Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit T-Style Reviews

Vraiment très surprenant pour un prix si bas!

Ce modèle est la première que j'achète. J'avais de gros doutes sur la qualité du manche. Dès l'ouverture du colis, j'ai été vraiment surpris : le corps n'est pas terrible mais la qualité du manche est assez remarquable (pour le prix, bien sûr ;) Tout le reste (accastillage, cordes, potards, ...) est de très mauvaise qualité mais fonctionne.

Le corps est déjà recouvert de bouche-pores si vous désirez le vernir directement. Le manche est lui déjà vernis (légèrement). Seule la tête n'est pas finie, ce qui permet de lui donner la forme finale que l'on veut.

Ce qui fait la force de ce produit, c'est qu'il vous permet deux possibilités : soit vous vernissez la bête, montez l'ensemble et vous vous contentez de ce que vous avez par rapport au montant investi ; soit vous vous retroussez les manches, investissez un peu plus et transformez cette guitare (en corrigeant aussi ses inévitables imperfections) en quelque chose de bien bien mieux, en fonction de vos compétences.

Je vous conseille le site de Crimson Guitars (aussi sur Youtube) car ils partent d'un modèle Télécaster comme celui-ci (mais d'une autre marque) et l'améliorent de façon incroyable. Inutile d'aller aussi loin qu'eux mais cela donne des idées!

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!

Good starter guitar

As a complete guitar novice I decided to buy this as a project so at least I could have some immediate fun building it before the hard work of learning how to play set in.

It arrived very quickly in very good condition. Everything was as you would expect except two scratchplate screws were missing, although this was not the end of the world.

I sanded the body down, primed, painted and varnished it - all very easy to do and fun creating a design for the paintwork. The head was the hardest part to do, but nothing a jigsaw couldn't handle.

The instructions were helpful and made sense. All the parts fit together logically and well. Getting the action of the guitar right took time, but this is to be expected.

Playing wise - I am certainly no expert, but it has a good enough sound for me to learn on and record demos with. I am sure there are a lot better quality guitars out there, but for the price of this kit as a starter guitar I cannot fault it.

I would definitely recommend this pack to anyone who is thinking of starting out or wants a little building project.

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.

Sounds good, fun to make. Some issues with holes off centre

Bought this is 2014, and had great fun coming up with a colour scheme to paint it, and deciding on carving a headstock shape.

All the pieces were there, electrics work fine, and I didn't need a solder to do anything, the circuits just clicked into each other. Not sure how this will affect my chance to add more wiring to it (I might add a killswitch soon), but it was easy to assemble.

The only issue I had was the bridge holes drilled were slightly angled, instead of being a perfectly horizontal line perpendicular with the string line: it was slightly off to one side. Thankfully the saddles are adjustable so it doesn't make a difference.

I sanded it, spray painted it, drew over it with a sharpie, which was really fun, then varnished it with spray.

Neck fits into the neck joint perfectly, screws in perfect alignment.

The only issue was that the screw holes for the pickguard didn't align with where the metal cover for the control knobs went, and i had to cut ~5mm from the pickguard for it to fit. It's only noticeable if you're looking for it though.

imgur.com/iaQZOAR for picture.

I have gigged with her numerous times and she sounds great on clean and with chorus-phase-compressor, though with lots of gain and distortion you get lots of feedback, more than desired (single coil pickups though, so you'd expect it).

Would definitely buy another kit if I wasn't poor.

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.

Good..... Could Have been Great!

This is my first attempt at building my own Guitar the HB kit is an excellent kit if like me you are just starting out. Everything was well made and easy to fit with good instructions and it sounds good. My only complaint about it is there was no Jack plate, Neck Screws, Strap locks or Scratch Plate screws.Which is a lot to be missing I was anxious to get on with it so I bought them myself. Having to spend extra on these items was annoying.

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.

value for money

a value for money product. a gift for friend who enjoyed it

a good place to start

This is a very easy kit to put together and was a fun introduction to kit building, I enjoyed the project and may well continue working on this kit to hone my finishing skills. Once it's put together it's very playable even if the sound doesn't blow me away.

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.

A good start...

I sort of like the idea. Start with something cheap, see what it does and then upgrade at your heart's desire. I had the T-style guitar for more than three years now and I have to say that the guitar itself is very good. I think the neck is more comfortable than my Fender Strat, the body is really nice, since my very own spray can painting now begins to wear down and I get a nice "vintage" look.

The pick ups and the electronics are very basic and I have to admit that they are now replaced. But Hey! - I get a very good basic rock'n'roll/country/blues guitar for very Little Money.

Telecaster guitar kit.

The truth is, that you cannot expect much, when you buy a guitar kit, that is unbelievably cheap. This review will be based on that fact.

First of all, the body was okay, but the neck pocket and cavities were poorly routed, and i had a hard time trying to fit the neck to the body tightly. There were small dent in the back of the body, but it´s easily fixed.

Usually these kits come with quality necks, though sometimes the fret job is mediocre. The neck with this kit was a disappointment. Fret job was a utter disaster, all frets were clearly uneven and different sized, some were medium,and some narrow. The action was ridiculously high, because of the nut slots. The neck was not straight, it was a bit warped.

The hardware was okay. The tuners are terrible, and i replaced them immediately. The pickups sounded okay, a bit feedback here and there, but they´re good for their price. The pick guard was rounded with router, apparently, but whoever routed it, made a sloppy job, because the pick guards corners are full of shreds of plastic.

Everything else was okay.

I had high expectations for this kit, due to the fact it was praised to no end.

Despite of all these flaws,

it´s good for it´s price, and is a perfect present for someone who want´s to build his/her own guitar. But yeah, these guitar kits will need a high amount of work, mostly set-up.

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!

Not bad.

First off the actual kit is fine and you get a lot for your money. Most of the work is already done for you so it's pretty easy to put together. I built a book case the same day as I built this and actually found putting the Guitar together easier and less stressful!

The assembly guide is a bit rubbish though.

The kit comes with a variety of screws but doesn't tell you which to use where. It just says something like "screw in the pickguard" - do I use the big screws, the little ones? The other little ones? Most of the parts were supposed to be individually wrapped and I think the screws were probably supposed to be wrapped up with their corresponding parts but the plastic bags in my kit had come open and a lot of the screws, washers and machine heads were floating around loose in the box.

It'd be really helpful for the instructions to give each screw type a letter and then eg tell you "screw down the pickguard with screws A".

The instructions tell you to screw in the string tree (singular) but the kit has two string trees with 2 different height spacers. Not very helpful. I was able to work it out by looking at some pics of Telecasters online.

These problems are insurmountable. I was still able to put it together fairly quickly but just a bit more care in the instructions would make this a fantastic product.

The actual parts are all fine. There not top of the range and I think I'll probably upgrade the tuners and pickups but they're definitely serviceable already. The neck is fine - the frets may need some attention (seems ok though), which is fine as it's an opportunity to learn. Honestly the body looks great. It's 3 parts but they're matched pretty well and the top looks quite nice.

I was planning on painting it but I quite like how it looks out of the box.

One common complaint I've read is that the pickguard screw holes don't match up with the holes on the body. Mine lined up pretty much spot on - infact everything lines up fine on it.

No holes drilled for the jack socket cover which is a bit annoying but not a huge deal.

The bridge is a 3 saddle one which makes correct intonation hard/impossible but isn't necessarily "bad" - a lot of telecaster fans prefer the sound of a 3 saddle bridge.

It cost less than £50 which for a guitar is nothing really so I'm very happy with it. I think it's a good kit to learn with and gives you an ok platform to upgrade.

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.