Leo Jaymz DIY Single Cut Electric Guitar Kits with Mahogany Body and Neck - Rosewood Fingerboard and All Components Included (LP Hollow)

Vanelope Von Schweet Strat turned out to be a great guitar. The pick guard came pre wired which was a nice surprise, even though i was looking forward to soldering. Only one hiccup during the building process, the tip of the output jack made contact with the cavity, causing a short. After some quick work with a dremel, it assembled fine. The copper tape was a nice touch and made the build feel classy. After building it didn't take long to tune it up, though i did have to shave the nut down to relieve some of the high action. Now she plays nice and easy. The pickups are way stronger than I was expecting. It sounds great with any pedal and amp I run it through. It's definitely my favorite electric guitar. It was a good kit. Came with more than I expected. Some reviews mention it didn't have an instruction manual, and that was true. But this wasn't my first kit so I wasn't going to read it anyway even if it was included.

This is for the ST kit in Paulownia wood. The kit is complete, with working electronics and straight wood. The instructions are minimal, but workable if you know how guitars go together or have a good book to help you (Dan Erlewine or Paul Balmer's books are my favorites). If you do your own repairs and adjustments, you won't have any major challenges here. The materials are basic, but well made. They've thoughtfully put connectors on the wires so there's no soldering. Make sure you've gotten any glue off the body and fretboard. If I do another one, I will sand the body down a little more than I did, and use some wood grain filler before I stain it. I also put a smooth finish on the back of the neck, but that's a matter of personal preference. You don't even have to stain/paint it -- the unfinished wood is attractive enough. It plays and sounds like an SSS strat. I might upgrade the pickups, but these will be fine for a while. I didn't like the too-tall plastic nut; I replaced it with one made of bone. If you don't have experience installing a floating bridge/trem, try a kit with a hardtail. Is it fancy? No. But the kit is fun and easy to build and, for me at least, has resulted in a pretty good instrument that is enjoyable to play.

I write very few reviews. But when I see an amazing price/product value, I feel compelled to do it. I have built over 50 DIY guitar kits from various companies. I can say, without reservation, that the Leo Jaymz DIY Kits rise above all of them from a price/quality perspective. THE BODY alone is worth the price - solid mahogany, cleanly and accurately routed down to the millimeter. The specs are dead on. And unlike 90% of other kits, you can trust the positioning of the pre-drilled pilot holes. THE NECK is surprisingly good. Albeit raw, it is well milled, accurate, and just waiting to be finessed. As with any kit neck, you will need to level and dress the fret wires and apply your desired finish. THE HARDWARE & ELECTRONICS are complete, functional, and well packaged. Everything you need is included and will work fine. That said, and if your build is going well, you may opt for better components like pickups and tuners. But don't get me wrong. This kit is worth every penny and, to me, the best on the market for the dollar. I added a couple of pics of my last Leo Jaymz build I did for a charity - it auctioned off for $1,200. UPSHOT: From entry-level to accomplished luthiers, this kit offers the potential to create a highly functional, quality instrument at an absolutely amazing price point.

Not going to lie, I didn't expect much from this. I like to build guitars and other things, and I just sort of had an idea for a paint scheme, and just wanted to have a project that I could complete somewhat quickly. I figured when I placed the order that I was going to have to do a lot more finishing work than I actually did, which was actually impressive for something in this price point. The hardware is of the usual quality you would see on mid-level guitars, with the sole exception being the bridge pickup (I got the Rhodes V style), but fortunately I had a Seymour Duncan Invader that wasn't living in a guitar at the time, so I decided to go with that. The quality of the wood is reasonably good, the only thing that I could even remotely complain about it is that it was advertised as being mahogany, but this is WAY too light to be mahogany, it has a different color to it as well, and it's tone is substantially brighter than I would've thought mahogany to be. Maybe teak? I like it though, and it works really great with the Invader. It came with some incredibly idiot-proof instructions, even somebody who has never built a guitar could understand how to put this together based on the way that they laid out and presented in the instruction manual, so my hat comes off to the technical writer responsible for that. The only things that I didn't use from the kit were the volume knob and the bridge pickup. My only real legitimate gripe is that the screws that would hold down the truss rod cover were missing from the kit, but that's alright because I usually like having that open anyway. And I did an extensive amount of sanding on the neck to thin the profile a little. Bonus points because they gave me entirely too much shielding tape, so I had a bunch of spare left over to finish off another project! Overall, I would definitely recommend this. If you always wanted to build a guitar, but you really don't know where to start, it is rather difficult to mess this one up. Good quality components, easy to follow instructions, everything you need, right there. You bring the tools, the kit brings the rest.

