Harley Benton Bass Guitar Kit P-Style

Great value deal!

I found the best way to appreciate what matters in a popular style of bass is to put one together yourself! I am surprised at the quality of the body item in this kit and also the quality, accuracy and finish of the neck assembly. I part-assembled to try the fit of all parts. I separated the items before shaping, sanding and spraying final clear lacquer on the wood, leading to easy assembly and adjustment. A good budget bass - and easy to customise!

Impressed

Stumbled upon this product via YouTube and thought why not, or how bad could it possibly be. However every minute from start to finish of building this kit, from routing the headstock to stringing up and jamming have been a sheer delight. My inner smile going full beam, and for the price its astonishing. The only criticism I have that approaches negative, would have to be the thin mass bridge (which I exchanged for a high mass) making it neck heavy to play..... However the high mass bridge helps with this. Utterly thrilled with this product. Hats of to HB once more.

Looks and sounds good

Bought this kit. Sprayed with metallic lake placid blue and go faster silver stripes. Looks and sounds good once set up. Would love to add a picture.

Great product, poor QA

Overall the product is great. Pickup isn't anything to write home about, but it is serviceable. Tuners have some spots where it doesn't change the tuning but hold up tuning pretty well. My main 2 issues are: - Body is sealed but really unevenly. I do recommend sanding this down and polishing at the very least, but i'd suggest adding a couple layers of sealer again, if you want to preserve the wood look. - One of my kits was missing 9 screws (for the bridge and strap buttons), as well as screws and springs for the pickups. Other than that the kit has everything you need in there to assemble it; the other kit I ordered was not missing anything.

Very solid and reasonable

For the money you pay i think its a perfect project

Also its very useful for other things as well

For example you maybe want to make a bass on your own and you need the measurements for everything or you even want to take some part out

Its very very good for what you pay

Worth

Worth the price. The body was smooth but the frets were poking a little. Overall well done. Pickups were not good, they were ok.

Better than expected!

This guitar is no match for the Fender Custom Shop, but let's be realistic....for the price it's AMAZING!

I notice that a few other reviews have said that some of the pre-drilled holes were misplaced, but I didn't find this. Everything was pretty much bang on and the finished guitar is well aligned. I used Fender's online guide for set up, and it plays well, with good intonation.

Body is really light, which is good on the shoulder but it makes it a bit head heavy. If balance is an issue for you then the body may be too light.

Acoustically it seems to resonate really well, but plugged in it initially sounded weak compared to my other bass (which cost x10 more). I swapped the strings for flatwounds and this totally fixed the 'weak' sound. It's both full and open, and I'm so impressed at this price range. The volume pot has a terrible taper that is pretty much all or nothing, but this is a simply cheap swap out.

The only thing that feels cheap (weight aside) is the tuning heads, which are a bit light and not as smooth as more expensive ones, but for the price they are not below expectations.

Time will tell how stable it is, but first impressions are that it is very useable, and I would happily gig with it. So much better than the cheap guitars of my youth.

Highly recommended!

Great Introduction to Guitar Building

This has to be the simplest kit to put together. You can expect to do some work on the fret ends, the nut slots and intonation. The body was pretty enough to be finished with an oil but I have done mine in fiesta red.

The only hiccup was the bridge which did not align with the pre-drilled holes and caused an hour of head scratching until I got it into place.

Fully assembled it plays like a dream and I have more guitar than I payed for.

Excellent kit for experiments

Excellent kit for experiments such as practicing on finishing or learn how an electric guitar or bass is built like. For it's price the electronics and the pickup are pretty good and the quality of the woods in my opinion are better than other basses at this price point!

Great for getting your feet wet

TL:DR- Good kit all around, however you may get unlucky with quality control. At this price, it is expected. Buy new pickups ASAP. If you put time (and some more money) into this bass, you will find it to be genuinely fantastic to play.

This kit is an amazing buy, especially for someone who loves putting things together. I recommend you to buy it, especially if you are in Europe (and don't have to pay almost as much as the instrument for shipping). I, however, must list some gripes I have, which I will proceed with below.

To start, I understand that this kit is $85, so I am not mad, just a little disappointed. My main and most significant gripe is to do with the bridge. A single saddle height adjusting screw was extremely tight, leading to it being stripped, removing my ability to adjust it. I have managed to do fine using only half however seeing the saddle all tilted is irksome. My other issue was with one of the tuners being rough however honestly it isn't a big deal as it doesn't effect tuning.

Now, to some smaller gripes. The volume pot is very cheap, and really is more of an on-off switch than a smooth curve. The neck is very wide and thick which makes it heavy, causing significant neck-dive. I find this very annoying but didn't put it in the above section due to the understanding that this is expected on a cheap instrument. I also found the pickups to be extremely underwhelming. Expected at this price point.

Now, to what I have changed to make this bass truly fantastic. I am fortunate enough to have changed pickups on my other p-bass so I had some genuine fender pickups ready for a swap. I am a novice with soldering, however I managed to get everything hooked up. Small note, I soldered the ground wire to the bridge instead of it being loose like the instructions have it. Since the stock pickups don't require a backing to stay together, I had to find some foam laying around to hold my fender ones properly. Other than the pickups, I also added strap locks, and a new bridge from Hipshot to avoid worrying about the botched screw. Lastly, I put in a neck ship to help with getting the action I wanted.

In terms of physical work I have done, I have leveled the frets which also included polishing, along with shaping the headstock. I recommend anyone who does it, gets some nice small files (I managed to mess up my fretboard's edge using a large one). That's why we buy these instruments, though, right?

Another thing, is setup. I nearly completely compressed the spring on the E string with how far I had to adjust for intonation, however the whole instrument was properly intonated within the reach of the stock bridge. Now with my relief and action set right, along with good intonation, my bass feels and sounds amazing to play.

I genuinely love my bass, which I lovingly named rattle-can for how much it buzzed before I did the fretwork. I recommend that anyone with the means to do so, pick one of these up. It is a great time and super rewarding to see it when you are done.