Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit ST-Style Reviews

Amazing

Very easy to set up.

Has everything needed to do the work.

Good sound

Ideal first kit guitar

I wanted something to practice fret levelling on, as I need to do it on a rather more expensive guitar at some point.

Plus I always find Christmas holidays drag a bit, a diversion was welcome.

Out the box, everything was there, neck looked straight which is the key here really. I spent a long time levelling and dressing the frets. In truth it wasn't too bad, a few high ones at the dusty end but good practice anyway.

For the body I didn't want to paint it. I experimented with 'staining' using vinegar and iron filings. This works well on high tannin woods like oak (comes out black) but not very satisfying on basswood. In the end I scorched it black with my gas torch and oiled it. Happy enough with the results.

The rest of the components are of fair and useable quality and the instructions are good enough to allow quick assembly. A tiny bit of fettling was required to allow the pickguard to sit tight against the neck. I cut the headstock shape to something that is hopefully reasonably unique. The rest of the assembly was pretty straightforward.

Overall it sounds far better than a guitar this cheap has any right to be. For a few quid more you can get the same guitar off the shelf fully assembled and body finished, so the kit is strictly for those who want to have a go.

The neck and body are good enough to invest in better pickups and tuners if you really wanted to. If not, it's good enough as a knockabout guitar that you wouldn't mind getting a bit of abuse.

It's not my favourite guitar by any means but it does get regularly played.

Impressed

I am using the kit for DIY challenge and it is pretty good starting point.

Neck is beautiful, but has some sharpness on the edges (frets). This can be fixed easily, but needs to be mentioned.

One thing that can't be fixed easily is misalignment of pickguard holes and holes on the body.

Other than that, it plays good, looks good, sounds good! I will definitely look for other kits as well.

If we compare it to my other, Mexico-made, guitar that costs 6-7 times more, I would definitely go for this and invest some money in hardware, time in woodwork - I could probably get better guitar for that money.

Cheers

This is the choice for beginners.

If you want to know how guitar works and you do not want to take apart your more expensive guitar. Or if you want to try yourself paint a guitar and work with the guitar wood overall, then this is your product. Go for it.

An overall great product

There are few things I can fault with this model, great sound, amazing wood, it is a great beginners model for DIY, very recommended

Great product as the skeleton for a custom build

Okay, I want to caveat this by saying that if you're only going to use the components that come in this kit, then you're going to have a very VERY low end guitar. However, I ditched everything besides the wood. The electronics and the rest of the hardware is absolute junk - HOWEVER, paying £55 just for the wood was still an incredible deal.

Neck

The neck is phenomenal for the price. The fretwork is more than passable. No fret sprout, level board and frets, and they were crowned almost perfectly. That said, I did decide to do a complete fret redress, as a learning opportunity. They polished up perfectly and I didn't have to do a tonne of work. The neck plays fantastically. My only complaint being the amaranth wood, which is a bit dull and never really looks or feels like something like ebony or rosewood.

Body

The body is fine enough, but nothing a bit of elbow grease couldn't fix. It is coated in a sealer that took days to sand off, but after it was a perfect palate for my design.

Hardware

Okay, everything here is absolute trash. Discard it. I spent about £600 on new hardware and now it sounds amazing and holds tune perfectly. I'd put it up against anything two or even three times the price.

Great kit for the money!

For the price, i was very impressed. stock hardware and pickups work, but are not the greatest. I changed out my tuners for some esp ones i had laying around, pickups to 2 wilkinson Mseries single coilers in the neck and middle, and for bridge i went for an inexpensive Belcat hot rail. Changed out the bridge for a wilkinson vintage trem. Kit went together very nice, all screw holes lined up. the neck is outstanding. very very nice. would buy again for sure.

Cheap, easy to construct and fun to play

I came across this set when I wanted to get an electric guitar as I was still missing one in my collection. As many of us are sitting at home mostly due to the pandemic going around I thought it was a great idea to get this kit.

Once it arrived (super quickly mind you) i unpacked it and went through the manual. It was easy with pictures and clear tekst. Even for someone with no knowledge of how to build one it was real easy as everything seemed to fit near perfectly. All was constructed in a nice evening and the setup for the tuning was a real breeze.

Keep in mind that you do need a screwdriver for this and also need a screwdriver for the very small screws. besides that it was a fun experience.

The sound and feel are actually surprisingly good. definitely worth it and it gives a great satisfied feeling knowing you build it yourself. Definitely can recommend this!

Great guitar kit

While learning how guitars are built and put together, I was lucky enough to stumble onto this product because it solidified the theoretical knowledge I had by providing practical experience in guitar building and I am extremely glad this product is offered as I am definitely planning on buying some other types soon!

The neck is beautiful, feels extremely nice right out of the box and plays very well!

The kit itself is well worth the price, with only some shortcomings in regards to the roughness of the routed guitar cavities some screw hole placements - while inconvenient these are all minor issues that can be easily fixed on your own and provide you another layer of knowledge and craftsmanship skill.

The user manual lines out the important steps, but I would recommend finding more sources and following them in parallel in order to fill any knowledge gaps you might have, depending on your level of guitar building proficiency.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this is a great kit that can be used by anyone as a learning tool and beyond in their guitarist career.

Definitely recommended!

Impossible to regulate and impossible to play because of that

I've ordered 2 kits to build - telecaster and stratocaster. While telecaster went pretty well, still it had issues but can be played, the stratocaster neck is impossible to regulate, strings initially lied on the neckboard completely and once I bent the neck with the regulating bolt, playing frets above around 7th fret result in strings lying on the neck anyway, its impossible to play, i've spent weeks painting this guitar just for it to be a nice decoration. 100% not recommend. I'm very sad and disappointed now.

