Congratulations goes out to Buzz Livaditis for his guitar build, to earn him Guitar of the Month for August 2024.
Buzz used our EXK-1 kit as the basis to create his guitar.
“I worked on this guitar with my friend Rory Phillips (singer/guitarist for The Impossibles, The Stereo). He showed me the ropes on how to finish and paint a guitar as he has been building custom guitars for years.
I was nervous when I first received the kit because I had never finished a guitar before and am not known for being a patient person when it comes to refined, detail-oriented tasks. The kit sat in my closet for a few months before I finally got the courage to pull it out and give it a first attempt.
My first finish was with Tru Oil, but I rushed the results and ended up with a gloopy mess, thinking I ruined the kit. I called Rory in desperation and he helped walk me through sanding it back to the wood, taking it to 320 grit, pore filling with Z Poxy, and introduced me to the world of HVLP spray guns. We slowly went through each step from sanding, to pore fill, to primer, to base colors, clear, and buffing. I worked on the kit for a few hours every Sunday over a few months, always wondering when I would screw up all the work we had already performed.
My fear of messing things up delayed me starting the build by months, and my anxiety of screwing up all our work made me hesitant any time it was time to try a new skill and take the next step. But what I learned through all of this is that failing is part of the process and the best skill that Rory taught me was being resilient and learning how to rebound from mistakes. Even with Rory guiding me, I was a beginner. The process of screwing things up taught me how to fix things. The process of fixing my mistakes was a much better teacher than me procrastinating by watching zillions of hours of YouTube, looking for short cuts and pretending that this was a valid excuse to put the build off until “tomorrow”. Honestly, this project taught me to let go, be flexible instead of afraid, and to be open to try. I didn’t know at my age that I still needed this life lesson, but… hey! You never stop learning!
Fast forward to the final stage before assembly, after waiting 20+ days for the clear coat to cure… only to buff through the finish. Time for a lesson on making touch ups! That would have shattered my confidence at the early stages. However, even what seemed catastrophic (I was in the final stage, I mean come on!) was fixable with a little patience and an airbrush.
In the end, I love the results and highly encourage anyone on the fence or that is stalling based off lack of confidence… make the jump. Be ready to learn. Be ready to fail and try again. Don’t let fear stop you from making rad stuff!
I chose the color scheme based on a Roland TR-808 drum machine as I have been on a bit of an analog kick the last several years and have been having fun mixing in samplers, drum machines, chiptunes/gameboy sounds with my music lately.
I wound my own pickups for this beast using AlNiCo 2 magnets and 42 AWG plain enamel wire, opting to leave them uncovered to add more white into the color scheme (pickup winding ALSO an entirely new skill acquired!) I also upgraded the tuners to locking gotohs, added a bone nut, and changed out the volume/tone pots for ones more reminiscent of the knobs found on the 808. All other hardware is from the kit and everything fit perfectly (very precise routing)!
We found pretty dang close color matches to the original 808 units using Createx paints and added the “Rhythm Composer” text to the headstock using a waterslide decal.
I had a blast and will definitely be ordered more parts and components from Solo in the future (necks, pickup kits, kit guitars, supplies, etc). I already have 2 Solo necks and some pickup kits awaiting me to build some bodies to go with them!
Although, by the time you read this it might be a bit late… thanks for the awesome kit and Happy 808 day (August 8)!
-Buzz Livaditis
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