Are you left-handed and want to build your own DIY electric guitar? The selection of left-handed DIY guitar kits is somewhat limited, but they are out there, and here at AxeKit.com we want to help you find them.
Can you just take a right-handed guitar and turn it upside down? Blues guitarist Albert King did just that. He flipped a right-handed guitar upside down, with the high strings toward the ceiling and the lower strings toward the floor, and played left-handed (in an open, dropped tuning, it is said). In a different way, lefty Jimi Hendrix played a right-handed guitar flipped over but with the strings reversed – low strings to the ceiling, high strings to the floor.
When these guitarists started playing, left-handed guitars were hard to find and pretty expensive. Today, it is much easier to get a left-handed guitar in about any configuration, and the price is generally the same as right hand guitars. Most who play left-handed now use guitars intended to be played left-handed. And you can build a left-handed guitar from a kit intended for that purpose.
What Makes a Guitar Left-Handed?
In appearance, a left-handed guitar body is basically the mirror image of a left-handed guitar. For symmetrical guitars like an SG or Flying V, that might be nothing more than relocating the controls. On models like the popular Stratocaster or Les Paul, it becomes a little more obvious with the controls and cutaways. Inline headstocks are flipped, where 3×3 headstocks don’t look that much different.
When you get to the hardware, there is a lot of difference. Inline tuning machines are reversed, giving the proper gear orientation on the peg, something that is also necessary when you reverse the headstock on a right-handed guitar. Besides the strings, the nut and bridge are reversed. And of course, if there is a pickguard, it is reversed.
If the pickups are slanted, like the bridge pickup on a Stratocaster or Telecaster, then it is the way the pickup in the pickguard or bridge is mounted that changes. Even though the pickup’s orientation changes, its polarity and wind direction are still the same. The only time you need a “left-handed” pickup is if you have fixed, staggered poles (the pole heights are not all the same and cannot be changed), and those usually don’t come in DIY kits.
Let’s See Some Left-Handed Guitar DIY Kits!
Here are a few left-handed DIY electric guitar kits for you to consider. These kits are specifically designed to be built and played left-handed and don’t require any additional conversion. There is one exception, though, that is worthy of consideration, and that is the volume and tone control pots. They are addressed at the end of this post, or you can jump there by clicking here.
Strat Style Kits
Tele Style Kits
Two Humbucker LP/SG/EX/PR Style Kits
| Manufacturer | Product | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Solo LPK-10L LP Style |  | Read More at |
| BexGears LP Style |  | Read More at |
| BexGears SG Style |  | Read More at |
| Leo Jaymz EX Style |  | Read More at |
Hollow Body ES Style Kits
Electric Bass Kits
About Left-Handed Controls
There are some important things to consider with the volume and tone controls. Right-handed guitar controls increase the volume or brighten the tone by turning the control clockwise. Properly configured left-handed guitar control should work opposite, increasing volume or brightening tone by turning counterclockwise. However, many kits are supplied with the controls operating the same as right-handed guitars.
There are generally two types of controls, or variable resistors called potentiometers or “pots,” used in electric guitars. If you graph the resistance of a linear-taper pot it is a straight line. Turning it 25% changes the resistance 25%, turning it half-way is 50%, and so forth. But a graph resistance in an audio-taper pot is exponential. The resistance increases at a slower rate at first, then at an increasing rate toward the end of the rotation. The human ear actually hears like this exponential graph. So, with an audio taper pot, half way actually sounds like half volume, even though the resistance is much less. That’s why it is called audio-taper.
The graph represents a linear-taper pot and a typical audio-taper pot. There is variation among the audio-taper pots and the curve may not be as steep.
If the controls in your left-handed kit use linear-taper pots, usually designated with the letter “B” before the resistance value, then to get a counterclockwise rotation all you need to do is reverse the standard wiring. However, that won’t work properly with audio-taper pots (designated with the letter “A” before the resistance value), since the exponential change in resistance would be in the wrong direction. To properly use audio-taper pots in a left-handed configuration with counterclockwise rotation, you need reverse audio taper pots, usually designated by the letter “C” before the resistance value. Those can be a little hard to find.
What Do Guitar Manufacturers Use?
There isn’t an industry standard. Higher end guitar manufacturers like PRS use reverse audio-taper pots. Others use linear-taper pots that are wired in reverse. Nearly all of them configure left-handed electric guitar controls so that they operate counterclockwise.
Unfortunately left-handed DIY electric guitar kits are not as consistent. Now, I have to say that I am not left-handed and I have never built a left-handed DIY electric guitar kit myself. But in preparing this post, I contacted several of the manufacturers. Solo informed me that they do, in fact, wire the controls in reverse and use all linear-taper pots. Solo left-handed guitar controls turn counterclockwise. The distributors of Leo Jaymz and BexGears kits both told me they supply the same controls for right-handed and left-handed kits. That sounds to me like they will not turn counterclockwise and a modification would be necessary. If they are supplied with standard audio-taper pots, you may need to replace them.
How these kits are configured may change from time to time, and if you are concerned about what you are getting you should contact the distributor right before placing an order. For most, you can contact them through Amazon messaging and receive a response within 48 hours. Be prepared to make modifications and reverse the connections.
Tell Us About Your Left-Handed DIY Electric Guitar Kit
If you have built a left-handed DIY electric guitar kit, we’d love to hear about it. Please leave a comment below and tell us about your experience.