Very Impressed

I bought this as a fun project and really wasn't expecting anything special sound wise due to it's price but actually I'm blown away with this guitar, so much so that I've also just purchased the T Kit and the P Bass Kit.

There were a couple of minor issues for instance the hole to post the grounding wire through wasn't there so I had to drill a new one, also a couple of the pre drilled holes for the scratch plate weren't in exactly the right spots but it was nothing you couldn't easily work around so I'd highly recommend this :)

Cheap but fun to play after some work.

Felt the need to get some experience in guitar tinkering. The price was the biggest selling point.

After alot of sanding of the body I put on a stain and clear laquer.

The neck is great but the frets needed to be filed/polished. Otherwise bending felt like grinding cheese.

Compared to a Squire Affinety the pickups are brigther and hum more.

Some of the holes for the pickguard were off and i would have preferet to drill my own.

Overall this kit was alot of fun and educational. After a string change and some basic setup it turned into something i enjoy playing.

Do not Buy, not recommended at all!

I bought this expecting an easy fix, however, loads of mechanics were actually not possible to add, for example, my strap locks were not screwable, as there was no fixed hole. The bridge saddles were not adjustable and the main cable running down to the springs always got loose. There is nothing good about this product.

Great kit

Came together to make a really nice strat. I only had a wee bit of trouble with the pickguard: had to cut a tiny bit away to accommodate the neck. The neck fit very nicely into the socket on the body, good, accurate fit. I did virtually all of the building with a couple Philips screwdrivers.

Guitar kit

I bought 3 sets for my nephew's as they caught the guitar bug,I was surprised with the quality with the kit ,I could have easily bought 3 guitars but had so much fun building the guitars with my nephew's,it was great for them as not only I was bonding with them ,they were bonding with their guitars as they made them up and it was great for them on the understanding of how a guitar worked,the guitars were sanded and natural ,so you can paint them ,leave them natural or sticker them which one of my nephew's did ,a great idea while learning music and making your own instrument,only flaw was the strings not great especially for kids starting off ,but easily fixed if you order strings with the kit .

Surprisingly great gift

What can I say for 75 EUR guitar? It just plays! I was playing it only at home on various HW like vox metal headset, boss gt-100 or mooer sd30 and i don't have any issue. for s-s-s configuration it can get really interesting sound for that money! we will see later after some months. not to mention neck and stuff seems quite fine, straight, i need to learn and set it up better but so far so good. i like that you can create own head shape and of course you can play with body finish. to learn how to assemble it's a small "ikea" no worries.

-the wiring is prepared, i had hard time to put cables into slots, but i managed. also i destroyed one screw head in tremolo, probably my fault but it was tough to mount.i would also welcome if manual says exactly which screw type fit where, because it's at least 3 sizes and you can really misplace the smallest ones on machine head with the standard ones for rest of the body. the big ones are clear where it fit, but also only based on their count :) so you need to count holes as well :)

Great diy for the money!

Overall a great and very easy build, but I feel the tuners and bridge could be better.

Wow!

Really please with this kit.

The neck is worth the money alone. Really good quality maple. The fretboard is fine. Spent a lot of time (my choice) on fret polishing and filing the ends to make them really smooth. My wife's emery board was perfect for polishing the fret ends and I used metal polish on a rag wrapped around a pencil eraser (a rubber for you Brits). One fret was a bit high but this knocked back into place easily enough.

I shaped the headstock to a Strat shape using a belt sander clamped to my bench and then finished with sanding pads. This came out perfect. Just rubbed in a bit of oil to finish the newly shaped part which blended in nicely.

Ther are so many ways to paint the body. I wanted Surf Green so had some colour mixed locally. Used oil based paint which was just too slow in drying to be practical, however, after 3 coats I flatted using 2500 grit and then waxed it. It looks great and can have the odd re-wax to keep it looking sharp.

I spent alot of time setting up and it plays very nice. Not keen on the feel of the strings, a bit coarse, so will change when all has bedded in. The pickups sound god, quite hot, however, there is no tone control on the bridge pickup (maybe a wiring issue) but not a big deal, more of a neck pickup man myself.

ALl the screw holes lined up. The bridge could have been half a mm or so over to the bass side but that is me being really picky.

Neck pocket really nice fit. I thought the screws a bit close to the edge but seem ok, they have nipped up ok.

To stain the neck or body you will need to sand off the sealer.

The nut needed no adjustment and the strings don't get caught.

This guitar is to keep in our motorhome so I don't have to risk damaging my Fender Strat when travelling. I am now ready for my next build and will use stains and oil this time.

For the price I can't criticise this kit. However, the white plastics are just a bit 'too white' for my taste. Perhaps they will yellow a bit with time.

So, for £65 inc paint, what's not to like?

Surprisingly good

I was really surprised by the quality of this guitar considering how cheap it was. Especially the neck, it's very well made, so much better than some "brand" guitars of lower price range.

Assembling the kit was really straightforward. I didn't even look at the instructions booklet. It needed very little setup, just some truss rod adjustment and intonation. In less than 2 hours I was playing the guitar :) And let me tell you, it plays really nice.

The harder parts are cutting the headstock and painting the body. I didn't had any prior experience so it was quite some work.

If you don't have painting experience I would recommend to practice on some other piece of wood first. That way you won't have to go by trial and error on a real guitar as I did :) Also take your time and let it dry completely before moving forward.

All in all this was a great project which resulted in a great guitar which I definitely would play a lot. I highly recommend this kit!

Great price value

It's not a 300 or 500 euro guitar, so was not expecting much. Changed the snares. Tuners could be better. Did not paint it, just oiled it, looks great. For the money you are paying you get a real bargain here. A great strat looking guitar that's fun to play with. Changed the head to my liking with a saw.