Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit JA Reviews

Great fun to build and play

This is my second Harley Benton Kit. I started with the ST kit and enjoyed the experience so I was keen to try another. This was a great project and I sanded it back and painted my JA kit a kind of glossy plum / purple. It looks incredible. Once it was all dry and assembled I then adjusted it quite easily and was really blown away by the sound and playability. When you remember that these kits cost about the same as some video games, you will see that they are a total bargain and a nice 2nd, 3rd or more-th guitar. I am really curious now to try the DC model, if my wife doesn't kill me for buying more guitars first :)

Bang for bucks

Great kit for the money!

You're getting good parts

Look, I don't know how they do it either. Everything in this kit is decent or better quality, even the wood. The neck is bound with block inlays, just beautiful. Body arrived sealed and ready to go. I can't believe what you get for your value here. Sure the reliable stopbar tailpiece isn't Jazzmastertastic, but that's easily routed and chiselled with $25 in tools from Amazon and hardware from your favorite supplier.

I will most assuredly try another kit in the future!

Great fun

The JA kit arrived quickly and in great shape. Assembling it was both fun and educational. Sounds great too.

Super tof om te bouwen

Kwalitatief natuurlijk geen "echte" maar wel super leuk om zelf je eigen gitaar te bouwen.

Jaguar guitar kit

It came very fast and the quality is very good for the price. It makes noise when I plug it.

Huge let down

Ordered 4 in total on 2 separate orders, tge guitar bodies,even though boxed and bubble wrapped were all scratched n dented, after painting alot more dents became visible, the headstocks are very difficult to cut and cant be done with the suggested tool(copping saw) i had to get these cut professionally, after assembly which is very simple, the necks dididnt sit flush with the bodies of the guitar and the sound just wasnt good, very dissappointing because they look really cool

Great kit for the money it costs

I really enjoyed building this kit guitar.

It has a great neck, decent soapbar pups and a well machined body.

For this money and a couple of hours work you've got a decent playing and sounding instrument.

Great value guitar

The kit goes together easy everything fitted well. The neck was excellent for the money with no sharp edges or high frets and the action went down pretty low without too much rattle. I own a few fender tele’s and strats and the neck was far better than the fender ja90 I recently bought. Sound wise the pickups are good at mid low volume but thin out at full volume. Given the small price of the kit I am more than happy with them for blues rock. Set to a Mid volume into an overdrive pedal then Marshall gave a nice lead tone.

This is my first kit build the only adjustment I made was to the truss rod to flatten the neck and then set the intonation.

I haven’t commented on the finish as I’m not going to paint it just sand and seal.

I love these.

I've done 5 of these, but the P90 versions are my dream come true. The P90's sound so nice when phased, there is nothing sounds so sweet. So add a push/pull to hear that angelic phased P90 sound.

Great diy kit!

What I like is that it was fun to put together. I used varnish and laquer. It came out really nice. The sanding took some* time because I did it by hand. The tuners were a pain to install, because the screwholes weren't deep enough, so one of the screws broke. You have to make the holes deeper! Use a thin nail or whatever you can find. The hardware isn't anything special, but you can upgrade it later. I see the guitar as a blank canvas, do what you will with it. When all was together, it did play nice. I really like the feel. The look is superb. Like that you can make a custom headstock. Love it.

beware of peg screws... they are 11x2mm

they can make mess of you're neck...

snapped two of them using mini screwdriver for eye glasses.

had to "dig" in two places...

now i have painted back of headstock.

try to locate some made of metal as we know it, any metal for screws will do.

provided ones are like chemically impregnated foam with acrylic glitter

(i think that other screws from kit are same material but they didn't snap)

So...

Great value

A little out of the body shape is significantly smaller than a jazz master but it’s still a good kid with great sound and build quality for the price

Great value

It is impossible to get the same quality at that price anywhere else

Jaguar-kit wrong pore-filler

Kit is okee exept the pore-filler they have used , it reacts whit the paints , and that’s not the way it has to function , even after sanding it still reacts , acryl-lakker and nitro-lakker whit both it reacts in bubble-like reaction , it’s not really that nice , I had to do the lakker several times , and many clear coats after the color lakker , the rest is nice , I’m building it to a twelvestring

KIT BUILD MASTERSTROKE

I have put together many parts casters and this kit regardless of the money is superb, I gave the frets a light fret dress shaped the headstock and sprayed it matt black and fitted mini humbuckers, the Pickups that came with the kit after a wax dip sound great and i recommend fitting foam under the routes.

Its a keeper and i own and play guitars 10X the price.

Highly recommended if you want a good modding platform.

Great kit

Really good quality guitar kit. Lots of fun to build, easy instructions.

The body comes sealed and ready for paint, so if you want to do an oil or stain finish, you have to sand it back first.

The only thing I didn't like was the solderless pickup connectors. Felt like they might come apart under the pickguard, so cut and soldered them in myself.

Great kit for anyone wanting to get into guitar building.

Incredible

I already own a HB 335 model that blew me away with its quality, so when I was next ordering a guitar, I figured I'd try one of these kits for a fun project. I do not regret it one bit, and the result is a very serious guitar.

The body was good and even, with holes all more-or-less aligning. The neck was impressive - neat binding, no rough fret ends, and a comfortable and smooth C profile. The frets just needed a little polish. I set this up with a low action and there is no hint of fret buzz anywhere.

Cutting the headstock to shape is a simple enough job with a coping saw and file, and represents the only real "craftsmanship" required in putting the kit together. I applied a two-tone burst with nitrocellulose lacquer, but this is very much an optional extra. The rengas wood comes filled and sealed and the grain looks nice enough that you could just spray it with a clear topcoat lacquer for a shiny and more durable finish. The electronics bar the pickups all come attached to the pickguard; you just plug the pickups in and there is no soldering to do. The soapbar pickups rather strangely have no brackets to attach them; instead there are holes right through the pickups to screw them down into the wood of the cavity. This isn't a problem, just an unusual design choice.

We all of course know which guitar this is emulating. Aside from the pickup design, the key difference from that guitar is the tune-o-matic bridge here and no trem, but I see that as a strength for its simplicity and tuning stability. The pickups are a little muddy but can be cleaned up with the right amp settings to give very nice clean and blues tones. A clear, singing sustain is evident before even plugging in. I have a couple of Fenders and a Gibson LP and this feels and sounds more like the Gibson. The greatest weakness in the hardware is found in the tuning pegs, which was also true of my other HB guitar - worth the £20 upgrade to some Vansons. The great thing about a kit is of course that you can mod and upgrade it to your heart's desire, so long as the body and neck are good, and they really are in this case.

Overall, I'm impressed and very chuffed. An enjoyable project and a credible, beautiful guitar at the end of it that I would happily gig with. Well done Harley Benton.

Wow! What a kit!

This kit went together like a glove that fits! Right out of the box I could tell they put time in making the parts to this instrument.

The neck was comfortable with beautiful binding and frets were perfect. The body was drilled perfectly and was a A1 fit the whole way.

If you are looking for a kit to get started building your first guitar then look no further!

Great Kit

Brilliant neck and body, excellent fit.

Had to do all the usual fret levelling and polishing etc.

Didn't use any of the hardware, so I can't comment.