Ryan's Mirage Telecaster

[ryema22]

I went about things a bit backwards.. after building my first guitar from scratch my second was built from a Saga kit as a gift for a friend who previously only owned an acoustic.

I was originally worried about things like the quality of the pickups and the fretwork but I have to say that I'm thoroughly impressed with what a $90 kit delivered. As I noted in a previous topic, the screws with this kit were subpar, so after torquing the head off of a neck screw I replaced all of them except for the pickguard screws. Other upgrades when I get a chance will include new tuners (the ones that are included are OK but i'd like to put a nicer set of schallers on), and replacing the plastic nut with bone.

The paint is Duplicolor Mirage Red-Blue... I'm not the best photographer so the pictures don't really show the color change in it's full glory but you can sort of see the beginnings of the transition in a few pictures. All in all my friend is very happy.

Pictures: Here

Edited February 2, 2007 by ryema22

[Muzz]

Great paint job, the blue really sets off the chrome. How are the pick ups that come with the kit?

[ryema22]

I think they exceeded my expectations considering what I paid. The bridge pickup has some nice twang and gets nice and dirty with a little bit of overdrive. The neck pickup gives some pretty standard strat/tele neck tone. They seem comparable to the stuff put in Squier Tele models.

It depends on what you want it for... replacing them would yield improvement, but for what the guitar is they're fine. I'll try to post clips in the next week or so when I get a chance.