Since the Les Paul is backordered from Harley Benton, I decided to go ahead and order a Stratocaster from a different vendor: Leo Jaymz (I’m sure Leo and Harley we friends growing up together, lol) The Leo kit is coming from Amazon and Prime. So it should be here soon, and without a tariff!
It did arrive, and no tariff. Sorry Thomann/Harley Benton.. Trump wins here, the tariff combined with an almost equal shipping (from Germany) is just a deal killer. Leo Jaymz and a few others will provide kits at a less expensive price, and, looking at how these things are boxed and packaged I’d say there’s a decent chance they were all made in the same factory anyway.
It didn’t come double boxed like the Benton did, but then the Benton came from Germany and the Jaymz is not coming from Europe. I mean, they all came from China, but the Jaymz kits may have been imported to US prior to any of these new tariffs.
So, why another Stratocaster? I already have an old one from the CBS era1 (so not going to mod that in any way) and I just got a Squier Bullet Series Strat with a trem so I could learn to work on trem systems. I got this kit because it is routed for humbuckers at the neck and bridge positions. I would like to build this, then mod it to add the humbucker at the bridge and split the coils. Also, I’m looking at my first metallic paint job (Lake Placid Blue) You gotta try everything at least once, lol
I started reading more about hand rubbed oil finishes. I decided to finish this strat with polymerized Tung Oil instead of the lacquer. Lacquer takes 4+ weeks to fully cure and I was getting anxious to play one of these kit guitars. I was heads down in the build (it is my first) so I didn’t take a lot of pictures. But the finished product is really nice looking. I am going to make a genetic twin as a Telecaster. I’ll take more pictures then.
None of the hardware is from the kit. I basically used the wood and discarded the rest. I won’t do that right away on other builds. I want to at least try the kit parts before I replace them. But this build really wanted all black appointments, so I just replaced everything. Tuners, tremolo are Guyker, the pickups and other plastic parts are Musiclily.
Even have a “Limbic” and a Serial Number decal in place.
The guitar plays ok, but I need to do some serious setup. I bumped up the bridge saddles just to the point strings would sound, but the action and intonation are in dire need of attention.
OK, so I gave this guitar it’s first pass setup: float on trem, bridge height, neck relief, nut filing, intonation and pickup height. It was a quick setup and at some point I’ll do a more thorough job, but it was enough to let me know this was a playable guitar.
What’s left?