Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit DC Style Reviews

Excellent value for what you get, and a great way to start a new guitar project!

This kit is just awesome, the body was greatly finished, the neck is flawless and the nut also has quality, the frets and the finish in the neck are just simply lovely! The body is very easy to work with and it's ready for paint! The hardware all works as it should, the electronics are also adequate, but for the price of the whole kit you couldn't ask for more! So it is a great build platform, and perfect for other pickup and electronic configurations, and if you are picky about the tuners just get a good set of locking ones!

I really like it

I ordered this as I wanted to assemble the instrument I'm playing on as well as to try some mods. It is easy to assemble and plays decently out of the box. Wood (body)- very light and some how "acoustic" if it makes sense. Neck - I like the width but the shape is a bit odd (for me at least) as I have short flingers. I'm planning to reshape it and this will be fun as this instrument just asks you to try some modifications. Electronics - I replaced it but the original was working Hardware - not bad. I replaced the tuners, and the tun-o-matic bridge but the originals were doing the job just fine. I decided not to paint it as the wood grains feel very nice. Maybe will paint it in the future. Overall I'm very pleased. Yes, you may find assembled instruments for a 100 euro but where is the fun in that.

Surprisingly great...

Thought this kit was going to be feel cheap but turned out to be surprisingly great. Neck well finished and body good, pick ups good, volume and tone controls ok. Instructions ok (plenty of online guides as well). finished body with a green burst, all fit together well and is very playable.

My neck arrived broken at the scarf joint. my return is being processed now.

It seems very glossy out of the box. you could leave it unfinished if you wanted. apart from the broken headstock, the neck is amazing. I'm not even going to touch it with any clear coat. i will paint the headstock though.

nice looking kit..some holes were not in line..it is little unstable even after changing machine heads..dont know why.maybe wood is not dryed enough.i changed pickup for warman invader and made a bone nut..levelled frets ..frets are a cheap material and they show wear very quickly..but actually this is one of the best kits ive done and guitar looks fine.even without those changes..neck is nice and it is balanced ok

Great kit, if you’re willing to put some work into it

I love doing mods on guitars, and decided to try out one of these kits to build from the ground up. After a bit of work, I love the results.

No complaints about manufacturing or machining. All predrilled holes lined up as they should, and the neck fit snugly into its pocket. Even with shipping/taxes/fees, still less expensive than most kits. I would say that if you’re planning on tuner or electronics upgrades, you will probably be best served by installing them to begin with. That said, I wanted to see what the initial quality level and sound were like out of the box. Most hardware was good, though I had issues with the smallest screws in the tuners - but they were the only hardware I had a complaint about. And I found that I was happier with tuning stability after installing locking tuners - that’s where the hardware issue bit me, but I resolved it with a little work. The prewired plug-in electronics harness was well put together, but the bridge pickup was wildly microphonic. I’d planned on upgrading that anyway, so no big loss. The neck pickup was fine, so I decided to save myself some upgrade funds and kept it. Switching was solid, and pots were relatively noise-free. The wood finish needed relatively little prep for painting, and I found only a couple of smaller rough spots inside the cutaways. Binding on the fretboard was clean and very smooth, and frets were smooth and even. A little work on the slots in the nut was necessary, as I found the cuts a bit shallow. No big thing. After a few minor tweaks and upgrades to the bridge pickup and tuners (which, as I said, I’d planned on anyway), I’m very happy with the way it plays, feels and sounds. I’ve spent more “fixing” guitars at 2-3x the price, and I even got the opportunity to put my own artistic stamp on the finish. As with other HB offerings, you really can’t go wrong for the money - I’m just trying to decide on which kit I want to build next!

Super

My son wanted to create his own guitar. So lovely idea to allow people do so. Love it

This kit was much higher quality than other companies.

I have put 14 guitar kits together over the last two years and this is one of my favorites.

Great guitar if you get all the parts.

This is a very fun project guitar if you wants something that plays and sounds great without too much work. The biggest reason I got this over the others is because I didn't have to shape the headstock myself. It was a little difficult trying to figure out which pots go where and how to orient the pickup switch. As a result, they are backwards, which isn't a big deal for me. What is a big deal is that it didn't come with the correct amount or types of screws, and as a result I can't properly screw my backplate or pickguard on. I basically have my pickguard wedged in place between the pickup mounts and the backplate is held in place by the 1 screw left that did fit. You'll need to take some time to get your bridge action and saddle intonation correct, which takes a bit of learning, but that's what a guitar like this is for. If I were to replace any of the hardware on this guitar I would replace the tuning machine. They're okay but could be better, but it's not too big of an issue.

But other that those issues, the guitar looks and plays great. I was originally going to sand and stain it purple, but I actually ended up really liking the look of the natural wood, so I left it as is. This is the only guitar I have tuned to E and it's perfect with the 24.75" scale. The stock pickups sound pretty good, no complaints. The tailpiece and bridge are pretty good quality, not made of cheap metal like on some other cheaper guitars. Fretwork was perfectly smooth and even and the neck was straight.

