PJ Style Build Your Own Bass Guitar Kit

I've done lots of other woodworking and electronic projects, but this is my first guitar kit build. I was impressed with the quality of the parts, and I'm happy with the bass, it feels good to play and sounds great through my amp.

I was hoping to do a natural finish on this, so I was pleased that the body wood looked good and that I didn't have to sand off a sealer coat before starting. The body needed a bit of finish sanding, but nothing major. The neck was really nicely set up, all I did was cut the headstock shape and a little light sanding between coats. I used some marine varnish that I had from another project, and it looks really good, the body darkened a bit and the neck is still a very blonde maple.

In hindsight, I wish the directions had a little more detail on the pickup installation. The P pickups really need to align with the pick guard, and there's a really small window of space where the pick guard and control plate align with each other, the neck, and around the routed holes. It seems best to put the P pickups in place without screwing them in, align the pick guard and control plate to the right place, then mark the plate holes and screw down the pickups.

The only hitch I had with the setup was a slight misalignment with either the neck pocket or the bridge - in the pre-drilled bridge location the E string was right on the edge of the neck. I drilled new holes and moved the bridge over about 1/8" so the strings were evenly centered over the neck. It's definitely worth doing a trial fit and check of these things before getting too far into the finishing work (as noted in the directions).

Take your time, go through the full setup steps to get everything adjusted correctly, and you'll end up with a very solid and playable bass. I'm really happy with it and using it as my primary bass right now.