I found a random dad on youtube (probably a tech) who builds those shit-ass chinese guitar kits on amazon and apparently the teles and strats are okay.
I want to get and do a natural shellac finish on one now, but I know off the bat I'm going to have to learn about soldering and get decent tele pickups in there. Is it worth it to replace the shitass 250k pots while I'm at it?
I'll have to replace the neck with a fender neck too but that's not too bad.

p.s. fucking astounded chink knockoffs use actual maple tops whereas epiphone has been caught gluing on wraps to fake tops in recent years.