It turned out pretty well. The wood is GORGEOUS! Book-matched black walnut. There are a few flaws here and there (my assembly, not the quality of the kit parts, to be clear). Mostly minor cosmetic issues that aren't too bad. The thing is...I had to fret it. It had the grooves cut, but I had to do the fret wire bit. And I was so scared of smacking the wood, I started with a wooden hammer, which was too light for the job. So it got them in just enough where I was stuck with them, but they were not seating well. I got more aggressive with a regular hammer, got them seated better, but by that point, I suspect it wasn't quite possible to get them perfect. Long story short, when I strung it up for the first time, I had to jack the bridge up at an angle to remove all the buzz. I contacted Cedar Creek and they suggested whacking them with a small piece of wood over them. That helped quite a bit, but I dared only whack so hard when fully assembled, else risk cracking the top. I did some filing as well. Got them in pretty good shape, but not perfect. Still needed a bit of shim in that bridge to avoid buzz on certain frets (the rest were good). If I were to do it again, I think I would do a much better job (and I'd probably invest in a couple of additional tools to make it easier), but I wanted to be 100% sure of wonderful frets this time. Hence the McSpadden. Oh, she's such a pleasure to play!!
It turned out pretty well. The wood is GORGEOUS! Book-matched black walnut. There are a few flaws here and there (my assembly, not the quality of the kit parts, to be clear). Mostly minor cosmetic issues that aren't too bad. The thing is...I had to fret it. It had the grooves cut, but I had to do the fret wire bit. And I was so scared of smacking the wood, I started with a wooden hammer, which was too light for the job. So it got them in just enough where I was stuck with them, but they were not seating well. I got more aggressive with a regular hammer, got them seated better, but by that point, I suspect it wasn't quite possible to get them perfect. Long story short, when I strung it up for the first time, I had to jack the bridge up at an angle to remove all the buzz. I contacted Cedar Creek and they suggested whacking them with a small piece of wood over them. That helped quite a bit, but I dared only whack so hard when fully assembled, else risk cracking the top. I did some filing as well. Got them in pretty good shape, but not perfect. Still needed a bit of shim in that bridge to avoid buzz on certain frets (the rest were good). If I were to do it again, I think I would do a much better job (and I'd probably invest in a couple of additional tools to make it easier), but I wanted to be 100% sure of wonderful frets this time. Hence the McSpadden. Oh, she's such a pleasure to play!!
Your kit build looks really nice!