Leo Jaymz DIY Electric Guitar Kits (TL)

I had been eyeing these DIY Leo Jaymz for quite some time but have been skeptical from the insanely low prices. After reading a ton of reviews and watching YouTube videos, (Scar my Guitar is a good one) I forked over my 80 something bucks and waited to see if this thing is worth anything. I got the Telecaster and it came in a rather unassuming box. Everything was intact and the packaging did its job. I pre-assembled everything using the instruction manual, which is actually done quite nicely for being a Chinese product. Everything is pre-drilled (correctly) and prewired with male and female connectors so no soldering, which was super nice. The strings are terrible but that is to be expected. I put on some Ernie Ball super slinky 9-42 and played around with a basic setup and the sounds pretty damn good. I already have purchased Fender Tele locking tuners that were half the price of the entire guitar. I will install them with the final assembly after paint and some woodwork, but I don't think it's necessary. It is a bit buzzy, due to the cheap bridge but once you put any volume into it it's unnoticeable. I will upgrade that with strings through the body which is an easy mod. I am more than pleased with this purchase and the fun I had (and having) putting it together and putting my personal touches on it. I will be purchasing more of these Leo Jaymz DIY kits in the future.

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 stainedI 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.

The DIY Telecaster guitar kit is decent, but I decided to make significant upgrades for better performance. I replaced all the original electronics with Active EMG pickups, which dramatically improved the sound quality and tone. Additionally, I swapped out the chrome hardware for higher-quality pieces to enhance both the durability and aesthetics of the guitar. These changes made a substantial difference, elevating the kit from just okay to something much more impressive. I plan to use this upgraded Telecaster on stage in Chicago area clubs, so the improvements were essential for achieving the performance and look I wanted. While the kit provides a solid foundation, the upgrades were necessary to truly unlock its potential. If you're considering this kit, be prepared to invest in better components to make it stage-ready.

I've now built three of the Leo Jaymz kit guitars - the SG style (my first build), the T style (2nd build), and the Explorer (AX) style. Overall, I've hugely enjoyed them and I'm definitely addicted to these things :)The good:- Complete kits, at least for me everything fit together well- Good quality woods. Maybe I just got lucky, but all three of my kits had nice grain, no knots, no issues with the woods. The maple neck on my T style has some quite impressive grain once stained. The AX kit had a small glue stain on the front, but since I was going for a "beat up, reclaimed wood" look, it was no big deal.- Good fret boards - other than polishing the frets and cleaning up 1-2 sharp frets, there was nothing I had to do other than oil the necks.- The price! My wife would tell you it was a relatively cheap way to keep me occupied for weeks :P- The AX guitar had quick connects for the electronics. A welcome surprise!The less good:- The instructions, especially for the SG style, leave a lot to be desired in their clarity. There are definite suggestions on how to make instructions clearer to reduce mistakes. Because of my mistakes on the first guitar, I didn't make any on the 2nd, so that's a plus. The AX style guitar had no instructions at all. So don't do that one first.The subjective:- After the builds, both guitars are quite playable and sound very good. The SG has relatively tame pickups (~9.1k & 9.5k), so hotter than an under-wound PAF, but not super modern either. Sounds very good with some overdrive. I ended up swapping the TL pickups with an aftermarket set since there was a specific sound I was going for. I put an Alpha/Omega set in the Explorer, and they sound epic. I didn't bother checking the output on the stock pickups.- Hardware is all serviceable. If you asked what I would replace, in this order: Tuners, nut, pickups, anything else. That said, both guitars stay in tune just fine.Some lessons learned:- Mock up all the components before you assemble or paint anything. On the SG style guitar, it turns out if you just use the measurements in the instructions, at least on mine, the neck gets glued too close to the pickup for the pickup ring to fit. It also means the intonation is slightly off now that it's all assembled. Similarly, on the T style, the aftermarket bridge pickup was slightly larger than the cavity in the wood. No big deal, i just shaved a couple mms of wood off and now it's a perfect fit.- On both guitars, there's a ground wire that goes to the bridge. Forgetting it on the T style bridge isn't a big deal, since you can just remove the bridge with a few screws. On the SG guitar, you can't remove the bridge screw holes once they are in, so i had to get some conductive adhesive to make the ground wire work.Now that I've built a couple, I will definitely build more. Particularly for guitars in a style of music I don't normally way, it's a great way to get an instrument you like at a good price, and get some good enjoyment along the way. If you are trying to do this to get a PRS 10 top instrument for $200, you'll probably be disappointed. If you are doing this for fun and to come out with a totally great playable instrument, you'll have a lot of fun doing this.

This was easy to assemble. The wood quality is great, and the body is beautiful looking mahogany. The tuners were ineffective, and couldn't hold tune for even one minute. The pickups were very quiet even when raised to almost contacting the strings. I replaced the tuners and pickups with low cost upgrades and it is working very nicely now. Overall, just for the body, neck, and pick guard, I'd say it was worth it.