Not junk. But not good either. Anyone without any guitar building or setup knowledge could never make this kit work. First of all, the frets are nowhere near to being level. Fret buzz and dead strings would have been horrendous. I had to do a complete fret level. The fret ends were not balled and are very sharp. There is glue residue on the neck where the fretboard was glued. There are small fissures in the wood body. There are deep sanding marks on the inside curvatures of the body. The pickup design is terrible, which prevents the pickups from being adjusted properly and sitting in the pocket correctly. The pickup tops are not flat. They are both angled and slightly higher in the middle where they meet. Not sure if this is by design or not. The cloth tape around the pickup windings is very sloppy. I will be installing a quality humbucker. The tuners are cheap but not sloppy. With a lot of work, which I had anticipated, the neck and body alone are worth the purchase price. Something I can work with. I bought this kit to build a cheap guitar so I could donate it to a guitar school for kids. I will go ahead and spend a few dollars to make this guitar worthy for donation. I can make it work only because I have guitar building skills. Otherwise, I would have no chance of building a playable guitar. This is my first experience with a Leo Jaymz product and I am not impressed. 03/08/26 update: the string-through body holes are misaligned making it impossible to use without redrilling the body holes to fit this hardtail bridge. I tried fitting other bridges I had and none of those worked either. I have elected to use a higher quality top-load hardtail bridge to complete this build. You can use the bridge that came with the kit for top loading your strings. You just have to deal with the unused holes in the body. 03/13/26 update: the jack input opening prevents the cord jack from plugging in all the way. I will have to enlarge the opening inside the cavity to make it work. Problem after problem with this kit. Shameful.

I build high-quality custom guitars that the average worker can afford. This means keeping prices reasonable and expenses low while utilizing the best parts available. Not an easy balance. With rising parts costs and escalating tariffs, that balance is increasingly difficult. I purchased the Leo Jaymz SG kit solely to utilize the body and neck. Both seem of good quality. The remainder of the parts will probably languish in a box somewhere. Probably not what you are thinking about while considering purchasing this kit and reading this review. So, you want to try your hand at building a guitar? The Leo Jaymz kit is actually a good start for the novice builder...with many very large caveats, including: The kit. Despite what the sales pictures may show, this IS NOT a bolt-on neck kit. The neck must be glued in place, which requires some advanced skills and knowledge. The manual. It is nearly all pictures with very little text, and not intuitive for the beginner at all. My suggestion is to keep it handy, but find yourself a good guitar-building training video on YouTube and study and follow it. The neck. While of good quality, like almost all kits and aftermarket necks, it needs work, including fret leveling and dressing. And there is no mention of setting the proper neck angle. Again, follow YouTube. Also, the instructions would have you glue the neck to the body as the first step. DON'T! Videos will guide properly. Pickup mounting rings. With the neck mounted fully butted up against the body, as suggested, there is no clearance for the neck pickup mounting ring. A few quick, cursory measurements tell me that with the neck pickup ring mounted in place, and the neck mounted close up to it, the scale (24.75" from nut to bridge) should be close to perfect for proper intonation. The tuners. Like all kit tuners I have come across, these are very cheap, generic units. Do yourself a favor and invest a few bucks in better ones. Locking tuners are ideal, and Amazon carries a nice selection of reasonably priced, quality tuners that will bolt right in. I use Musiclily and Guyker tuners almost exclusively in my lower and medium-priced builds. One final note. While the locking strap locks are a nice touch, these are generic and not compatible with Fender or other generic locking strap locks I have come across. Once these are attached to your strap, you will only be able to use that strap on this guitar. However, it does seem that these are backward-compatible, with Fender and other generic locking strap locks compatible with these buttons. I hope I haven't discouraged your guitar-building ambitions. As stated, this seems like one of the better kits for beginners. It just needs some tweaking and a new, more completely revamped manual. Find yourself a YouTube video, and you should be fine.

