Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit CST-24T 4-stars Reviews

A great project

I wanted a PSR style guitar to add to my collection but didn't have the funds. This was a fun project that kept me entertained for many wintery evenings. I spent over a week preparing the body, priming, painting and lacquering with lots of sanding and buffing. The end result looked fantastic. I upgraded the strings and tuners. It took alot of adjustments to make it playable but the tone and feel of the guitar are showing great promise. I think with time and maybe some more modifications it will become a favourite.

Negatives are the nut, tuners and the bridge. Intonation is very difficult to achieve.

Positives are the general look and tone of the guitar and surprisingly good humbuckers.

For an £80 build its an excellent place to start when building a nice guitar.

Better than expected

In many ways it is better than I expected (of course, as a cheap kit, it has some flaws)

Positiv:

- first of all, it is quite cheap

- the neck is surprisingly good, nice wood, very smooth surface (very tempted not to change there anything)

- the fretwork needs only minimal adjustment (minimal levelling and polishing), the fret ends are really smooth (no need to work on that)

- the wood of the body has quite nice grain, and even it is made of 3 (or 4?) parts it is not so easy to spot the changes

- the electronic parts are easy to install

- the sound is acceptable

Weak spots:

- the sealer doesn't seem to cover the body fully and it is not very smooth on the curved surfaces, so a lot of sandig work is needed for every kind of finish.

- the fretboard wood is very dry and with open pores, takes a lot of oil

- the provided term feells very cheap, with thin, light block (changed is to a 2 point Harley Benton (Wilkinson) trem

- the routing is not bad, but could be more precise, had to make some minor routing for the neck pickup (levelling screw reached the bottom of the cavity). The holes for the neck pickup frame is a little bit too close to the neck (the neck was "bendig" the pickup frame), had to drill new ones app. 2 mm closer to the bridge

- the provided strings are not great, but I only used them for the first assembling (test assembling before I do the finishing).

Overall, it was fun to work with so far, looking forward for the finishing work and a little bit of modding (already done the term, maybe better tuners, would also try other pickups .

Fun project, and nice end result

First off, the end result is a guitar that sounds good and looks good. It is quite nice to play too, and will be better when after a little work on the frets, which are good, but could do with a polish and removal of a few sharp ends.

The kit arrived very well packaged, with the neck, body and hardware in three individual boxes, with bubblewrap providing further protection.

There were two instruction books supplied (one in German and on in English). It said "Singlecut" on the front, but the photos were correct for this model, and it provided a very easy step-by-step guide for us beginners. The only issues we faced with the build were with trying to work out the correct screws to use in each case, as it wasn't always clear from the photos and written instructions. But it's not rocket science either, and can be figured out.

Pros:

- Everything went together as expected with no drama

- Wiring is very easy

- Korean pots and switches actually feel great, unexpected in this price range

- Frets are good and level

- The pickups sound good, nothing to complain about for this price

Cons:

- The nut is very low already, but the notches are very shallow, so not much can be done about it, but it does seem to work okay

- The bridge isn't all that easy to set up, particularly adjusting the heights of the saddles is somewhat awkward.

- Instructions could be a little clearer about the screws to be used in each case.

Overall, this is a good kit, and I would recommend it. And the guitar is nice.