Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit T-Style 4-stars Reviews

This is amazing for the price and the creative options you can apply on this!

Ok so I did things a little bit diffrent, I used only the guitar head and electronics and not the body because I was 3d printing the body.

and I gotta say something the guitar looks and play even better than I thought in as cheap as this price!

This became my favorite guitar also because it is so nice looking because you can make it however you would like or stay with the wooden which is also looking very cool. but also because when you build something the product is much more fun to use and get you some pride we all want (:

my only complaint is that the instructions weren't the best and could be better if every single step will be explained because it is hard to follow it without very good building mind. but thats all I reccomend to everyone you should really buy it!

Excellent for the money

Great thing to feel yourself as guitar builder. Everything fits well. Quite good wood. Hardware and pickups for the money. The only dissapointing thing is screws for tuners, in my case first had broken and part of it stuck in neck, so I have to deal with it, recommend to buy another ones for assembly. Everything else just like a lego for adults. Thinking to buy Jaguar from the same series to try p90s and repeat emotions of assembly.

Great guitar kit for building (even if going off script)

I am an experienced guitar player, but never have built a guitar. I have always wanted to so this kit, even with shipping to the US (I bought two) was very reasonable.

I purchased this guitar because I am also into 3d printing, and the company Prusa 3d released the "Prusa Caster" which is based on this kit. The general idea is that you 3d print the body of the guitar parts instead of using the wood body. Everything else is used (neck, tuners, all electronics, etc.).

I did not do anything fancy with this guitar other than assemble it, but used the 3d printed parts (which are glued and took about 80 hours of printing). The only issue that I ran into is that one of the heads of the screws broke, even while I was using a hand screwdriver. I had to use a left handed drill bit to remove the screw. The screw quality seems to be low. Definitely take your time screwing in and don't be in a hurry. Luckily, there were enough spare screws that it didn't matter.

After the assembly, I did notice the top string was buzzing and I spent quite a bit of time adjusting the neck and then setting the string height on the bridge, and then adjusting the intonation also on the bridge. It took me about an hour to get everything to a point that I would consider "good enough".

I noticed that other reviewers mention the need to adjust the nut and fret. I think that is a good idea and wish I had read the reviews first so I knew to check this. I may look into this adjustment for the future.

Conclusion: I am used to playing $1000+ guitars. This is definitely not as good out of the box, so make sure you have realistic expectations. If you are a skilled guitar builder I think you could do a lot to make this a great guitar. I have no complaints about the sound or pick up, they sound as good as a real Fender Strat in my opinion. The best part about this guitar kit is you can say you built it and have the proud feeling of doing that, and make it whatever you want.

My HBT40 ( T-style kit )

It was easy and fun to put together. The build quality is actually much better than I expected, only some frets stick out. Doesn’t sound bad either.

I enjoy this.

I put it together after I painted it with a brush to give it an antique look and I love it ever since. Too bad the pickups are not great quality. But what would you expect for such a price? :D You can change those pickups anyways. They have a pretty big background sound especially if hands are not touching the electronics. And the tuning keys are kind of crappy, but hey... I am using it at home for my studies, so I would not wear the frets on the other guitars, and honestly I am reaaaaalllyyyy enjoying this guitar.

Oh... and I recorded and compared all my guitars and found out these pickups have a lower output than the rest of my guitars. Hope that information helps someone out there.

There are flaws but might still be the best deal out there.

It is crazy how a kit this good is sold at a price like this. Defenitely recommend.

Great for DIY project product

Bought this kit so me and my SO would have a project together given that we both enjoy the electric guitar, had the most fun customising the kit and painting together.

The quality of the pieces and wood are great for such a low price and I play it every chance I get, I would recommend being careful in not covering completely the screw holes with paint if you're using acrylic paint so everything goes where it should.

