Alston Guitars - DIY Electric Guitar Kit | Bolt-On | Solid Mahogany Body | Monkey Grip

After reading all the reviews I wasn't satisfied that it was as they had said. Issues were normal issues for a kit I thought. Nobody commented on how it played or sounded, only about their issues of assembling it. I looked it up on you tube and decided to give it a try. And I am amazed to say the least. I assembled it a little at a time over 4 days or so and took my time. As stated it does not come with instructions but honestly, if you can't figure it out, you should buy a complete guitar and skip the kits. After assembly and tuning it, it sounds amazing and has some incredible sustain and and sounds so much more wicked than my other guitars. I had planned to paint it but after getting it the body is so beautiful that I bought the stain to do it that way. Dark Cherry stain and I will do alot of clear after. I have to disassemble it and sand it to get it ready as this was just the initial setup but I love it. I will file the fret ends to smoothen them, but it is a "kit" so you should have to. the head stock is a big bulky block so you can make it your own style, I love that too. The tuners are super smooth and feel like precision tuners. The Floyd Rose Licensed tremelo is a big plus also. I had no experience with them but it was easy to figure out. I will buy another kit for sure. I love that it will only be the only one like it in the world. Street value won't be much but to me it is priceless. Only problem is I do not want to disassemble it for a week or so to do the finish. I love it that much.

A friend of mine bought this as a Xmas present to me. (Using my Amazon account). She even wrapped it after we received it and I opened it on Christmas day.I began by sanding and painting and staining all the wood. I even cut the head stock myself. It looks terrific! It ships with no directions (except for where to solder the jack wires, one ground, one hot) so I had to look around quite a bit on Youtube. (I figured out on my own that there is another ground wire that goes to to the bridge plate on the back of the guitar) I've never used a Floyd Rose Bridge before, so I even had to look up how to string the guitar using this bridge. With everything painted, stained, screwed in, wired up...I finally happily plugged in....It has a hum on it!! I rechecked all the soldering, and even re-soldered...it still has a bad hum! Help!!! Anybody?*********************************************************************************************************************UPDATE 1/10/2015*********************************************************************************************************************Ok so I never heard from Deal Slapper. But I researched this till my fingers turned blue. But, anyway, after reading lots of stuff about how it could be bad pickups to bad soldering to bad whatever. I found it was due to reversed wires at the jack. The wiring diagram this guitar comes with shows the wiring for the jack in a reversed manner. So, I undid the wires and re-soldered the opposite of the diagram and voila...quiet as a mouse!!

Okay, so this is the Alston JEM copy electric guitar kit. HSH configuration, monkey grip, 24 frets, Floyd Rose, the whole shebang. What's nice about this kit is the pick guard came pre-wired, with the only things left to solder up are the bridge/trem claw ground, the jack ground, and the hot signal to the jack, and they have those three wires already soldered to the pot, you just have to solder them to where they go. And they include a handy wiring diagram as well. Here's a breakdown:Body: 3 piece mahogany. Colors matched fairly well, routing was good, but not fantastic, monkey grip is clean. The neck cavity is a little wide, so I'm gonna have to shim that a little, but it's okay. The holes for the mounting studs for the bridge are drilled already, fairly tight fit. No cracks/ separation of pieces that I've noticed so far.Neck: This neck is actually really, really good. Possibly the kit's best feature. The fret dressing is really nice, and it looks level, although I haven't checked it against a straightedge, yet. The vine inlay on this is beautiful. The holes for the tuning machines and the headstock shape themselves are really clean. There aren't any mounting holes drilled yet, as you need to position that yourself to get proper intonation, so that's okay. The first issue I have with this neck is it appears that there's a little glue spilled on the heel end of the neck, so there's a discoloration on a little bit of the rosewood board, but it shouldn't be an issue to clean off. The second is that the rosewood itself seems very light in shade. That might darken a bit with some fretboard oil, I have yet to see.Components: Break it down: HSH Configuration, Floyd Rose copy tremolo, locking nut, 5 way switch, pearloid pick guard, audio and linear taper mini pots, wiring, jack, tuners, various screws, tremolo cover. All right, the pickups don't appear to be anything special, they're one-conductor+ground, wired to the switch so you get these positions (1. Bridge, 2. Bridge and Middle, 3. Middle, 4. Middle and Neck, 5. Neck.) cheap switch, closed style, but feels pretty solid. Trem is built under Floyd Rose patents, but it isn't a "licensed" FR Tremolo, so that's an important difference. Biggest issue is probably the sustain block. It's pitiful. The mini pots are pretty smooth, aren't "fast" like the YJM Seymour Duncan pots, they're pretty stiff. Tuners feel solid for economy tuners. Locking nut is solid, but the treble side might be a little low. Have to wait to string it up to find out. Pick guard is solid, it's got the screw holes drilled and beveled already. Jack and the rest of the wiring is pretty solid.All in all, decent kit. 4 stars for quality of build, +1 for coming pre-wired, -1 for some cheap parts. But hey, what do you expect from a beginner's kit. This ain't no Ibanez, folks.

Licking nut was of a 1/8 so low e string does not line up proper

The guitar is as good as previously reviews state. However, the image depicts the headstock in the Ibanez style. Yet when I received the kit the headstock was a flat tail piece that needed to be cut to shape. The overall quality is really good and I'm pleased with the purchase.

everything great on this deal, did horrible painting it but thats my fault not alstons

my husband loves it

I am very pleased with it all accept two things. The neck had fret damage on one of the high frets. I had to repair this as good as I could. The pick guard was kinda cockeyed where the pickups were placed. I had to fix that too. All the parts were there and the body and neck had same number on them. This means the neck and body are matched at factory. I would never have sold this neck damaged like it is but I had to deal with it as I needed a guitar model for display.