Harley Benton DC-Junior FAT Faded Cherry 4-stars Reviews

Move Over Gibson

I can't see how any other style of this guitar, even excluding price range (well, up to $400 LOL) can out perform this beast. Well done once again, Harley Benton!!!

Needs a different Bridge

Bridge saddles are sharp, definitely needs a different bridge. Sound great and plays well.

Unbeatable value!

I wanted to own a Doublecut Junior style guitar for a long time. I was really happy to see Harley Benton make junior models. It was a no brainer for me.

So here it goes

Pros:

Good looking finish with a satin feel.

Nice neck feel - also satin feel.

Good fretwork.

Coil tap is a plus.

Great playability.

Cons

Wasn't able to get a perfect setup on it. The action has to be set a bit high to avoid fret buzz. Maybe it could use some fret leveling.

Hardware is understandably cheap feeling. I would consider swapping the nut, bridge and pickup at some point. Maybe the tuners too.

Pickup sounds nice for this kinda price range. Worth considering an upgrade in the future.

All in all I love this guitar because it seems like most of the cost of it has gone into things that can't be easily changed, such as the fit and finish, the feel of the neck etc. And while the hardware is cheap it can easily be replaced.

Good value, but needed some work

Had this on backorder for a while and was thrilled when it was delivered.

First impression is good. Fretwork is spot on.

The stacked P90 sounds good and reacts nicely to tone and volume changes.

Finish of the guitar feels great and looks good. Neck is nice, but not as thick as a 50's style Gibson.

Some minor flaws:

The nut wasnt cut properly. The slot for the D-string was not cut in the center so the string spaces were not evenly matched. I fixed this by mounting a Graph Tech Nut. No need to change the tuners now either. Something i doubted in the beginning.

The P90 wasnt mounted straight. It was slightly crooked. Fixed this myself. I drilled a new hole and put it straight.

The intonation was OK, except for the G-string. Could not get it right. But after changing the string with a new one, it was OK.

I will change the bridge for an aluminum version in the future,

The volume and tone knobs are the tophat type. Not very easy to use the use pull with these knobs. Changed them for speedknobs: problem solved.

Maybe i will change the pots for CTS pots, but for the time being they will do.

A good guitar, but it needed some tweaks to meet my demands.

2 small quality control issues: the nut and crooked pickup mounting.

DC Junior FAT

Guitar arrived when it was supposed to but with a very large split in the outer box. fortunately the inner box was unharmed.

Pro's

Nicely made body and a very good neck finish with no sharp frets, tuners are good and the neck profile is fatter than my HB SC I have.

Where these guitars win is with the Rosewell pickups, they are very responsive and the tone/volume pots have a good ramp which allows lot's of variation tonally, the comfortable neck makes the instrument very playable and the light weight won't break your back.

Cons

The control knobs are useless on the push/pull pot as you cant grip them.

On arrival I found the action a little high so had to use a lot of force on the bridge adjusting screws to lower it, additionally the adjustment is now at it's lowest setting which is a little worrying for any future neck movement.

Think there is a production fault on HBs routing as one of the retaining screws on the control cavity plate is breaking into the side of the control cavity. (same fault on my HB SC)

A terrific guitar that could be made perfect with a couple of improvements by HB (especially the bridge height issue)