Build a Guitar Kit

I'm new to this sight, and fairly new to the beauty of the guitar(again). I suppose I've been playing off an on for 7 years, and now I'm craving new gear. New extremely cheap gear that will be fun.

I found this on Ebay, yes, its extremely cheap,
and I'm sure the "snap together electronics" don't sound too well..

But can anyone tell me from expierence or from thought just how bad this will be?

If this link doesn't work, I typed in "build guitar kit" on Ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/SAGA-TC-10-Build-Your-Own-Tel-GUITAR-KIT-w-Pickups_W0QQitemZ150296535716QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar_Accessories?hash=item150296535716&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1424%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318
There's nothing saying you would have to keep those electronics in it after you tried them for a while.
A quick trip to Guitarfetish could land you a replacement set of pickups or otherparts if you didn't like what came with the kit.

As long as the neck and fretboard aren't horrible, someone who is good with tools should be able to build the kit into a reasonable guitar. Maybe not an amazing guitar, but reasonable.

If you want to try building a kit, spending less than a hundred dollars isn't a big risk.
What's the worst that could happen: you'll learn something, and have some spare parts lying around. :D

id say no. like the other guy said, you dont have to keep those parts in forever, but you may not be able to replace pickups or things depending on how the parts "snap together".

Personally, i would find an old crappy guitar that is either supr worn out or broken, and fix it. Try craigslist,as that is probably your best bet. Theres lots of people on there that dont know anything about guitars and are selling them. i even came across one where a woman was selling her guitar because she didnt play it, and it was a gibson les paul that was about 2500 but she thought it was an epiphone because she couldnt tell the difference, and it was listed for a little more that 400.

So in the long run you will probably save more money buying a crap guitar and replacing pickups, pots, hardware, and maybe a neck. You could maybe even buy a new epiphone or squier and replace everything, and sell the factory pickups to save some more money

So here's the flipside:

I own quite a few nice and interesting guitars these days, and one of my faves is my "Beatercaster," which I built from that very same Saga Tele kit. However, I did the following:

Did a worn-off paint job -- tried to do a nice transparent red finish, but this would not work given the presealed body. Instead, switched to black nitro, which I let (and helped) wear away quickly.

Replaced:

* The pups, first with Guitarfetish fat alnicos in both neck and bridge (good), then put a P90 in the neck position (better, as I prefer a P90. But this is an unusual choice.)

* Electronics with an improved Tele set of pots and switch from Stew-Mac

* The tuners with locking Grovers

* The nut with a graphite nut from Allparts

* Jack plate with Electrojack version

Altered:

* Changed to thru-body stringing. Drilled six holes thru the bridge plate and body. Added string ferrules to back of body

* Changed neck screws from wood to machine and put threaded inserts in the neck

* Removed pickguard -- goes without

I painted the headstock black and lacquered the neck with gloss nitrocellulose lacquer

I made some of the changes (locking Grovers and threaded inserts in neck) for travel purposes. Neck is easily removeable for flying. Some of the heavier hardware serves to help as well.

I def recommend: better tuners and neck pup (Guitarfetish parts)
Strongly consider: upgrading the electronics

Again: This is one of my favorite guitars.

It looks like a neat project. I would ask the seller if it was possible to replace the stock electronics before purchasing it.

Just thought I would chime in. I tried one of the kits off of ebay. UUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!! It was an AXL brand kit. Strat body. It looked like a crosseyed chinaman had drilled all the holes. The neck had frets on a slant. The pocket was so crooked that the bottom e string ran about 1 inch off of the fret board from nut to bridge. So I had to fill in all the holes, redrill, shim the pocket, took me way longer than I intended. My first and last as a builder/assembler. I would rather change the parts out on old ones and just adjust the neck. I did manage to make it playable and just recently sold it for what I could get out of it. By the way, the electronics were very vintage sounding fender, real glassy highs in the inbetween positions. I did a custom head stock and hung it on the way for a little while. Done with it.
Mark