort and love and you too can have an amazing guitar. GOOD LUCK AND remember the journey is the fun you have getting to your destination. HAVE FUN!!
