BexGearsDIY 7 String Electric Guitar Kits Burl poplar veener top okoume Body maple neck & composite ebony fingerboard You Build The Guitar

Pretty decent cnc work on the lumber. Clean veneer. A steal for the price. You definitely need to know what you’re doing. The pots and pickups are plug and play. A very convenient quick connect system. The headache is finishing and fitting. I went for a thick clear coat. 7 coats with wet sanding. But it came out cool. I left the natural imperfections. It looks and feels handbuilt. I love it. The poplar and mahogany just resonate. I do suggest shimming the neck. I shimmed mine about 1/32”. I also recessed the entire bridge about 1/64”. Dry fitting everything the bridge sat really high. Even with adjustable saddles. I like a low action. I soaked the neck in linseed/mineral/lemon oils for a few minutes. Let it soak in. I’m a professional luthier so this build was amazingly fun. But for a novice, it could be frustrating. For someone who doesn’t have access to a spray booth I would suggest a mineral/citrus oil rub. A dozen coats and it would look awesome. I was looking for protection in my finish. But if you do clear it. Be prepared to fight air bubbles. It’s the nature of veneer. If you do like a low action. Be prepared to make alterations. Dry fit. The low B sat at nearly .375” high. It’s not a cello! Hahaha. But if you’re looking for some fun. And a gnarly crunchy result. Definitely do it. I’ve gotten several offers in the hundreds. But I’ll never sell it. Thanks to the crew at Bex!

Where to start? The wood; As is mentioned in many of the reviews, the veneer is super thin. Very easy to sand thru. Yet, as thin as it is, they still managed to Crack the veneer when vacuum or pressed to the main body. Not to mention the voids in the wood naturally present in this particular example. The body top carve was full of low spots and high spots making it very easy to sand thru the veneer if you try to get it sanded smooth. The sides were full of flat spots requiring alot more sanding. The edges were not rounded over evenly and required alot more sanding. I planned on a high gloss finish, so all these issues needed addressed.Fitment; First, foremost and most important is the neck pocket and neck alignment. The fit was EXTREMELY sloppy! When the neck was attached, there was no contact between the sides of the pocket and the neck. The gap was big enough to see the bottom of the pocket between the neck and body. Meaning the only surface contact was between the bottom of the neck heal and the flat of the body, as the neck pocket opens up into the pickup rought. So bad was the fit that I could tug on the neck and throw the alignment off so much that the bass side string fell off the fretboard. Hole drilling was off on the bridge mounts so that I could only get 2 of the 4 holes to line up. Requiring me to plug the predrilled holes and redrill new ones. The string thru holes were not aligned with the bridge either. But close enough to not require being redrilled. Just opened up on the top side so the strings could pass thru.Other QA issues; The dot inlays on the neck were not even completely round on some of them. Alot of tearout of the wood around the dot inlays. Making it look very cheep. An easy and typical fix at the manufacturing level, before the frets are installed. Also had sanding marks across the grain on the fingerboard. Very noticeable and difficult to remove after the frets are installed. It was obvious that they tried to address the inlay issues after the neck was finished.Also note; this comes with a finish of some kind already. Which defeats the purpose of doing a kit in the first place in my opinion. The neck and headstock has a thin tung oil or similar type of finish. The veneer on the body had something also. Since I planned on using stains, this all needed sanded off.Needless to say, you will spend a lot of time sanding and reworking fitment on these if you want a quality guitar in the end. At $200 + for this kit, it should have been a premium guitar kit. It is NOT! If I had to do it again, I would throw the wood on the fire, sell off the hardware and electronics for $20 and build one from scratch! Really!Update 3/28/2022 .. Seller offered me a partial refund to change my review. Against Amazon policies! I reported it to Amazon and my review stands. Apparently some of these reviewers took the money because they were originally lower star ratings. Don't believe them!

This is a really nice looking kit...but there are small issues to be aware of.The neck is amazing! The fretboard is a beautiful piece of ebony and the frets are pretty nice out of the box. The back of the neck is already polished and smoothed out...not raw wood which has it's plusses and minuses. The neck is ready for mounting and use with little to no additional work required. The one bad about the neck is the headstock is sealed so you won't be able to dye it any color. You are stuck with the finish it comes with. The finish is not perfect either. The unit I purchased had a couple of low spots from the grain that will need to be filled.The potentiometers are small in diameter...so, questionable...and the tone cap is a Mylar cap...but for the price, this it is acceptable.The BAD!!!!!The body is a nice 2/3 piece with the burl top. The unit I received has some deep grooved areas in the grain that cannot be sanded out or the veneer will get too thin. These need to be filled. It is a pretty piece of burl veneer though. there was one area where the veneer didn't quite reach the edge and I needed to get creative to coverup that spot. Not excellent. Unlike the headstock, the body is not sealed so you will need to do that. You can stain/dye the body, but if you plan to put a poly coat on it and go for level/glass smooth, you will need to put a number of coats if not pour poly over these areas to fill them.The edges of the body are lightly scalloped...so this limits the ability to alter the body shape without it being obvious. While this makes for a comfortable feel, it does limit some possibilities.As I have been assembling this kit, I have found that parts are missing like bolts for the selector switch, and the washers + nuts for the potentiometers. Some of the pre-drilled holes in the body are not aligned (the bridge holes for the mounting screws are not straight, and the string through holes do not align with the bridge holes. I needed to plug and re-drill those holes to line up. NOT FUN!!!!).Before I had given this kit a 4. Now I'm rescinding that and downgrading it to a 2 since this is actually a B-stock quality kit. It's a nice kit, but the hobbyist won't be able to assemble this kit easily and accurately, and there will be issues...BIG ISSUES!!!!! It's not worth the $200 I paid. $100...maybe because it's B-stock.Shame on the manufacturers QA department for letting this out the door.