Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit T-Style 5-stars Reviews

Decent!

Fun to assemble, not too hard, and the wood seems good enough, with some nice picks it can be a very good Tele. I left my one just raw without any varnish and looks/feels good

Great intoduction to guitar building!

For the price it can't really be faulted, the body and neck alone are worth more than the price price of the entire kit.

OK so the sound is not as good as Seymour Duncan or Fender OEM, but what do you expect from an inexpensive kit? The pickups and electronics are perfectly functional and and the sound is more than acceptable in it's own right.

The whole kit is accurately cut, routed and drilled and goes together well. My only criticism is that the body comes pre sealed so if you want to stain it, which I did, it requires a bit of elbow grease and some fine sanding to get back to bare wood, but that's not really a criticism as if you want to spray paint it which I imagine most will, then it will save you work by not needing to seal it.

All in all a great value kit, buy it - you won't be disappointed!

Amazing value for money

Very good value for money. Turned out to be a very good quality guitar. The neck is good, the action low. The bridge pick up screams just like a Tele. The neck pick up is as warm as a top quality GL strat.

This is the second kit I have made, the other being a Single Cut. I was very pleased with the Single Cut, but I am absolutely delighted with this. I have kept the body unpainted, just sanded smooth and thin varnished with a cloth application. The result is like an aged natural tele.

This plays like a £500 Tele.

Others have commented on a neck weight issue. I have not noticed this with mine? maybe HB have sorted this out?

The only upgrades are D'addario strings and a set of strap locks.

If you fancy a Tele kit, that results in a very playable guitar, go for this. It has turned out good enough to gig with.

A great Guitar for home recording.

I play mainly acoustic guitar these days "Gibson Hummingbird" and thought as I record a lot I might get an electric guitar to do some lead accompaniments. I always fancied a Telecaster but not wanting to spend that kind of money I decided to go for a kit. I did not expect much but as I was going to record directly into my computer based recording software I thought it would do the job. I varnished the body, polished the frets " which is advisable " use very fine wet or dry paper or steel wool, shaped the head to my liking then assembled it all. I used the strings supplied to tension the neck to allow me to adjust the bridge and truss rod which was very easy to do. I will change the strings after leaving the neck to settle and adjust if needed. The bridge, finger plate, knobs and machine heads are far better weight and quality than I expected. The neck also feels very good. Time to plug in and try, I am absolutely delighted with the sound from the pickups. I do not have an amplifier so can not vouch for the sound through one, but through my computer software it sounds like a very high quality guitar. All that said I would highly recommend this kit to anyone, When my musician friends saw and heard the guitar they thought I had got myself a Fender Telecaster and would not believe it was a kit I made up. For this price I would go for it, I may just get another one.

Great kit for amazing price

The idea of building a guitar myself has been in my head for a long time already. Since building everything from scratch would be diving straight into the deep end of the swimming pool, I thought I would start by assembling, finishing and setting up a kit guitar first.

The package and contents of this kit is actually very good, especially considering the price. The body is good quality, the neck is nice and straight and the hardware is also quite nice. Assembly was easy, the instruction manual was well assembled, although not really needed.

The guitar played well right out of the box after initial setup and minor tweaks.

All in all it is a very good starting point for someone interested in working with guitars and learning about guitar setup. With almost endless possibilities for hardware upgrades I believe that the basic kit guitar can be made into a really well playing instrument while learning a thing or two at the same time

Great experience

I bought it for my 12 years old son who is ok with some handiwork and would like to learn some electric guitar. We spent absolutely great weekend putting all parts together to make a musical instrument. That was invaluable experience for both of us. It was complicated enough to think through and work but did not have any real problems. My participation was required only for head shaping and soldering. And setup. My son is happy. He plays instrument that he himself assembled. I am happy about time we spent together assembling it and not spending a fortune on the first instrument.

Does it looks like Fender? No. Does it feels like Fender? I think no. Does it sounds like Fender? To some extent yes. It feels and looks and sounds as a true guitar. And it is actually feels, looks and sounds better that my own first electric guitar I bought in 1994 for 200 USD :-)

Incredibly fun experience

I bought this as a first time Luthier , i had no experience in work working or electronics.

thankfully the guitar comes mostly pre-done yet with enough assembly left that it feels like a accomplishment to put it together and also allows space for creativity in design such as what shape i wanted the headstock and what color i chose to paint the guitar ( i personally stained the wood which was easy for a first timer like me)

Overall the guitar itself sounded very nice and was easy to play with a smooth neck and was a nice weight when worn with a strap.

I would recommend this to a friend and actually already have convinced a friend to buy one for himself and get working on his very own T-style guitar.

