UPDATED on December 8, 2020.
I recently purchased the StewMac T-Style Electric Guitar Kit. That’s an Amazon-affiliated link I just used, there, just so you know. Amazon links and ads pay for the hosting of this website. BUT you should check the stewmac.com website and see which has the better price – usually the Amazon link is more, but includes shipping.
I am in the process of building this kit, and I’ll be updating my YouTube channel with my progress. But I’ve spent a lot of time already with this kit, so let’s do the review…
The Good
This kit is a good way to get a fairly good body and guitar neck for not much money. You get all the hardware and electronics in the deal, too, and the wood is of good quality. The Telecaster-style body I got is made of three pieces, but they blend together very well. The holes in it were accurately drilled. The neck has no skunk stripe (hooray!) and the fretboard is plenty thick. The fretwork is decent. I am pleased overall, and in the future I might do a matching Strat kit. I’m learning a lot about grain filling and staining wood.
The tuners seem to be good enough quality that I don’t plan on replacing them. The pickguard is nice and very thick, which I like. The jack plate is metal – a very nice touch. It helpfully comes with strings, which I will no doubt use while building and doing the setup.
The body comes sort of very rough sanded, as does the neck. You’re not going to just slap this together and play it – you need to sand it and do a bunch of work, which is great – that’s the point.
This is a really fun project. The directions are good, printed on nice paper with color photos. If you want to buy a guitar kit, this is a darned good one.
The Bad
I believe the bridge pickup came broken. CORRECTION: Although there are a couple of wind wires dangling off the pickup, the pickup actually works fine. But it doesn’t matter, because…
The pickups that come with this kit are low quality. They’re inexpensive ceramic pickups. At the price range where this kit lives, that’s understandable. If you’re really into tone, you’ll need to replace them.
This isn’t necessarily bad, but the frets on my neck are vintage – they’re tiny. TINY. I’ll be doing a refret on the neck with Fender medium-jumbo frets before I do anything else. Again, some people like teeny frets, but most modern players don’t. It’s a curious choice for a kit.
I can’t tell what the nut is, but it seems plastic to me. That’ll need to be replaced.
Some of the holes are pre-drilled, and according to the directions, they shouldn’t be. I don’t yet own a drill press, so I don’t mind much, but some might.
The ad shows a crappy 1/4 inch guitar cable. Mine did not have one included.
The volume and tone pots are cheap, but they feel surprisingly good – so good, in fact that I might not replace them. The three way switch is junk, but I’ll use it until it breaks. It’s a switch. It’s not going to hurt the tone.
The Ugly
The headstock shape on my guitar does not match the website description. As already pointed out, some of the work you’re supposed to do was already done on my model. What kind of nut is this? Don’t know. What type of pickups? What were they meant to sound like? Don’t know. The manual is wonderful, but you’re not going to build this thing without doing a lot of homework on YouTube to learn how to do finishing, fretwork, etc.
On Amazon where I bought this, they advertised a maple neck, but mine shipped with a mahogany neck. Huh?
I get the feeling that StewMac buys the necks and bodies in bulk and then just puts the kits together with whatever they have. This is not OK. I don’t care that the fretboard isn’t maple, but it’s clearly maple in the web page ad. That’ll piss some people off. StewMac has excellent customer service, though.
So understand that if you buy this kit, the headstock shape might not be what is on the website, and the fretboard may or may not be maple. If these things matter to you, my best advice would be to call StewMac and tell them exactly what you want, and order over the phone.
Also, this is the crappiest fretwire I’ve ever seen. When removing these frets, it flaked metal like mad. These have to be the cheapest frets I’ve ever had in my possession. And since they’re tiny, I’d say that fret wear will likely happen pretty quickly.
One more thing. I’m refretting this guitar, and there’s metal underneath two of the frets. It feels like they’re screws. They’re not interfering with the refret, but just be aware of them.
Conclusion
In a kit for around $200, I wasn’t expecting much. The neck and body are worth more than $200, and some of the hardware is good. I would recommend the StewMac kit over any of the sub-$200 kits I’ve seen online, because of the quality of the wood, and because StewMac has great customer service – if something isn’t right, they’ll make it right. If you want to go up a level in quality, buy a neck and body from Warmoth. But it’ll be three times the price (or more.)
In terms of the quality of the final build, it’s up to the builder. Visit my YouTube channel, starting on Friday, December 11, 2020, to see the build. It’ll take several episodes. This Friday is unboxing and discussing, and the following Friday I’ll be pulling the frets and putting in new ones.
If you’re a beginner, I would not recommend trying a refret! I’ve done about 15 of them and I’m still not good at it. Just be aware that this kit comes with very small frets. But it is turning out to be a lot of fun to build!
