Combine Newsletter - August 2026
August's Guitar of the Month Winner!
We’re pleased to announce that Elijah is the latest winner of our Guitar of the Month contest!
Curious about his process? Here is his story:
"This build has had a rough journey, but it shows how even if mistakes are made, you can usually turn it into a happy accident and still make an awesome looking build. I had started this build with an experimental idea, to do magenta lines in the flamed maple, with purple as the main color. I dyed the top Magenta and sanded it back, but it just ended up really splotchy, I likely over sanded it. Also, I had a bit of peeling of the veneer on one of the horns, which I dealt with badly and instead of glueing it down or cutting the peeling bit off, I accidentally peeled off a bigger chunk. After that, I tried to do black grain filler lines, but when sanding it off again it just took all of the black off and left old magenta splotches that had gone deep into the wood. This was likely from having already sanded the Veneer thinner from my previous failed attempt. I decided to just scrap the veneer and got out the orbital sander. Luckily, the Alder body below actually looks great. It almost has a burled look in a few places, which I really like.
I then dyed the body magenta, and tried to clear coat with spray lacquer, which I had never done before. It just didn't come out great (nasty orange peel, and the edges ended up being really foggy which I couldn't sand out), and I ended up scrapping it and sending it back to raw wood. I then re did the magenta dye, but with a slight burst this time. I did the top more of a purple, but then blended the magenta burst in with light but more red heavy dye, which I was able to slowly add layers to try and get the burst right. I had never tried this burst type before, but I'm pretty happy with the results, as I usually struggle with the popular burst method of sanding the initial color back and adding a new color over that to make the burst. This seems to be a recurring them for me, messing up sanding the dye back, just like on my veneer.
I then played it safe with my Varathane water based satin brush on polyurethane, which I've used successfully on multiple guitars. Funnily, I still had issues this time, because my garage was really hot for the summer. I had previously only used it in the much cooler basement. After a lot of sanding, I had removed the orange peel, and was able to do more coats to finish it in the basement to get the final result. I was worried the polyurethane neck would be sticky, but it's not sanded to a gloss and feels nice and fast. I soaked the bone nut in black transtint dye overnight, to get it to turn black to match the hardware. Assembly was relatively painless. I sanded a bit of the paint off the back of the bridge to ground better. I purchased strap locks to install as I prefer those and use them for all of my straps. Everything else went well, and it's set up with a custom stringjoy set to have my ideal tension in drop A, and is playing great.
To anyone who has read this far, constantly learn and try new things. It might make the road a little harder like it did in my case, it's a great learning experience as I make more kits." - Elijah
Elijah's win has earned him up to 50% off the base price of his next DIY Guitar Kit, and his build has been shared on our website and social media!
His guitar is built using Combine's Multiscale Headless 7-String Guitar Kit.
Latest 5-Star Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Check out the latest review of our Multiscale Headless 8-String Guitar Kit!
"First and foremost, the support from this company is superb 5/5
I messaged the owner nearly a year before purchasing when I was planning out how to get an 8-string for the best price, and the owner spared no details in answering my questions and offering advice/confirmation as to my desired outcome for the build.
The kit when I ordered it, arrived blazing fast and was very well packed with no issues out of box aside some very minor fixes like needing to mallet in some frets to fully flatten them in order to mend the minor minor fret buzz I had in the lower frets. I cannot speak to the electronics in the kit as I did not touch them, I did my own electronic harness with a custom setup, but they measured out and look absolutely fine.
Working on the kit was a joy, limited only by my own lack of experience in the matter, and all mistakes/flaws in the final finish/fret inlays are my own and my own only due to improper procedure.
It was pretty straightforward to router out the offset pickup cavities to fit soap-bar Fishman pickups, and to crown the head-nub into a clean taper with a jigsaw.
Staining and painting was arguably one of the more tedious and difficult parts of the process as I had to sand down the veneer face by hand between stain coats, and I highly recommend future builders to use an orbital sander for this task.
***HUGE LIFEHACK FOR ALIGNING BRIDGE***: Place down the bridge baseplate with no saddles on it into the slot for the bridge, then using ~1cm tall, 4cm long pieces cut from a standard gift card, gently tap them into the gaps on the sides that align with the neck, and this will ensure the bridge is straight as an arrow, and then once confirming, use a little bit of superglue or double sided tape to hold it in place ALONG with the previously tapped in gift card pieces on the sides, then use a drill bit matching the width of the bridge screw holes to gently create shallow craters where the screws will go. This will make drilling the actual screw holes 1:1 where they need to be very easy since the larger divot will be centered and point the smaller drill bit used for the screws into the dead center.
Overall 5/5 Kit, my build isn't quite 100% flawless but its good enough, if you want an 8-string spec'd out to exactly what you want given the correct tools and limited by your drive and creativity, this is the kit for you!" - Alexander
August's Guitar of the Month Contest
We know you're all busy working away on your builds, and we expect some of you will complete them in time to enter August's Guitar of the Month contest! The winner will receive up to 50% off the base price of their next DIY Guitar Kit, and their build will be shared on our website and social media.