Brilliant value and an exciting project

After seeing countless projects being done on youtube, I was very keen to give a try on a DIY kit. Tempted by the Les Paul initially, I went for the T-Guitar, not only because I don't have one, but also because the shapes from Harley Benton have changed a bit, and it would always be a tough act to follow the Gibsons I own anyway.

So far, I have put together the kit and have not yet gone through the staining/oiling process, so I cannot comment on that yet, but I am expecting a fair bit of sanding to do given the nice sealing already performed on the body.

Other than that, it is all mainly positive:

- The neck is very smooth, and well finished. The frets are fine, nothing sharp or uneven. The fingerboard is possibly a bit dry, and will get some lemon oil or similar.

- The body is made of two pieces from what I can see, and while nowhere neer flamed the wood is nice enough that I will want to keep a transparent finish. On the back there are traces of glue I think which will come off with the sanding.

- Neck and body fitted well together. Same for the rest of the pre-drilled holes, with one exception for the volume/tone selector where I redrilled slightly to get a better fit on the screw which is very visible.

- A couple of screws were not properly in factory.

- While it may require a proper set-up, with taking the pick-ups a bit higher, and fiddling with the neck, the intonation seems pretty good out of the box. Definitely playable as is, if anything action is a bit too high on the high notes.

- I damaged the E string when I untangled it from the others. This means it broke after a few minutes of playing. Not the end of the world since I was going to dismantle everything for the finish, but a shame still.

- Connections are extremely simple with just two cables to connect.

Overall, I am very impressed. I am not a big T-guitar enthusiast (or the F brand of guitars), so cannot compare like for like, but it feels to me very good soundwise, playability wise, and it was very easy to put together. Looking forward to the next step now, but at this price, it's a no brainer to recommend getting "your own" guitar.

Great first kit to upgrade

I've been playing for at least 10 years and thought it'd be nice to build a guitar. Bought this kit because I wanted to make my own body but needed the telecaster parts so I thought why not first put this together, know how to build it and then make my own body.

I'll start with the cons and then the pros as it has already proven itself. I really tried to judge the experience, regardless of the price.

The bad:

- The manual could be clearer sometimes especially which screws to use as I had to count them all, figure out I needed 4 small ones, look for a set of 4 screws and hope I got the right ones.

- The pickups, especially the neck one, are not that good. I replaced the neck pickup with a Gibson 490 I still had laying around.

- The strings grind on the neck when bending even after using fret products, I'll have to fix that later.

- The balance is a bit off when using a strap with strap locks. Haven't tried without the locks but it is somewhat annoying. I have the same problem on a Gibson SG with strap locks, no problem without though.

The good:

- The price. For the quality and sound, the price is insanely low.

- Surprisingly good sustain

- Great kit to learn how a guitar is built

- There was enough room for a humbucker

- After changing the pickup, I played for three hours straight. It's a really good guitar.

- The snap connectors are great.Soldered my humbucker, saw how it sounded on the guitar and will easily be taken out again for the body transfer.

- It looks great, even better with the humbucker and no pickguard

- All the parts are decent.

- I'm a bit sad I'll change the body as I quite like it now.

In conclusion: it's a great guitar and you'll like it even more since you built it. Some adjustments are necessary, but if you want a good Tele under 200¤ (maybe even more), this is a no brainer.

Such a great kit!

Bought and built two of these T style kits now. They really are excellent value for money and make really nice guitars. I routed out the first one and added a new top to make a semi acoustic, also added a bigsby style tremolo. Second one was a more straight forward build but changed the bridge and pickups to something a little bit better. That's the great thing about these kits, get an idea in your head and then go make it a reality. All this for just £60ish, amazing!

Telecaster Style Guitar

After building a Harley Benton bass guitar which turned out to be both easy and excellent I decided to try a telecaster style kit. It arrived well packed as usual with all the parts present. Not wanting to spoil it with a bad paint job I opted for the same finish as the bass. Beeswax polish which contains a hint of stain. This enriches the basswood body and brings out the grain. Putting the guitar together is easy and for any first time builder the instructions are reasonably easy to follow. The only changes I made were the strings. I fitted a low tension set which are flat wound. This is just a personal preference and they give a warm mellow sound. When played through my Marshall AVT50 the sound is very much like a true Fender sound. I was rather surprised as it was much better than I expected. I would recommend this kit to anyone who wants a good sound at a very economic price.

a working Tele for £50!!!

Quick word of warning - the headstock is 'squared off' - not shaped like a Tele. I solved this with careful use of a bandsaw but, if you don't, I think your guitar will look a little odd - certainly won't have that instantly recongnisable Tele look. (I guess this is done to avoid design copyrighht issues?)

