Manchester Guitar Tech
Ozzy Lister – guitar and bass repair
Why build a kit?
On these pages I explain how to build a Telecaster-style guitar from a kit. The project started when a young friend who is interested in guitar broke his leg and wanted something to occupy a few days of his convalescence.
You should only build a kit for fun. You should end up with a playable instrument that sounds good and that you can be proud of but don’t expect to be able to sell it at a profit!
Choose your kit
Cost is almost always an issue, so we chose the popular Saga kit which is great value for money. They are available from a number of sellers. For this build, we upgraded the tuners to a set of Gotoh mini tuners and the pickups to Kent Armstrong units. Because of this the assembly of the kit is less straightforward but will allow me to demonstrate wiring and soldering.
Check out your kit
In your kit you should have:
- body
- neck
- pickguard (scratchplate) and screws
- bridge and fixing screws
- lead pickup, screws and springs
- rhythm pickup, screws and springs
- control plate
- 2 potentiometers and knobs
- tone capacitor
- 3-position switch and tip
- output jack and plate
- connecting wire
- tuners (machine heads)
- string guides, spacers and screws
- neck plate and 4 screws
- 2 strap buttons and screws
If you want to paint your kit, and most people do, how do do this is shown on the following pages. You can buy the nitrocellulose lacquer you need in various colours from me here.
Make sure you have everything before you start. Some items above may come ready-assembled, for example the potentiometers, switch and knobs may come already attached to the control plate and ready wired as the “control plate assembly”
You will also need:
- screwdrivers
- soldering iron and solder
- coping saw or jigsaw
- various grades of sandpaper
- various grades of “wet or dry” emery paper
- sanding block
- tack cloth
- primer
- coloured lacquer
- clear lacquer
- patience
Finish Repair
A customer had had an accident with his Ernie Ball Musicman Stingray 5-string bass. He had dropped it and knocked a large piece of the finish off the lower edge of the guitar. I filled the damage with matching lacquer so that the damage was no longer noticeable.
Sunburst Gibson L6-S finish repair
Here is a similar repair to a tobacco sunburst Gibson L6-S. The ding was through the lacquer and into the wood. This colour took a while to get right but I was very pleased with the results
The owner wanted to keep most of the wear and tear but fix the nasty chip. Can you see the join?
This was also refinished by a customer. It’s a mid 90s Mexican Fender DuoSonic re-issue with a 22″ short scale neck.
David writes:
“Results are great! Again I thank you for the paint – clearly excellent quality, and for the advice both on your web site and via email – invaluable. There is no way I could of achieved these results without your help, cheers!”