This was my very first build. The absolute hardest part was trying to get the paint perfect. Spoiler alert, it is not perfect. I spent 2 months on it. It takes so long to let nitrocellulose clear coat dry. They say at least 2 weeks. So I painted it and messed up a couple times and then had to wait. I finally said screw it because I was sick of trying to get it perfect. Although I'm better prepared for next time. I bought this because it was cheap. I didn't use a lot of the hardware though. I bought fender tex mex pickups for about $100 and did my own soldering. I also bought the control knob set up on reverb and a Bigsby vibrato bar. The pickguard was purchased on ebay. That took forever to come in. They come from Canada and they have a ton of cool pickguards but they take forever to get delivered. If it didn't take so long for my paint job, I would of been annoyed on how long it took. Im also left handed. Which is another reason I wanted to build a custom guitar. They dont make lefties in the colors I like. Well they do but also they don't. Not as many options. I wanted a silverburst. I attempted one. Each, its not professional but the guitar sound pretty good to me. I had to use a neck shim to get my neck straight. I dont get any fret buzz. The action is pretty low. Which I like. It has a different feel than my strats. I've never even played a telecaster. So I can't compare to how a store bought Fender would be but overall I do like this. I've have a custom Strat made from the mod shop, the Cobain Jagstang, EVH, and a couple other guitars. They're all decent. This one is definitely a lot heavier. So I dont know if that's because telecaster are generally heavier or if its just because it's an inexpensive build from Amazon. I would say I put a total of $500-$600 into it with paint and new hardware. I hated the tuners. I bought locking tuners also. It is cool that it comes with everything you need. If you dont have a lot of money but want to build a custom guitar, then I wouldn't hesitate to purchase this. I would suggest tuners and strings though. I just can't recommend those tuners. They're not expensive. Make sure you buy telecaster tuners though. Also if its your first build and you're left handed. Almost everything needs to be a left hand version. So just make sure you buy the correct replacement parts.

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.

Friend is happy with his kit

the guitar wood has minor repairs needed, it is a kit. The frets need to be filed and polished, it is a kit. I am swapping out the electronics, as i expected i would, it is a kit, but the wood looks great once it was sanded, Tru-Oil applied and polished. Over all i would recommend. As is it is the whole setup is great for a new guitarist willing to put a little work into their guitar

Awesome! I love the body and neck I got. The solderless setup is very convenient and easy, although I did upgrade some of the parts. Would 100% recommend if you are trying to get into guitar building and setup.

Overall poor quality and the tl;dr read here is the work required and cost to make this nice is probably out of reach for a beginner. Avoid unless you want a bigger project than advertised. The body bevel is uneven, heavily so on the front of the upper fin, but in general is not uniform and would require some work to even out. It is also a very shallow angle so a clearly defined edge won't be so easily acheived. The floyd post holes are out of round, though are properly spaced and will probably hold. The neck, is sadly probably one of the more horrible I've seen. The fret board radius is crooked, sloping over to the low E side, which will make getting a nice setup more difficult. Probably not too unexpected being a kit, but the neck also needs further shaping as is evidenced by the scarf joint looking very non-uniform over the radius of the back of the neck. Fret work is not very good with some frets not properly seated and sharp fret ends, though some fret work should be expected. I haven't properly inspected the hardware as in all honesty I won't be using any of it, but I did examine the floyd out of curiosity. It doesn't have knife edges so much as it has just cliff edges a good 1mm or so thick - there is no hope of this ever holding tune, it is junk. I have actually had two of these, and this is the second. The first the body was worse, and I did not inspect anything else before immediately arranging a return. The second being little better suggests this is a consistent problem, so I won't bother again. I'll probably still use the body, but only because it the plan was always for a heavy relic so I can probably just about work with the imperfections but that will be the only part I'll use and will retro fit a better neck. Giving 2 stars as it is at least cheap and a nice shape, ignoring the machining problems

Arrived SUPER fast, and was very much as it was advertised. I really can't believe that they can put a quality guitar kit together for a little more than it would cost me to just buy the wood. Yes, the body is made up of three pieces of miss matched mahogany so a natural finish is out of the question. This guitar body is paint grade ready when it arrives. The neck is great, the frets are in very well. There are no gaps between the bottom of the fret and the neck, and they are well dressed. I did have to file a couple of frets down, so just a minor fret level job. Everything works great, but I will be changing out the pickups for a much higher quality pair. There is nothing wrong with the stock ones but they are a little shrill for my taste. All in all this is a GREAT kit at AMAZING price.