Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello All I stumbled in and found this awesome place, I was looking on line for a Tele Kit, and here are my questions. should I buy it piece x piece getting what I want or buy a lower priced kit and replace the goodies later? and who should I look at as a supplier

Thanks in advance !

Most of the luthiers on this site build custom guitars. I don't know of any that are kit suppliers, but of course there may be. You may want to check over on the Telecaster Guitar Forum:

http://www.tdpri.com

There are an almost unlimited number of posts on what they call a "Partscaster". I think you will get a better idea of what kit builders are doing from them.

Good luck (and careful, this becomes addictive!)

Thank you !

How much work do you want to do yourself? What quality of materials do you want? Do you want to do the finishing?

I've seen some kits that were frankly terrible (and I've helped a couple of people make their kits playable). On the other hand, parts from Warmouth, Stewart McDonald and others can be assembled to make a very good guitar. The advantage of a "parts caster" is that you can choose each component - bridge, pickups, tuners as well as the level of finish on the body and neck. Fender stuff is pretty well standardized and most necks will work with most bodies (particularly if you buy from the same source).

I'm also going to suggest Melvyn Hiscock's book Make Your Own Electric Guitar - while its mostly about building from scratch he does talk about parts guitars, setup, electronics, finish - all the stuff that you need to know about whether you cut the wood or someone else did.