Being my first built, I did not expect it to be smooth sailing.

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Before I get into the details of the issues, let me spare a moment to talk about pitbull guitars and their kits:

• First, the prices are enticing: for about $250, you can get a kit and provided you put a bit of elbow grease into it, you end up with a unique and playable electric guitar.

• Qulity is OK. Let me be clear, it is OK for the price. The wood is actually good I found and the whole thing well machined. The hardware however (pick ups, mechanics...) is not the best.but it does the job. For an average player like me, it works fine. The good thing about it is that everything is interchangeable. So you can upgrade with better hardware pretty much anytime, but of course this will end up costing more... much more if you intend to fit orginal parts.

• Support is great: between the building guide, the youtube videos on how to do every step and the forum with lots of enthusiastic guys always ready to help, you will always find answers to whatever question you have.

• Finally, the satisfaction of playing on an instrument you made yourself is well worth the effort. In other words, I highly recommend these kits !

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Now below are some highlights (and low lights) of the build:

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• I used acetone transfer to inprint ll the artwork. It worked really well, although uneven (wide black atches are always coming out uneven). I had planned it before  so I know where everything was going. Front, back, headstock and neck (with some funny qotes of these artists) where pretty straign forward. The sides however, did not work so well. I tried to transfer many patterns but none of them worked... Still don t know why, but as I was losing patience, I decide to go for straight black lines... not the best  looking part of the guitar but it is waht it is, I had enough.

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• The finish was one of the trickest part. On the videos and tutorials, everybody applies some Acrylic Lacquer (whatever that is) with a spray paint gun... I do not have one so I thought I could get something ready made in a can. After a bit of searching, I found it at Repco, a car accessories and part shop. It worked ok on the neck and headstock but for some reason, on the body it did not. It looked really great at first but the next day it started to display this crackled aspect (that you can see in the video). Not sure why, maybe because I used too many coats. Since I was not about to sand everything again, I left it like that and you know what, in the end it compliments well the vinatge look of the guitar.

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• Talking about the finish, in order to get a shiny mirror like surface, you need to sand it. After looking many tutorials, I set for a method that I don't recommend : dry sanding with the orbital sander... big mistake, it burned through right away and removed some of the prints... I had to recover the missing area with acetone transfer again, re-spray and blend in... A real kick in the gut. So, clearly, on delicate parts, wetsanding by hand is the way to go !

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• Electronics: although I'm an electronic engineer by trade, I should have paid more attention at school... Soldering is not hard but it can be messy, In the end I ended up missing a connection... and had to re-do everything. Also, I strugged to connect the earth to the bridge post. In the end it works but: the tone pot does not seem to have any effect and I have a slight misconnection that appears sometimes. I suppose I could fix it by redoing it all but I can't be bothered :-)

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• The truss rod cover and the electronic compartment door that came with the kit were cheap plastic so I made my own with wood I had laying around. Looks better if you ask me. Also, to stick with the theme, I got a checker strap that looks nice with the wole thing.

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That is about it really, it looks much more tricky than it actually is and I now have a (fake) Gibson Explorer !

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