BENCH NOTES August 07

As many of you may have seen by now, Kovacik Guitars and Fretted Instrument Repair received a mention in the current issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine in Bill Cory's article about kit building.  My shop was in the list of kit suppliers that is provided at the end of the article.  Since the article arrived on news stands I've received a noticable increase in the number of emails and calls regarding my kit offerings.  Since I find myself answering many of the same questions with each customer I feel it's time for me to put more info here on the website regarding kits.  I also just posted a "Kit FAQ" page (over on the kit portion of the 'for sale' page) that will provide even more info for the kit buyers out there. First off, anyone considering a kit purchase should know what they can expect to get.  I supply all the wood parts, as well as fretwire, truss rod, nut and saddle material and bindings/purflings and bridge pins. I supply pickguards or pickguard material when it is available to me, but this is not a regular feature of my kits.  The buyer will have to provide the following items in virtually every instance:  tuners, instructional materials, glue and finish.  I will be happy to provide referrals to various suppliers of these items on request.    Where do my kit parts come from?  All of the kits I sell use Martin factory production parts.  They are not Martin off-the-shelf boxed kits however.  Several times a year I make major purchases of factory production cast-off parts that I use to make up kits.   These are not 'B' quality parts, but parts that I have hand selected in order to assure suitability for my kit customers.  If a second quality part ever makes it into one of my kits I make sure that whatever small issue the part has is patterned out or is otherwise inconsequential.  When this is done the customer is always given advance notification if any issues exist with the parts and if any parts ever arrive in a kit that the customer finds unsuitable I will gladly replace those parts.  That being said, I have been selling these kits privately and on ebay for seven years and have sold literally hundreds of kits.  I have had only 3 kits returned in that time.  Because the parts for my kits come from factory production my inventory is highly changable based on what parts I've been able to buy recently.  I do regularly carry the kits that other suppliers offer as well such as 14 fret D and 000 in rosewood and mahogany.  I also frequently offer kits that many of the large suppliers do not offer such as 12 fret 00, 00 and 0, 14 fret 00, 12 fret D and size 5.  I've even made up custom Ditson 'baby dreadnought' vintage reissue kits on customer request.  I also try occasionally to offer kits in woods not readily available from the big suppliers such as Koa, curly maple and solid brazilian rosewood.  Are my kits suitable for beginners?  Some are and some are not.  Sometimes I am able to offer kits with very complete parts such as assembled rims, assembled necks, braced tops, etc.  Such kits have more of the difficult labor done for the buyer already and as such they can make for easy projects for the novice.  I've even had kits that were completely assembled body with a completely assembled neck, with the work left being finishing, attaching the bridge and neck and setup.  Most of my kits though have the same degree of completion of a standard Martin kit.  I cannot possibly evaluate any given customer's skill and confidence level in approaching any kit project.  That is something only the prospective builder can determine.  I strongly advise that anyone who has doubts about their abilities to look at some instructional materials before buying to help determine the suitability of any kit purchase for the skill and confidence level of the buyer. Check out the Gallery page for more additions this week, lots of cool guitar pics that have been accumulating and are just now going up.  New inventory pieces have been added as well.  Also, I continue to add to the vintage tuner inventory, so if you need old tuners for a project be sure to check out that page!  SK