Harley Benton DC-Junior FAT Benton Blue Reviews

Really amazing!

I doubt there were really only 250 made, but this is a really great guitar! It's nice to take it in hand. Amazing color and plus the ability to change pads and handles! I'm not a professional, but I like the sound of this beauty!)

Very good guitar, light QC errors but very minor and trounced by how this thing sounds.

I bought this guitar for a first proper guitar, I've had guitars before but they were kinda rubbish, better suited as projects than instruments. I settled on this instrument because it was reasonably priced and looked like the one in Bocchi the Rock.

When it arrived I was pleasantly surprised, I had heard tales of doom from other friends who said to not buy cheap guitars, but after getting this one I might not listen to them. This thing is excellent and in the few hours I've owned it I love it.

Sure there were some issues out of the box, the black pick guard is not exactly the right fit with a small seam near the neck, the laser cutting might have been a bit too aggressive leaving some burn marks on the truss rod cover and the intonation was a bit wack out of the box, but after some dialling in this thing sound amazing and everything else just becomes a non issue.

You definitely don't get what you paid for, you get more. Love this thing

Budget double cut at its best

Lovely light weight guitar with so much to offer. Stays in tune well and plays equally well.

Amazing how many different styles of music you can get from this just by adjusting the tone and volume Pots.

Coil splitting option is a nice feature and gets a lot of use from me.

Pickup sounds great and certainly has enough bite to it.

Excellent guitar value for money!!!

I have over 100 guitars ranging from super expensive one of a kind custom shop USA guitars to handmade guitars from other lands & then some... Out of the box this guitar went right into tune. Benton Blue finish is sweet & neck plays great. pickup sounds great clean or dirty coming thru a Kemper or a Vox valvetronix. i added dunlop straplocks & will add 10-50 gauge strings but thats it. Having a black or white livery choice is just a huge bonus to get with this guitar also! AMAZING VALUE Vs. Price imho! THANX from INNERSTRENGTH

A Great guitar

I had already bought a DC Junior and was amazed at the quality. When I saw the Junior FAT at an even lower price and with the stacked P90 I decided to order it. I wanted to see if the quality of the Junior I already had was a fluke. Well it wasn't. This guitar is every bit the equal. Right out of the box it played well. I did a minor set up to my own preferences, polished the frets a bit and now it's hard for me to put this guitar down. Love the added "beef" the stacked pickup gives. Some years ago I owned one of the guitars this is modeled after and truthfully this guitar captures the feel and vibe almost perfectly. Very glad to have gotten this guitar

This is exactly what a jr is supposed to be!!!

I have been playing for over 30 years and currently front the band Black Cats NYC. Over the years I have played many different guitars from many different brands. I am old school so the classics are the guitars I tend to gravitate towards. During the pandemic and not being able to play live, I did a lot of YouTubing and that's where I first discovered Harley Benton.

I pulled the trigger on the HB DC-Jr Fat in Benton Blue.... what a great guitar!!! Fist of all it looks phenomenal, the color jumps out at you and the fretboard is beautiful. Second it plays great, the neck is fast and inspiring. Third it sounds unbelievable, that Roswell P90 has great tone!

The jr. came perfect out of the box, no paint flaws or fret issues, decent strings, and it comes with both white and black pickguard, backplate, trussrod cover and knobs... it's like getting 2 for the price of 1 ha! The hardware is real good quality and doesn't look or feel cheap. The tuners (15:1 ratio) don't slip, the bridge intonates great, the nut is graphite, and the P90 is stacked! (you can go from single coil to humbucker) This guitar really cuts through the mix, not a "true" P90 but it growls and has its own unique sound that I absolutely love. Inside the soldering is spot on and the wiring is neat and tidy. I have a "real" dc special and in comparison, the HB is slightly thicker in the neck and body, and a little lighter.

The only thing I had to do to this guitar was change the strings due to personal preference, they come with .10 gauge and I play .11's. Setting this guitar up was easy and it now plays even better. My band is recording in a couple of days and I will be using this guitar on one of the songs!

I highly recommend the HB DC- Junior FAT to anyone looking for a great, fun to play, rock 'n' roll guitar.

Good for the money

A lot of the reviews on the internet make it sound like this guitar is an absolute steal. I agree that its value for money but I was less enamoured, I think I paid the right money for it.

I bought it as a project guitar so none of the issues [below] are a problem for me and nothing I wouldn't expect to see on a budget guitar anyway, I just think that buying online its worth knowing what sort of thing you might find, that a picture online cant/wont show you. Also, I'm only going to point out the extremes, good or bad, if I don't highlight then it was ok/good.

The first thing that I noticed (probably the way I unboxed) were the tuning pegs. Very plasticky with obvious mould lines and dirty. On closer inspection the dirt was actually the plastic, like it had been tuned by someone with acetone on their fingers. I had so sand them to get rid of the dirty markings but that got rid of the mould lines too, and they look ok now. Otherwise the tuners are holding the strings in tune ok and are not particularly gritty or scratchy.

The frets were very scratchy and there was a small amount of fret sprout (but maybe I'm just sensitive to these things). The paint on the neck was visibly rippled. It was also super glossy, the kind your sweaty hand will stick to, so sanding sorted out both issues (although, even after sanding there are still low spots in the paint where its still glossy).

There were small blemishes in the paint on the neck and body (3-5mm black marks that are in the paint). As mentioned, I sanded the neck to remove the ripples so I know the marks were in the paint; not on top. Probably wouldn't be notable if the guitar wasn't bright blue, to be fair any blemish will be immediately obvious.

