Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit CST-24 Reviews

Great for learning about this, but has some issues.

I'll start with what i like, the wood is high quality, the frets are done pretty good, but they need some polishing because they're scratchy. Pickups sound decent and pickup selector and pots are great. But the worst part is the nut is cut horrendously. The E to G strings are a bit too close and the B and high E strings are very far apart from eatchtoher and the rest of the strings. It gets points off due to that.

Good stuff

This is a fun little project that is not a complete gimmick at the end of it all. You can actually pay it and it is surprisingly OK right after assembling it. Pickups are surely cheap and on the noisy side, but they work. The nut was cut and installed surprisingly good. So were the frets. I did not need to do anything with them. Great experience wit hthis kit in particular. Much better than the LP (single cut) kit - they are miles apart in quality.

Great product

I like the set a lot. I definitely will put all together and it will become a great guitar!

Just Outstanding

I'm a tech with over 40 years experience (plus a gigging musician for longer than that). My grandson has been messing about with a mini-Squier Strat for a couple of years and now at the grand old age of nine has decided to take it seriously, The kit seemed to be an ideal way of providing him with a decent full-sized first guitar and the experience of building and setting up his own instrument. Ideally, this is close enough to being right straight out of the box, but with the option to upgrade and really set up properly as a first project. For instance job one is to do the same sort of fret dress and polish that I would do to a Gibson. Likewise he has learned about the characteristics of pickups and the "stone age" nature of the control circuits. As we go on he'll update the electrics (Bourne pots and Spague caps) with possible pickup upgrades leading to full and partial coil splitting and series/parallel options (maybe even convert the single conductor pickups to quads!). All this without the stress of killing a really expensive instrument or part. The simplicity of the design, with the solid construction and decent hardware would give an end result 2-3 times more expensive than complete and off the shelf, with the pride of construction thrown in. Even better is that there is understanding and pride in the build with an end result that goes well beyond some of the tat that my generation had to struggle with. The bonus here being a friend who has laser etched the body with an image of Iron Man in the nano suit from Endgame (YUSS!!). It really was worth that extra cost!!

Fun product

A fun quick build and good value. I assembled as stock and the result is a perfectly serviceable guitar with a surprisingly good neck - straight, decent frets and no sharp edges. I may upgrade bits over time, and will disassemble soon to give it a proper finish. For the money, better than I expected.

Two octaves on each string.

The body is light, and the neck is very playable. No fret sprout, and all the notes play cleanly. All of the hardware and electronics work fine, tuners work, pickups sound good. I'm in the process of replacing them all anyway, sort of as a learning process. Good fun. My only issues were a couple of the inlay dots falling a millimetre or so, and one of the neck screws being a bit delicate. Overall, super value for money.

Ottimo kit

Ottimo kit per iniziare, senza tremolo ci sono meno problemi nel montaggio. Manico ottimo, corpo e componenti più che buoni. Unica pecca le viti, mancano indicazioni su quali usare e sono di scarsa qualità.

Amazing Bang for the Buck

I bought this guitar with intentions to be me cheap mod guitar. But holy smokes. This is awsome. When i got it and assembled it i couldnt put it down for a good 3 Hours. Afterwards i dissambled and stained it a nice purple. I gotta say getting the protective sealant of was tough. You realy gotta sand it well. But its worth it.

Pros:

Good quality

Great looks

Good electronics

Sounds great

Surprisingly good tuners

Cons:

The neck isnt super stiff but thats fine

Good fun to assemble, not to play!

Great fun as a project, but will it not tune! intonation is out and no scope to adjust it.

Really not for anyone wanting a fine instrument.

It is a toy really.

Good for the price I suppose.

Brilliant

Very pleased with the kit. Very good value.

CST-24

Very nice kit, awesome neck sounds great 👍

It was nice project

The sound is ok, on roland jazz chorus very nice. Pickups shoul be a little hotter (both PU 8,2 kO) for me, tuners are ok they hold tune. Bridge is working but i will change for some better.

There were same inperfection on body. Like slip of drill around the bridge holes. I have some work to fix imperfection. And is not ready for paint :)

Overal ok, but details sould be better.

Headache from start to finish

As nice as the kit is, there were too many things wrong.

1. Out of the box, most of the guitar has a gloss finish which makes customizing it more difficult since I have to sand it all off before even starting. Even if I wanted to keep it natural, there were large spots without finish meaning I'd have to sand it down anyway to spray over later.

2. The headstock asks for 3+3 tuner configuration but I got supplied 6-in-line, despite the image showing 3+3 tuners. This meant I have to drill new holes for the tuners facing the wrong way.

3. The neck plate holes didn't align with the pre-drilled holes in the neck or body meaning I had to skip it entirely or drill new holes. I decided to skip the plate.

4. When attaching the truss rod cover, a screw snapped leaving a part of it stuck in the headstock.

5. The image shows a black pickup selector cap, but I got supplied a cream coloured one.

6. Impossible to know which screws go where thanks to a vague manual and all-in-one packaging. All the screws were in one big plastic bag with no indicator as to which goes where.

7. The tailpiece pins that are hammered into the body did not have the little lip to make sure it didn't go too far down, clearly different parts than what is shown in the picture.

8. Tuners aren't very good quality, to be expected for the price.

9. Volume/tone knobs are not the same as in the picture, maybe time for an update?

Good sustain

I was surprised by the quality of the resulting instrument. Mostly by the sustain it has.

The pickups were fine. I have no intention to change them.

My intention was to stain paint it. But it turned out quite a hassle to sand the humidity sealant.

I stringed it with 10-46 HB value strings. I had to adjust the truss rod after the winter.

This thing rocks!

Great kit

Overall woodworking is very good. All holes match up nicely. It plays and sustains suprisingly good!

The only complain is that provided screws are somehow labelled, but I managed to use them correctly with trial and error approach.

Magnificent Bargain

Had my concerns..but I was wrong...this is a great kit...superb value for the money

Awesome kit for gift

Best kit for guitar lover as a gift

Authentic shape and feel. Well made. Enjoyable project.

I've modified most of my guitars. I can do electronics and basic guitar set up. This was my first kit build.

The good and bad: The woodwork fit and finish is excellent. The frets are well smoothed. The binding is very good. It arrives ready for primer and paint coat. If you want plain wood finish you could have this built and playing in four hours.

I swapped the tuners, bridge and electronics for better items. The pickups are actually good but too loud and bright for me. I worked the fret ends slightly.

I decided to stain it rather than paint. Warning: You need to sand the sealer off before staining. Seriously, it needs a lot of sanding before the stain goes on easily. It took two attempts but I'm pleased with the result.

Worth it

I finished assembling today after a few days or sanding and staining and now looks & feels great. The only improvement would be if the screws it ships with are more clearly labeled. There is a bag of screws for assembly and you (for some) kind of have to guess which ones go where as the instructions don't say and the photos don't always make it obvious. I also needed to bore out the hole for the toggle switch a bit with a file. But it can be done pretty and it's well worth it in the end. Recommended

Awesome kit guitar

I simply love it! It's a great kit guitar, everything assembled easily, sounds great, feels great and looks good too! Well I did some painting on it, but it looked really nice even without extra painting.