Not much more to say - be careful and methodical through the very simple construction process and you will be rewarded with a classy instrument. At this price every musi should have one. I will upgrade the pickups in time but happy with the twang from the kit ones.

Great starter

Arrived in good time and a great starter kit for my son. Will take a while to get the lacquer done but this was expected. Good websites around to help do a good job as well as the clear instructions sent with the kit.

Look No Further

As Kit Guitars go these have to be the best out there for the price. Mine came very well made. Everything you would hope to be in good order like the neck, fretboard and body were. I am going to change out all the hardware, although if you wanted too, you could use it.

A very good single coil Guitar for that price!

This kit is very easy to set up.

You just have to screw the parts and to plug the electronics. No need to solder anything. The quality of these parts and the guitar in the end is outrageous! Due to the wood of the body the guitar is light-weight. The neck is feeling very good and the fretwire is not sharp at the edges (so it was with my guitarkit - dont know if the other ones are so good too)

The single coils have a bit low output, but due to the price its okay.

One thing that made me rate the quality with just 4 of 5 stars: you have to work a bit with the nut, because the strings are a bit to high and you dont get the intonation right in the first fret.

When you are a humbucker lover and just need a single coil guitar for some songs, then dont mind! this guitar will work.The result of the building of that kit: it feels like the guitar is more worth that 250 to 300 euros.

You can't go wrong with this guitar!

For an incredibly good price you get a guitar that plays and sounds like something much more expensive. I bought this for my Status Quo mad 17 year old, who wanted a Rick Parfitt look alike. He absolutely loves it and rates it much higher than his Squier Strat.

Assembly was very easy and I used all the standard parts apart from a black scratchplate and heavier gauge dunlop strings. The actual building was done in under a couple of hours, including a coffee break, and straight away it was a playable guitar. Setting up is easy, just take your time, play it and give it time to settle making gradual adjustments if you need to adjust the truss rod. and a valuable lesson in how to set up my other guitars properly, I've learnt something!

The only reason that I didn't give it 5 stars on quality is that the body will take a lot of work if you want a high gloss paint finish, it's got a deep grain and will need grain filler to make a decent job of painting it. If you're only staining it it's probably fine. Other than that all the components are good quality and even if you feel the need to upgrade tuners, bridge, pickups at some point you have a great foundation to build something even better!

My only problem now is do I get one for myself or go for the Les Paul?!

Do it!

Great guitar creation kit

Amazing guitar kit, I especially love how simplistic it is so that even new guitar builders can build their very own guitar.

Fantastic quality and value

I bought this kit as an introduction to building guitars, hoping to learn a bit about the woodworking, mechanics and electronics involved in building a guitar. The kit was much better quality than I had expected at such a low price, so the finish is clear lacquer on the natural wood which looks great!

The kit went together very easily, and the electronics were already wired and soldered so no electronics skills were required. Setting the guitar up was straightforward, and the intonation was good straight out of the box. The pick-ups have their own distinctive characters which are ideal for playing blues.

If you want an inexpensive guitar that you can feel an affinity with as its builder, or if you want an easy introduction to the challenges of building guitars, I can recommend this kit. After all, at less than the price of a brand name humbucker, you can't go far wrong!

Great kit

If you are looking to dabble in guitar building then this is the kit to start out with. This is the first line in most of the reviews you can read here about these kits. Why? Because it is very true. This is my first time building my own guitar and you can't go wrong with this one. You have everything you need included in the kit all you need to do is paint it, build it and play. When it comes to the paint if you make a mess of it due to the affordability of this kit you can easily rub it down and start again. The only tool(s) required if you don't want to cut the headstock is a screwdriver(s). If you decide to cut the headstock then you can download a template and carefully shape the headstock. All the wiring is in place just waiting to be plugged in, no soldering required. It does need a set up when it is ready, once this is done off you go. The sound quality is surprisingly good from both bridge and neck pick ups. All in all this has been great fun to do and well worth the effort and the low cost.

great fun

i got this guitar kit because i wanted to learn the inner workings of a guitar.

i had a lot of fun putting this together and it plays like a dream.

It comes with instructions and all the tools you need.

Every part comes in a separate bag so its easy to see what to do.

I was surprised with the build quality of the guitar.

the body is a solid piece of wood and has a nice grain on it.

The wood was already treated so you dont need to do anything with it but you can if you wanted to.

the guitar had that classic tele 'twangy' sound and is a cheap alternative to a fender or squire.

I hope to try my hand at another guitar kit soon