"I bought this Leo Jaymz Explorer shaped DIY guitar kit in late September. I've been playing guitar off and on for years, and thought now was a good time at trying to make a cool custom guitar from a kit. The guitar kit arrived undamaged, and everything was wrapped securely to prevent damage. Body, neck and hardware are all packaged individually. The body and neck both seemed very smooth and nearly ready to go. I did notice a lot of pores and grain on the body which would need to be addressed with some wood filler. Just for kicks and as a homage to all those crazy custom graphic guitars of the Hair Metal 1980s, I added a cool looking design. I figured why not, right? That easily took the most amount oi time for my build - priming, sanding, hand drawing the graphic, and clear coating. I decided to buy a whole set of gold colored hardware, as I wasn't that big a fan of the look of the standard chrome pieces that it comes with. I was also sure to swap out the pickups to a highly rated set which wasn't very expensive on Amazon. I also got locking tuners to avoid any tuning stability issues down the road. Gluing in the neck was very simple. The neck joint is super tight, and it only goes in one way with no wiggle. some might be worried about having to do a ton of work to the neck, but the one I got was perfect. The frets were really good, no sharp pointy edges, very straight neck with no warping, the edges were not rounded over with a file, but they seem fine to play on with no issues. You will need to polish them out a little as they had a gritty, rough feel to them. Steel wool and a generous application of Lemon Oil for the dry fretboard wood did the trick on the neck I received. Putting all the various hardware items wasn't too difficult, and getting things to fit sometimes required drilling and enlarging some of the standard holes they provide on the body. By far, the most tedious part was soldering all the components together and getting everything to fit in the control cavity. This would be easier if you just went with the supplied controls, as everything is plug and play and comes pre-attached together. Very easy if you just want to use the standard stuff. I actually used the cheap guitar strings included, and they're not bad. They feel like 10s to my fingers, but I could be wrong. The guitar tone is singing with tons of sustain as you would expect from a mahogany body. I'm used to bolt-on Fender style necks, so having a set neck guitar was as real treat. The end result is that you get a really cool totally customizable platform to make your guitar dreams come true. Did I mention that it was Super Fun too? Totally rewarding experience, and you get bragging rights to tell people that you built it yourself. Highly recommended, the Leo Jaymz EX style kit is a steal considering what you end up with. I'm looking into the possibility of getting another LJ kit soon - they're THAT good. 10+"

"OK, this is a sub $100 kit that includes body, neck, tuning machines, pickups, switches, volume and tone control, strings and an amp cord. that is an amazing price. But...... the tuning machines were really cheap. I replaced those with wilkinsons. The nut on the neck was low quality so replaced that..... But remember this is a sub $100 kit. do not expect $100 tuners and $200 pickups.

The body wood was a 3 piece wood body. the wood grain and color did not have a great match. If you are painting this is not an issue. I stained and used clear lacquer so you can see it. Not a big deal.

The nut was cheap white plastic. I could not find a tusq that would fit. so I bought a blank and made my own bone nut. Pretty easy and much easier to do before the neck is finished.

Speaking of finish. This was my first guitar finish job. If it is yours do you research and take your time.

The body was fairly smooth out of the box, I sanded the body to 320 grit, did a pore fill. sanded. Pore filled again, sanded, pore filled again. I wish I would have done a 4th pore fill. I then stained

I then sprayed 3 coats of vinyl sealer, sanded, applied another coat of vinyl sealer and, sanded to 400 grit.

I then applied about 12 coats of clear lacquer with sanding every 4 coats. My goal was a mirror-like finish. I got close after sanding to 5000grit and then buffing.

The neck was pretty much the same. the frets will get coated with lacquer which needs to be removed. So I took the opportunity to do a fret level, recrowning and polishing which removed most of the lacquer. I took a bit of hand sanding to remove the excess on the sides (tape up your lacquer to protect it).

the neck to body angle was off a bit, it would still play good, but i added a 1/2 degree shim to angle the neck back a bit.

Wiring is plug and play be aware of the exposed pickup ground wires hitting copper shieilding in the cavities, this will kill the sound.

After finishing up the setup, truss rod, intonation, string height it was ready to plug in.

the cheap single coils hum a bit, but again, this is a sub $100 kit. Most decent pickups are $100-200 for a set. I plugged it into a Marshall amp and it sounds decent. I do not have a Fender Telecaster to compare the sound, but It had a decent tone, maybe not the tone you want, but it sounded good. I added a 4 way switch to be able to run the pu in series and that added some beef to the sound.

I used both min-wax lacquer and lacquer from a local woodworking supply. Heated the lacquer up in hot water and it gave a pretty good finish. I probably could have done a few more coats and more sanding and could have had a close to perfect finish, but hey this is a sub $100 kit. Total cost including sand paper, vinyl sealer, stain, pre filler, lacquer, nut blank, new tuners and the 4 way switch is about $220 .

Great learning experience on making and setting up a guitar and fret work."