It also lends itself to future upgrades very easily, so you can have a pretty inexpensive canvas to personalise as you like and find your sound later on if you mean this to be an ongoing project

For custom guitar project: 9/10

For sound quality: 7/10

Price-quality ratio: 10/10

Decent starting point for a potentially great guitar

Bought this kit as I love tinkering with my guitars and been wanting a tele-shaped guitar for a while.

Everything in the box was packed neatly and the visible parts of the guitar were in pretty good nick. The main drawbacks when assembling the guitar were that almost all of the pre-drilled were out of alignment, and not by a millimeter. The first thing I did was fill them all in with wooden dowels which allowed me to correct the alignment.

The electronics were all replaced and I was pleasantly surprised by how roomy the control cavity was; allowing me to install large-sized pots, The neck went on next, and was very disappointed with the fitment. There's about a millimeter gap on the side that needed some attention with a thin wooded sliver glued into place and a bit of truss rod adjustment

Next was the tuners which seem to be decent for what they are. I figured I'd use the strings that were supplied with the kit to set up the guitar but that failed miserably; two strings snapped whilst I was tuning them with the high E string drawing blood from my finger as it snapped. I guess this guitar wanted a blood sacrifice of some sort. A set of Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinkies did the trick and it was time to plug it in.

All in all, it's not a bad buy and for the price, you really can't go wrong. It's a good starting point for anyone wishing to understand more about guitar mechanics and fine-tuning. I guess keeping all the original hardware is possible but you will definitely want to spend some money on upgrades.

Good for the price, get what you pay

Overall, good tone, not bad playability, some hardware are bad. Good for project guitar

Use:

Bought this guitar for having a try on DIY guitar. Now used as the secondary guitar

Pros:

Most of the holes are drilled well. I love the tone of the two pickups. Body is smooth and neck back looks tidy. Frets are a little bit sharp at ends but I've got it polished

Cons:

Fret buzz unless turn the truss rod all the way left. To erase this I have to raise up the bridge height a lot, and then this had caused a high string tension. I broke the stock 1E string the next day I installed it (probably because the string is not good as well). Another problem is the tuning machines. They are really bad and don't hold in true for long. Need adjustment frequently.

All in all, if you are looking for a cheap project guitar, it is good, but probably you need to upgrade some hardware to make it more playable.

Project

So I bought this kit after seeing a lot of reviews online saying how good it is in terms of value for money. Now I haven't yet put it together but I have been working away sanding down and painting and doing a few bits and pieces with the parts for assembly.

Everything looks pretty good out of the box especially considering the price of the kit but I cant say anything about the sound/tone as I will update this once I get it put together.

Overall I must say for the price everything does look amazing! A little bit of elbow grease and you can put together a pretty solid guitar.

I'm amazed by the Brand Harley Benton as such affordable but quality instruments!

Comparable product

Although building this guitar was fun, isn't it the same as this one, built, painted and headstock shaped?

Harley Benton TE-20 SB Standard Series

I got what I expected

For the low price I did not expect too much. But the overall quality was quite pleasing:

- The wood was OK. I painted it with solid color (orange) so wood grain was not a deal, but I think even a decent stain would have been possible. One thing - the wood is soft, so it is easy to make a dent in it.

- The fretboard (as on the CST kit and on my child's ST-Mini) was very dry, but after oiling, it is OK now

- Fretwork is needed (leveling, polishing), so it is not for absolute beginners, but I think kits are not for total beginners

- I had no problem with electronics and hardware - it is cheap stuff, but they work. I changed the tuners to black Harley Benton locking tuners (very good price and quality) and the bridge (black, with 6 individula saddles), and covered the pickguard and the control-plate with carbon-foil.

- Pickups are OK, the 3-way switch works fine, but the pots are really poor quality, they had to be changed (I used standard 250K log pots).

Still need to do the clear coat on the body, but I made a pre-assembly and I love it. Nice to play, I like the sound and it looks exactly like I wanted.

For the money I put in (kit + new parts + paint + clear coat, etc) you can get a better guitar, but I think kits are more about the "way" then the "result" (but I love my "result")

Can't wait!

