Brian May. Eddie Van Halen. Malcolm Young.
All absolute guitar idols, and all of them doing it with guitars they built themselves.
Cut to you. A guitar player. An enthusiast. And the next great guitar builder.
I know what you’re thinking – I don’t have the knowledge or the tools to build a guitar though!
Well, that’s where Bolt Guitars come in, with their high quality, UK made, ready-to-build guitar kits.
Now, full disclosure, I have built DIY guitar kits in the past, from both China and from Europe. But Bolt Guitars are a small UK-based team, doing the DIY kit a bit differently – with most guitar kits on the market you probably would want to swap out 90% of the cheap electronics to make way for something better. Not the case with Bolt – you get everything you need to build a really good, fully functioning guitar that you would be proud to hang on your wall. You also get all of the stuff you need (with the exception of tools).
There’s sandpaper of various grits, their custom made finishing kit, all the hardware you need, and there’s even good quality strings (Ernie Balls, rather than unbranded cheese wire which is more common in cheaper kits).
On to the building. Bolt have a really handy video guide that takes you step-by-step through the process of building your guitar. Their luthier shows you in real time how to do it, and how easy it is, so you can follow along at your leisure. They say it can be done, start to finish, in a handful of days, but let’s face it… we’re dads… life gets in the way.
It probably took me a couple of weeks all together.
At the end of the process, I am left with a beautiful ocean green, matte finish T-type guitar that sounds so lovely and woody in the neck position that I rarely stray (I am a bluesy type player anyway). I was really impressed with how easy these guys have made the whole thing, and the quality of the instrument at the end of it – I don’t play my other kit guitars; they feel cheap and nasty (fun to make, but not quality). The wood choices in this kit are superb, and I will be playing this one for years to come!
If you want to pick up a kit for yourself, are looking for a special present for someone, or want to send someone the link as a gentle nudge, then you can do so here:
