ST-62CC RW Inca Silver : Second ST-62 this year

I bought an ST-62CC Charcoal Frost last month (see my review of that for most of what applies here). Obviously I liked it so much I bought another one :)

I intended to fit a Hotrails to the Charcoal ST-62 as I play mainly metal, but liked the stock Roswell single coils so much that it seemed a shame to sacrifice such great clean and crunch tones to whats basically the one-trick-pony of a Hotrails guitar. So, the only thing to do was buy another ST-62 to have one of each. And, while we're at it, one in maple and one in pau ferro. All other aspects (bar the hardware colour) are identical.

The only area in which the Charcoal ST-62 fell down was the sharp fret edges, whereas in the Inca the fretwork is all good. That's probably luck of the draw with such mass-produced, minimally QC'd guitars like these. The fret tops are still scratchy (like the other one and, judging by the reviews on here, most ST-62s), but this goes away after a few hours of play.

Those vintage split tuning pegs look great but I'd get some locking pegs if I was going to take this out live. The trem, despite it being on a budget guitar and sporting the thinnest zinc block I've yet seen on any guitar, sounds excellent and works as well as any non-locking trem I've used. Comparing it to the Wilkinson unit in an older ST-70 I've had, this sounds better and has way more downward travel.

Fit and finish all as good as I've come to expect from Harley Benton. The 'Inca Silver' isn't the bright sterling silver you'd find on a Fender etc, but an almost 'old gold' greenish hue'd metallic grey. My first impression when opening the box was 'oh...' in the way you might react to an 'unexpected but not what you really wanted' Christmas present. It's grown on me, though, and looks really good on the wall-hanger next to its Charcoal Frost brother.

Chrome hardware looks great, as does the plastic stuff. I should mention how good the scratchplate and electronics are, by the way, if only because Harley Benton have really stepped up in this area lately.

So - upgrades: as the other ST-62 has me covered for basic Strat tones, I'm going to use this as my primary metal rhythm guitar for recording. It'll get a set of three rail-type humbuckers, locking tuners and roller string trees, plus some 500k pots. The chunky neck is fast with great note separation and sustain. Its not as solid sounding as the maple 'board, but probably more suitable as an 'upgrade platform'.

As before - I'd recommend these current ST-62s to anyone as they far surpass the price tag. My two have replaced guitars costing 3-5 times as much, they're that good. But.... you'll need to set it up yourself and its a roll of the dice as to whether you get one with frets that don't need additional work.