The only reason I didn't give 5 stars, is because I just received and have not started building yet. If looks count...gonna be awesome.

Great kit for beginner Luthiers

I've bought this kit to mess around and experiment some staining paints. The neck is very nice and well finished, but the fretboard wood was very dry which was causing some frets to be sharp at the end. After applying a conditioner it got way better. The body, not so much. The wood feels like you're getting what you've paid, really. Also, I needed to make new holes for the bridge, as the ones made on the factory were about 1.5mm off, causing a misalignment of the strings with the fretboard. Another down side is that the neck does not fit the body tightly. I advise to add some padding with a very thin wood layer to make it fit perfectly, if needed.

Cheap but fun but cheap

I bought this for fun and building it was fun. All the parts function but their quality feels cheap as expected for the low price. I'd recommend it for the experience of building and painting your own guitar but not if you hope to get a professional instrument.

Better than expected, but...

It actually sounds really nice, for some reason has some sort of hollow-body tone in it, here I recorded a demo:

>

but overall quality is so-so. Pickguard holes did not match holes in the body, so I had to make new ones. Upper frets are bit too high, so there is a buzz if I play above 15th fret. Frets were a bit sharp too, had to polish ends. But still a good deal for the prize. I kinda like the tone.

HB T Style Kit

I thought I'd buy one of these kits as I heard good things about them and it'd be a good project to keep me busy. I was surprised by the quality of the body and neck and pretty happy to have a good starting point for my project.

Pros:

Wood is quite good quality, seems to be made of 4 pieces though it only says "hardwood" in the details so I am unsure of what it is.

Pretty easy to put together, you just need a couple of screw drivers.

Instructions are easy to understand but it helps to know how a guitar works.

Cons:

Hardware is pretty crap, don't expect anything stunning from the price you pay.

I had to re drill holes for the bridge, control plate and pick guard. Not the end of the world but for people that don't have drills and just want to get playing it would be a let down.

I bought this kit for the goal of upgrading the whole guitar and finishing it in the colour I wanted. It's a great little kit but expect to put a little more money into it to make it really fun but I would recommend it to anyone looking for a project!

Good, but might be better even for same price range

Neck to body fit was perfect. Neck straight, playable - but fretboard were roseacer (which I hate) - not amaranth. Body also Ok. (Unfortunate Update - Neck has wave...)

Generally - all is good, but I personally would prefer body will really be uncoated. Or coated with something easy to remove. I was using stain so need to sand it for a loooong-long time. Especially to remove brown stain factory applied. Also dont know why holes were pre-drilled. Half of it were wrong, so I need to fix that. It would be really better not to have it pre-drilled. Body wood - is fine, but why its so difficult to clearly mention what wood is that? Me (and rest of customers) are really curious - what exactly wood was used?

Great Project Kit (if you are willing to put the effort in)

First off, one cannot complain about material quality when paying this amount for a fully functioning guitar. BUT, if you are planning to buy this kit thinking you are going to spend an hour putting it together and end up with a great tele that you will play often, make no mistake! You will need some elbow grease to get it to play and look the way you want it to.

The one extremely surprising feature was actually how well made the neck was. Fretwork is borderline perfect (frets were even recrowned and polished after leveling on mine so I did not have to do any "urgent" work on them), the neck is straight and fret edges are rounded.

Some of the issues that mine had:

1. All the holes (and I mean ALL of them) were drilled in the wrong locations. Most holes were also not perpendicular to the surface and had to be plugged & redrilled.

2. The body wood (Paulownia) is extremely light and the neck dives hard.

3. The pickguard is NOT a standard Tele shape. Replacement (should you wish to) will need to be made based on provided guard.

Good as a project, not so good for playing

It is a really fun project to do and to learn a bit how to build guitars, but the sound of the pickups is terrible (at least for me). Though, I understand that for such a low price you can't expect anything crazy. Would recommend if you want a nice custom guitar at home for a cheap price or just learn it a bit