Bolt-on Kit Bolt Electric Guitar Kit

as featured in the January, 1998
Gig Magazine

"This guitar is light and resonant. It sounds great even before it's plugged in. ...a fully professional first instrument that looks, feels and sounds like it cost several times as much as it actually does."

Just about any guitarist who's worth his weight in Lycra has at least one project guitar - you know, a cardboard box filled with old tuning gears, a stock pickup that was left-over after you replaced it with a Duncan, an old body from a Strat clone that somebody painted black with shoe polish, and a dream of one day putting them all together.

The Set-up

The first thing I noticed when I opened the box was the beautiful grain of the alder body. The instructions wisely state that a tung oil finish is recommended for the body for its ease of application and the preservation of the natural beauty of the wood. Good enough for me, so off l went to the hardware store for tung oil, sandpaper, steel wool, a one-inch paint brush, and latex gloves, all of which added I another 30 bucks to the instrument.

The finishing process doesn't really take all I that much time. First you sand the body smooth. The flat surfaces of the body appeared to be machine-sanded at the factory, so most of the hand sanding seems to concentrate on the edges. After the body is dusted off, I use a sticky tack cloth, and tung oil is applied in the cavities with the one-inch paintbrush. Then tung oil is applied to the rest of the body. When the tung oil is first applied, the grain of the wood really comes out. Carvin recommends using four coats of tung oil finish. The finishing process doesn't really take all that much time, hour-wise, but you have to allow six hours between coats for the oil to dry.

The finish is also applied to the maple neck. Maple has a much more subtle grain than aIder, so the highlights in finishing are less drastic, but the tung oil finish provides a satiny feel that is preferred by many guitarists over a traditional lacquer finish. Taking care not to tung oil the ebony fingerboard, the neck also takes four coats of finish.

Now I'll be the first to admit I have zero aptitude in wood finishing. In fact, I'm all thumbs. But the nature of tung oil is very forgiving. flaws can be sanded out, and nobody notices the difference. The end result for me, hack that I am, was a beautiful amber-hued body that caught the attention of my bandmates.

After the body and neck were finished, the rest of the assembly required less than two hours to finish. All of the holes for the hardware were pre-drilled and everything lined up perfectly. The tuning keys, strap buttons and spring claw (for the Carvin/Wilkinson tremolo) went on easily and effortlessly. The shielding for the control cavity was a little tricky due to the nature of the copper foil tape. The main trick is having the pre-shaped bottom piece line up properly so that 1/8-inch overlaps the sides, and lining up the side strip so that it's parallel with the bottom of the cavity and leaves a 1/8 inch lip on the top (to contact the shielding on the pickguard to totally encase the control electronics) This really wasn't too much of a challenge, but it did require a few restarts. The neck fit tightly to the pocket of the body. There was virtually no gap on either side of the neck. Carvin even pre-waxed the neck screws to lubricate them for insertion into the hard maple of the neck.

After all that is accomplished, the next step in the instructions has you wiring the jack plate to the pickguard and screwing them into the body. Fine, but that step was the only flaw in the instructions that I found, and here's why; they instruct you to screw the two threaded pivot posts into the threaded brass inserts, but the instructions never have you install the inserts into the body. After reading through the instructions again to be sure I didn't miss a step, I took the matter into my own hands, and pounded in the inserts with a hammer with the head wrapped in masking tape (what Carvin recommends for installing the string eyelets on its fixed bridge model) The masking tape prevents scratching the parts. [Note: Carvin now includes stud installation procedures in the kit instructions]

Once the inserts were in planes the tremolo was installed and the guitar was ready to be strung lap. Now the instrument was ready to be set up for action, intonation, pickup height, truss rod and tremolo action. One of the four pages in the instructions for the bolt-on is dedicated to adjusting the Carvin/Wilkinson tremolo. But the instructions are easy to read and understand, and include illustrations that make setting up the trem a snap. The pickups are Carvin AP-11 single coils that have 11(!) adjustable pole pieces - each one for each string and one in between each of those, which helps keep string volume consistent when bending. The neck has a two-way truss rod adjustment that didn't need tweaking on this instrument. Once the intonation is set (tools for adjustment of the tremolo and neck are provided with the kit), the guitar is ready to rock.

The Completed Ax

The Carvin bolt-on kit with its tung-oiled finish has a 70s vibe to it. But with its slightly wider, flatter neck and flotation knife-edged tremolo, it has a more modern feel. Carvin's take on the Stratocaster has a few twists that almost every player will appreciate. Carvin replaces the second tone pot with a mini switch (the first tone pot becomes a master tone for all three pickups) that turns the bridge pickup on or off in the fourth and fifth positions of the standard five-way switch. This allows the player to have all three pickups on at the same time and the Tele-like neck and bridge combination, which are unavailable on a standard Strat. The neck also has a tilt-back headstock that eliminates the need for string trees.

I can complain about the finish because I did it myself. It would be nice to have a pre-finished body option (both lacquer and tung oil), but finishing the body yourself is what keeps the price so low on this kit. Note: you can buy this guitar already finished and assembled from Carvin.

This guitar is light and resonant. It sounds great even before it's plugged in. Once plugged in, it delivers a traditional Strat sound.

The Gig Test

I replaced my band mate Vern Monnett's '57 Fender Stratocaster (yes, an all-original '57 his dad bought new!) with the Carvin bolt-on to see if he'd notice the difference onstage.

The Carvin's pickups were noticeably louder than the Strat, and seemed to drive the amplifier more effectively, but still yielded musical vintage-like tones. The more modern trem unit was also more sensitive to touch (it even responded to laying my hand on the bridge). While this may suit the tastes and needs of some players, Vern said he preferred to set the trem so it would lower the pitch only. Note the guitar was set up as per instructions for reviewing purposes. The neck didn't feel anywhere close to the Fender's, but this guitar isn't supposed to be a vintage reissue, but rather a modern update on a time-proven classic.

Overall I felt and Vern agreed, that this was a fun instrument to play. It feels good and the new tone the wiring provides inspires you to try new things. At the price, the guitar not only makes a great spare instrument, but a fully professional first instrument that looks, feels and sounds like it cost several times as much as it actually does. But this guitar also gives you the added benefit of learning guitar construction and set-up, and an appreciation for the art of guitar building. And it can also provide ideas for exactly what to do with that box of parts in your closet.

- Jake Kelly, Gig Magazine