Overall, I would easily get another DiY kit from Harley Benton and I would recommend them to anyone. Just make sure they send you all the screws you need...

Fun kit for experimentation

I bought this to experiment with. This is dirt cheep and you want something like this to practice your painting and finishing on.

I did not even bother to try the electronics, they felt very cheep, and I had an Epiphone harness and pickups I used instead. The tuners also felt very cheap so I thrashed them along with the strings and the plastic jack cable.

I used the knobs. I like those!

Anyway: the neck fit the body perfectly and was better than I expected, a pleasant surprise. The was well cut and fine for my purpose.

BUT the neck dive on this guitar is tremendous. Even when sitting down it is too much. SG's are notorious neck divers, but this is far worse. This may be vary across individual kits, I don't know, but I fear the is not a significant difference.

Bit of a let down

Iv built other kits from here, this was ten quid more expensive than my usual ones but the quality of the body made it seem like it was half the price, scratched, cracked and uneven, still fun to work with but it was like having to fix it to build it

1...2...3....Done

Although the kit was easy to paint and assemble...unless you have plans for a special paint job... why bother. Just order a completed guitar from the huge selection of styles and models offered for just a bit more money.... and I do mean a very little bit more.

Easy to build, went together perfectly, sounds incredible.

I'm building another one for my grandson,I love playing this thing, it's hard to put it down, the action is perfect, intonation was a breeze, the neck is smooth and fast.

Solid project but not a challenge

The body came whit nicely finished, i only used 5minutes for extra sanding of some rough spots. If would have used 2-3 layers of paint i would have not to do that either. The neck for me was very good, all frets were in where they belong and guitar sounds as it supposed to. Just cheap electronics and i would reccomend buying better string from the get go.

It looks good, but it is a poor kit

A major issue with the neck (trussrod installation to be exact), kept this kit from being fun and a decent experience. Failure to function results in a 1 star rating.

Overall, almost everything fit together. All parts were in the bags, all bags in the box. Pretty much went together without a problem - except for THE PROBLEM.

THE PROBLEM

As I was stringing the guitar kit up, I thought the molded plastic nut and string slots appeared very low, and my observation was correct. The nut slot was cut so deep the nut rested on the barrel end of the trussrod, and the the strings rested directly on the first fret. Imaging a Zero fret guitar...but this isn't a zero fret guitar kit.

Long story short, I popped the nut out of the slot to find the trussrod end was protruding slightly under the nut itself, and created a teeter-totter surface for the nut to sit on (bad).

As a temporary fix, I shimmed the nut up to get enough action over the 1st fret. Set the bridge height, tuned up and was able to get some decent sounds from the guitar.

The tuners in the kit I received are very poor quality, tuning accuracy and stability are almost non-existent. We need to remember this is a ± $80 US kit.

After noodling with the guitar a few days, I chose to tear it apart, only to find that the truss rod itself was cranked hard (stuck) to get the neck flat, as I loosened it, the neck didn't move, but the end of the rod where the Allen wrench fits in did move, a lot. So much movement that the nut would be popped out of the nut slot as the truss rod was adjusted.

I've since removed the fingerboard, removed the "STUCK" trussrod, corrected the end truss rod routing and will be putting the neck back together with a new fingerboard and frets soon.

Oh, the frets... Yikes, the frets were terrible on this kit.

Sad.

Fun and educational

This was my first time doing anything more than changing strings on a guitar, so I learned a lot.

The instructions were somewhat lacking, but youtubes helped me out with the electronics. You can't go too wrong, but I wanted to know what i was putting where.

The neck was nice, but it had to much play when inserted in the body.

I bought alot of tools to do fret work, but I didn't really need them

The screw holes for the pickups did not align, but that wasn't really a problem.

The finished product looks and feels nice, but the neck doesn't fit well to the body so it very easily affects the sound.

I had fun, so i might try something like this again.

Not bad for a kit....

Good fun project with my son.....he did the artwork on the guitar and I put it all together. I ended up changing most of the hardware with better quality items and it plays rather well now. Happy with the end product.

Great Value Kit - A road-worn builders dream

I was shocked at how good the kit was. The filler/ varnish on the body took some sanding to remove but it was ok as I was staining for a road-worn look and it wasn't too much of an issue.

The neck was spot-on and with some 800 wet & dry (used dry) I managed to get a lovely finish on the neck which I completed with 100% bees wax.

The pickups were nice, the frets needed levelling but I've yet to find a PRS or Fender that didn't need this either and it went together well.

I changed the bridge to a roller bridge the nut to a Graph Tec, added HB locking tuners, new D'Addario strings, and oiled the fretboard as well.

I'm currently building one of each model and this one was a particular keeper.

What you expect.

A good feeling kit. Was easy to put together. Hardware and pickups are okay. You can upgrade them later. For this price it is incredible.

Great kit.

This is the third kit i have put together and has produced a great sounding guitar which is also great to look at.