Saga MT-10 Electric Mandolin Kit

The kit arrived on time and in great condition. My husband has enjoyed the process of "creating" a unique instrument. We only had one issue: there were no tuning knobs in the kit we received, so he had to purchase a set elsewhere.

Nice Product, Fun to build

My 14 year old son was very excited about the idea of creating his own instrument. Unfortunately, there was no channel drilled in the instrument for the ground wire and some soldering needed to be redone. The instrument when put together is also somewhat out of alignment. We discovered these problems after my son had put a lot of work and some money into the paint job, so we went ahead and bought a soldering iron and relocated the ground to made it work. Its a fun product but it seems like there are quality contol issues with many of these DIY string instruments that could easily be avoided. I don't know whether the seller would offer some compensation for this type of problem, it really was quite a hassle to make it a workable mandolin.

Here's my experience assembling the Saga mando kit: it took about 3 weeks, given drying time for stain, poly, plus solving numerous little problems, ordering drill bits, etc. The guitar body is fine, except that there's no channel for the ground wire. Do this first!! You have to drill it with a 6" x 1/8" bit; the channel is about 5" long. Also, problems threading ground wire through the channel; but you'll solve that I'm sure (hint: wire and string help). The neck and tuner hardware are OK, except the neck itself doesn't seat properly in the body; you'll need to sand/remove a bit of wood to make that happen. The nut and bridge slots need to be deepened. This is a real challenge as nut files are too expensive. I bought some faux files (which are actually welding torch cleaners, for about $8. But the biggest hassle is the bridge...whew! I had to drill 1/4' holes for the posts and fill them with silicon sealer to seat the posts. Major hassle!Also, the strings are garbage; theirs broke; so replaced with guitar strings. This will never replace my "real" mandolins, but it was a diversion. Sounds OK through an amp. Play-ability is so-so.Tools I used: scroll saw, elec drill, nut drivers, heat gun, screw drivers, maybe more?

relatively easy to build but you should switch to a hard tail bridge w/ intonation adj. floating trapeze bridges are a pain. otherwise good parts.

Very neat and complete kit.

Decent quality body, neck, and frets. Electronics are cheap and noisy. I will probably replace the pots. Decided to use a different bridge and made some adjustments to the neck to lower the action. Overall a great deal for the price.

Needed to replace a ground wire that was too short by a 1/2 inch, which then required some soldering. Otherwise, everything else was as it should be. Pretty easy do-it-yourself project and it sounds good, looks good and plays nice.