I wanted to use the black livery (gimmicky, perhaps, but I do really like the fact you get to choose, btw) but unfortunately the scratch plate doesn't quite fit properly, there' a couple of mm gap between the neck and the scratch plate at the top end and about 5mm at the bottom end. A gap is probably normal, but its the fact its on a slant. Barely noticeable, can be sanded even, I just point it out because there was no gap with the white scratch plate. Also one of the white knobs broke on removal, my fault I guess but I was using a knob puller that I've used on all my other guitars no issues. There was a bit of foam packing under the pick up that I initially thought was odd but that's apparently quite normal; in lieu of springs.

The tone knob does nothing until you get to about 2 and half, then it kicks in abruptly. There is no tone control, its on or off. The coil split didn't do anything either, but that may be a faulty pot since the tone does nothing either?

Overall I really like the guitar, I like the tone, I like the colour, I like the fact you can choose between black and white livery. I think its good value for money, I don't think its a steal, I think you get what you pay for. Its a solid guitar that you can play out of the box, at a low enough price you can bash it around a bit or modify without worrying about damaging; as you might a more expensive instrument.

Really great little beast

I have to say, the other HBS I have all needed a setup or fret ends doing. All minor stuff but it has to be done.

This one was bang on out of the box. Also in tune with itself if 3 semitones flat across the board. A couple of bits of trim look cheap but this thing is a real players guitar. Fat neck and flattish fingerboard. Perfection. Sounds rather awesome too.

"Now then...how do ~ they do that?"

I'm blown away, like everyone else. This Jr. rawks! I'm picky about neck profiles, and this ones' feel is a spot on match with my '59 RI. Fit, feature, Hey Man, Buy It!

Punk rock vomit machine

I play this guitar on a daily basis and is alot of fun for all styles of rock and punk. For an average guitar player - I have alot of fun with this.

Pleasantly Surprised

What a nice guitar.In all of my many years of playing I am totally impressed with the quality of this guitar for considering how little I paid for it. Sounds great, plays great and the finish is very impressive. A nice guitar to add to your tool box of sound !

Benton Blue for the win!

I bought this one based on my positive experience with the Faded Blue DC Junior, and I'm glad I did. It has a bit more of a substantial feel to it compared to the standard Junior while still being fairly light.

The neck has a satisfyingly full feel to it without being a baseball bat and the pickup is pretty good. I was surprised that there's a bit of a volume drop when switching to humbucking mode, but it's not drastic.

The pots on this one work great, just as they do on the Faded Blue, with the only real criticism I have of it being that the switching between the two modes would be easier to do with speed knobs rather than the current ones. They do look good and function fine otherwise, though.

Like its previously mentioned brother, this is a fun guitar to play and I'm glad I got it.

Stunning guitar

I have other junior guitars but this fat max is perfect for me.

Quality finish great neck and love the split coil pickup.

Just had to lower the action to my preference and have not looked back.

The paint finish is faultless.

Highly recommend if you like a fuller feeling neck.

Wow

I bought this thinking it would be a nice, cheap guitar to have knocking around the house and not have to worry about the kids or dogs knocking it over. I really wasn't expecting it to be as good as it is. This isn't just a good guitar for the price, it's a damn good guitar full stop.

It arrived on Tuesday last week and I gave it a once over, trying to find any shortcuts or basic flaws. Nothing. Tuned it up and had a play, decided I wanted to lower the action a little, changed this and kept playing.

Friday night came around and I'm on my way out to a gig. I'd normally take a couple of very nice telecasters, but decided to give this a run out. I fully expected to play a couple of songs and then revert back to the telecaster, keeping this as a backup. I ended up playing the whole gig with the DC Junior.

Very impressed and it will be coming to this weeks gig too.

The spirit of the original Junior returns!!

Gibson originally created the Junior to be a "student guitar"...meaning a decent quality, affordable guitar. But since then Gibson cares more about milking people for their money than actually honoring why they made this instrument in the first place.

Harley Benton brings back the original spirit of the Junior guitar: meaning a decent quality, affordable instrument. Bravo Harley Benton, as this guitar is well built, plays so comfortably and has a great sound. The gorgeous colour scheme of sky blue and white trimmings give this guitar a unique appearance.

Not flawless, but very nice rockroll guitar

Hi,

This guitar punches above it's priceclass. The neck is smooth and fretwork more than capable.

You can't get the action down at shredders lever, but setting is at 1.8 mm (12th fret, thick E string) is easily doable , but can't see it getting lower... It did need a setup tho... As all bentons kinda do in my opinion... I needed to lower the bridge, but there was also to much relief in the neck.

pro's:

-Feels at least like a epiphone level quality guitar

-Sounds rocknroll.. Has very nice and usable clean sound... Has a lot of grit with gain. I even use it for metal stuff.

Cons:

-For mine , there were some paint flaws (Black dots in the back of the neck above the blue paint) .

-The tone pot is really "wobly" if you turn it. It's like there is something that needs no be tightened inside , but I can't find it (It's not the hex screw)

- The tone pot knob also gets off really easy by accident if i'm trying to coilsplit.

-For some reason, my "thicker" sound gives a little more hum, or noises, that the split sound... But still very usable and not that bad.

All in all, despite the "cons" list, I like it very much, it's got that "something special" guitar that sets it apart from a strat, Lp, Sg, Tele , ... Even for being a doublecut, it is original because it has some fenderish style colors, but plays more like a gibson... So it's something different :)