Pango (guitarkit.shop) undoubtedly has one of the largest selections of middle to low end DIY electric guitar kits around. I built one of their ES335 style kits last year, and though there were a lot of issues, it eventually turned out pretty nice. Pango customer service, on the other hand, was horrible. You can read my Pango DIY Electric Guitar Kit Review and My Pango Experience elsewhere on this site. Was it worth a second shot? Here is what happened with my second Pango DIY electric guitar kit.
Just to cut to the bottom line, among all of the nearly two dozen kits I have built over the past two years, this ranks at the bottom of the list. How I got it in the first place is an interesting story, but this “New Design” kit cannot even be completed and made playable the way it was shipped. The Pango New Design Flying V is designed to look a certain way, and the look they were going for is appealing. But clearly no thought was given to how it would be built or how it would be played.
How I Got This Pango Kit
Full disclosure here, this kit was sent to me free by Pango and did not cost me a dime. I built an ES335 kit from Pango in the Winter and Spring of 2023. It wasn’t a good experience, and dealing with Pango customer service was a nightmare. I reviewed the kit on AxeKit.com.
In the summer of 2023, someone from Pango contacted me about the review. Be assured, my reviews are factual accounts of my personal experience – I don’t make things up. I didn’t hear anything more, and thought the issue was done.
Then In December 2023 I received another email from Pango, this time objecting not only to my review but also to comments I had made in a Facebook DIY Guitars group. We finally came to an understanding, I removed those comments, and they agreed to send me a free kit. There were a few other details they kept changing, but that was the gist of it. I was excited to get it, and in January 2024 this kit arrived.
Perhaps I read Pango’s intentions wrong. I thought they were sending me a replacement kit to review, ultimately helping grow both their business and my website. That isn’t unusual; other companies have sent me products to review on my websites. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe Pango just wanted to appease me by sending something “free.” That will remain a mystery.
The Pango Kit – Flying V DFV-003B
Pango does not currently have this Flying V kit on their website. A similarly designed DFV-004 and DFV-004B are listed, but at this writing are shown as “sold out.” They are in the New Design > Daka Series section.
The kit came in a Styrofoam package with cutouts for the body, the neck, and the component parts. I didn’t observe any shipping damage at all and it really was well packaged. But some of the packaging and tape had yellowed, indicating this certainly wasn’t fresh off the factory floor. The frets had considerable tarnish and oxidation. Some off the gold hardware pieces were dingy and pitted. There was a burr on one of the bridge mounts that prevented the bridge from sliding over it.
The top was in pretty good shape, with a few small dings that wouldn’t be too noticeable when finished. But there were a lot of glue spots on the sides and a very large dark spot of filler and glue that I would have considered a defect. The back was great and the binding on top looked very good. For an example of companies that call this a defect, check out the B-stock kits at Solo.
I did a test fit of the components. The neck fit well in the body, and it appeared to be straight and without any sharp fret ends. The pickguard lined up well, but it the hole that is supposed to fit over one of the bridge bushings (normal on a Flying V) was too small. The switch was missing a second nut to adjust the height. The three pots, however, did come with six nuts; three were metric but three were imperial and just slid over the threads. No tone cap was anywhere to be found. And, as with all Pango kits, there were no instructions or parts list.
All of those things I can deal with, though I would not wish them on any of my readers. However, there was a much bigger problem.
The Headstock
Immediately the design of this headstock caught my eye. My kit had the uncut headstock ready to be customized, which is pretty common. But the layout was a problem. Perhaps Pango was trying to copy the Dean V or the Dimebag Darrell headstock shape and adapt it to this rounded body design. If so, they totally missed it. It was obvious to me that the location of the tuning machines would not work.
To confirm my suspicion, I inserted a tuning machine in the 5th (A-string) hole and pulled a piece of kite string through the nut slot. Sure enough, the string went right across the 6th (E-string) hole! I put a tuning machine in the 6th hole, and the 5th string clearly hits and bends around it. Even the 4th string has the same issue, though not as bad (as if that matters). I put in all six tuners and confirmed that this design could never work as intended.
So I contacted Pango customer service. The response (unedited):
yes, we know this issue, there should be a little string location fixed thing on headstock, which will let string #5 far away from the tuning machine of string #6,
This thing seems like a tiny spinning wheel,
I searched the hardware package and did not find anything that “seems like a tiny spinning wheel,” so I contacted Pango again and received this response (again unedited):
there is no this thing, we just want to tell you tht it can be fixed by this little thing
this is our new design guitar kit, we can fix this issue by this little wheel
So, this kit cannot be built unless I install this unidentified part, which they don’t provide and can only be described as a “little string location fixed thing” that “seems like a tiny spinning wheel.” I asked if they meant a String Butler and got this response (emphasis mine):
for that little issue, our solution is just a tiny wheel, not a string butler. it is a very small issue, there are many solutions in fact. how could you call it can not be built, we can not agree with that.
Needless to say, this isn’t a “little issue” or “very small issue.” And according to them, the solution is not a String Butler. Pango then sent me a picture of a roller tree used on Strats and Teles, which of course would never work in this application. They also sent a picture of a String Butler.
The String Butler
A String Butler sets between the 6th and 1st tuning machines on a 3×3 configuration like a Les Paul. It goes underneath the bushing and washer and has four vertical rollers that align the 5th, 4th, 3rd, and 2nd strings to pass straight through the nut without any break angle toward the tuning machines. Instead, the strings exit the String Butler and angle toward the tuners around the rollers. It’s actually a pretty ingenious device and works well on the Les Paul headstock.
I decided to try it on this faulty headstock design from Pango. Not wanting to invest a lot of money yet, I picked up one of the knock-off designs rather than a genuine String Butler, and tested it again with kite string. Honestly, it kind of looked like a hack but did keep the strings away from the tuning pegs.
But a bigger problem is that this device magnified the fact the pre-drilled tuning machine holes were way out of alignment. The holes on my ES335 kit were also out of alignment, but not nearly this bad. The vertical positions were actually off by as much as 3 millimeters from one side to the other. The String Butler sat crooked on the headstock, with the upper point not centered, and the angle of the strings was not the same on each side.
Initially it looked like a disaster. Everything above the nut was wrong. Using only what was in the kit, it would never look right and, more importantly, would never work. But I was determined to make this acceptable using the String Butler concept, which I describe in my String Butler review here.
The End Result
I always try to make the best of any situation, even a bad one. And when it comes to DIY electric guitar kits, a faulty design combined with substandard materials is about as bad as it gets. This one took a lot of effort, but the end result looks pretty good and plays nice. But remember, I got it for free and had nothing to lose.
If you live in North America as I do, then buy your kits from a North American company. Yes, they are probably made in China, perhaps even at the Pango factory. But you will be better served purchasing the end product from someone who will stand behind that they sell.
Especially if you are a beginner, AxeKit recommends the simplicity of Amazon, where you can find a variety of good kits for a great price, receive them quickly, and have the protection of Amazon’s communication platform and return policies. Check out quality kits offered by Leo Jaymz, Fistrock, Bexgears, Solo, and many others. You can be assured of having a better experience than I had with this one.