Ktaxon DIY Flame Design Electric Guitar Kit

Quality craftmanship, the neck was a snug fit and alignment was spot on. All the predrilled holes were in the right location. Assembly was nice and smooth, although it could have more detailed instructions. (I could never get to the link they supplied for building instructions.) It has a nice sound to it too. Mind you it doesn't sound quite like the Les Paul, but the whole guitar kit cost less than one of the Les Paul's pickups. So I am very happy with this guitar, and I am considering buying another one to stain a cherry red.

THis is obviously not a premium guitar. However, it is a great learning experience for enthusiasts. There are plenty of issues that need to be addressed, but thats kind of what I was expecting. The body is best suited for solid paint, not stains. The issues I had were as follows. 1 The nut was way too high. Easy fix. There was a lip extended from the fret board that I just sanded away. 2 There are about 4 high frets. Which I am looking forward to leveling. Rather learn on this than my Gibson LP. 3 The pickup selector had some joints that were too close, blocking off connection to my bridge pick up. 4 A few sharp fret ends, but not that bad at all. It sounds pretty damn good with the stock Pick ups. They are low output, but not microphonic I am happy with this project, and I am confident I will get it sounding and playing as well as my traditional guitars.

I haven't strung it yet. So you know what I don't know yet. The neck didn't fit into the pocket just right. It was VERY close, but had a little up/down wiggle that I fixed with 3 small squares of duct tape. The only part where the screw hole was a bit off on was the tension rod cover on the head of the guitar. The top hole was slightly off. The inlay on the neck looks amazing! The neck's wood grain is perfectly straight, so I won't have to worry about twisting in high humidity. It's made of maple, so it's likely also pretty strong. The head of the guitar has a very nice backward angle and won't require string trees, which is wonderful! The tuners will probably be OK, however they aren't locking and aren't of great quality metal. One has a black spot on it, like the chrome coating wasn't complete. I usually replace the tuners anyway, especially with a bender system. The body wood is fine grain and very nice looking. Of course, it's hard to find a two piece body that has consistent color, but oh well. It's not too bad for staining anyway. One of the pickup casing screws was a little stripped, but it just holds the pickups onto the guitar and isn't a big deal. The back cover for the electronics fit perfectly in the routed slot for it. (Very nice) It truly doesn't feel like there's any wood conditioner or sealer on it at all, so it should be ready for staining straight out of the box, and I'm very happy about that, as the last kit I bought was sealed and that takes a lot off effort to fully sand out. Mine's going to be a nice purple stain that shows the grain well and sealed with Lacquer. I might update this after I get it strung, when I find out what the pickups sound like. I'm not expecting too much, but one never knows. The backing material on the pickups are of pretty bad quality metal. I don't know if the neck is straight or if the frets need leveling, but they are dressed WONERFULLY! No sharp edges and polished very well. Overall, for $65.00 US (with coupon, but now gone up to $85), it's an absolute steal! Oh, and the tuners are one peg and one screw. UPDATE: I strung the guitar-WOW, I was expecting nothing from the pickups, buy they were smooth, clear and sharp with great attack, even with heavy distortion! Looks like I'll be keeping the pickups after all!

I’ve put together a few kits now. This one has become my new favorite guitar to play, and it looks awesome. Partial credit to me for making it look awesome but I can’t get over the quality of the parts in this kit. Super lightweight and sounds incredible plugged in or not. Highly recommend this one. Wiring was plug in so no soldering needed. Props to these guys this is a fantastic kit.

the switch tip wasn't included but, this kit was an easy build , looks and plays great, neck and frets are dead on. I'll be buying more of their kits very soon. Was expecting tons of problems......NONE....Just a great kit !!!!!

Well, I haven’t assembled it yet. Waiting on a few things for the finish. Kit came well, packed everything there and the wood very well smoothed out. I’m quite impressed with the kit And expect it to go together quite well. My only regret is that the kit Doesn’t have any options for hardware and accessories. You would think the manufacture would set it up with those options. Inlay on the neck, different colors for the hardware that kind of thing. But for a basic guitar that looks really close to the full tilt expensive ones you can’t go wrong. You could take this out of the box assemble it and just start playing no finish no nothing just music. And there are plenty of videos on YouTube that show you how to apply a finish. Your guitar, skies the limit. Amazon does have the options I’m talking about, but it’s quite a bit more expensive and by the time you buy it, all you exceeded the price of the original guitar. But that just gives you the parts to build another one. Not such a bad deal after all.

I bought this for the price, praying that the neck would just be straight enough, and the body well executed enough, to be correctable to a high standard of performance. The short version: without buying ALL of the tools necessary for complete set-up (nut files, fret leveling beam, all the fret and fret leveling tools for set-up), wooden shims for the neck/body joint, etc. etc. etc.) I would not have been able to get a good final result. Biggest problems: warped/uneven neck, seating very high on one side (higher on the treble and stock side than the rest of the neck); holes in fretboard; rough and uneven frets (to be expected, but not really apt to be playable with normal (3/32) action height even with warped neck/fretboard issue resolved without totally filing all the frets, total set-up). Biggest plusses: holes in neck/body basically line up well; tuning machine holes even, easy to install tuners; neck situation overall OK once shimming was done; body cleaner than expected, happy to be able to get mahogany at such a low price; no parts missing, all the electronics worked (with the exception of the pickups, which I can't speak to because I never wired them up, just went straight to changing them out). You don't have to be a luthier to get a $700-retail-rung result as far as playability with this kit, but if you don't have all the tools already you will end up paying $700, at least, by the time you're done putting together all the parts and tools needed to get to that result. If you're not "handy" or experienced in putting guitars together, it is probably unrealistic to expect a result better than some of the lesser PRC offerings, so you might as well buy one of those instead if you are trying to get a high-performance result with small investment. I actually am very happy with the price, value, and result. It's just probably a proper public service to detail all this so that unsuspecting people know at least this much, or could, before buying. Best/biggest tip for this kit: if you're thinking you're going to install a top-loaded 6-saddle tail plate, like I was when I bought this, my advice is: don't think that. *Instead, get the brass "compensated" style plate and saddles. I tried the 6-style with brass rectangular saddles, "hammerhead" saddles, and the stock, and none of these were workable with a top-loader mounting. With all of those the string tension being unequal longitudinally made the saddles act like one-legged drunks. One side would always want to ride up with the saddle leaning to one side, and the adjustment screw on the detensioned side would ride up, basically sending the saddle sideways. If you want to run a 6-saddle plate, you're going to have to drill the holes through the body, and string the saddles that way (top-loader won't work without a "hack").

some of the screw holes aren't drilled perfectly straight but what are you really expecting from such an inexpensive kit? Other than that it went together great and sounds better than I would have expected for something I paid so little for. Because it has a tremolo you're going to want to re-tune the strings 2-3 times when you first string it up but after that it holds a tune just fine. If you paint it you're probably going to want a rubber mallet or something to get certain fitted parts in but that's normal and none of them really gave me any trouble. Pickups work well, pots seem pretty standard, my only electronic gripe is that they used a 5 position switch when there are only 3 active positions so you have 2 positions that are just dead but that's really nothing. I liked the fact that it didn't require any soldering as that made everything go together WAY easier. Great beginner guitar and a really good platform if you like to make crazy designs like me. Overall I'm really happy with it.