Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit Single Cut Reviews

Very Surprised!

I ordered this kit to keep me occupied during this isolation in the UK. Built the kit, modified it and know I have a Les Paul style guitar that gives my Epiphones a run for their money, very impressed, although a lot of wrk went into building this kit to get it to a decent paable standard , but then again, that s half the fun! Better than just buying something off the shelf, I will be doing this again, once the kits come back in stock! S :)>>>

Well Worth It

Well worth the value for money, Things i would say about this product, It is great fun to make getting dyes to make a sunburst is the start then all the sanding.As it starts to come together you can really see the Satisfaction of making it youself. Really great product

What can I say?

The body and neck was really good BUT! The screws snapped on me and I had to re solder the tone pot. There is a finish on the wood and I would say that this is somthing that should not be on the kits.

All in all its a good thing to get just change all the screws and check the wireing as there is no notification on the connections on what goes to what

For what I paid for

For what I paid for this is really good after some tuning in.

This was my first try at building (putting together) my first guitar. It was surprisingly easy. Nothing complicated. Ok, it doesn't make wonders. But for that price it was well worth it. A fun experience, and ok to play on. I tuned it to double drop D (Neil Young) and just have some party fun with it. When friends had a beer to much, this is the guitar I let them play with :) I recommend this product.

Incredible quality for the price.

This kit is very easy to put together. It's very solid, perhaps a bit rough around the edges, you may want to to some sanding here and there.

The neck is straight as an arrow and comfortable to play. No complaints.

The only sort of problem is that it doesn't perfectly fill the neck pocket on the body, so there is a slight space between the two components, but nothing major for the moment. Perhaps it can be filled if you eventually paint the guitar.

The bridge holes are misaligned which causes some trouble in the setup, nothing that impedes you from playing it however.

I can't really comment on the sound as I swapped all electronics with a set of active Fishman Fluence Modern pickups and it sounds just killer.

5/5 on value for money alone. Great kit !

The kit is absolutely superb. For the price of one seymour duncan pickup, you get an entire LP style guitar. The provided instructional manual is great and very clear, and only a couple of basic handheld tools are required for assembly.

I highly recommend giving this a go. A great way to spend an afternoon putting it together, and guitar you're left with is great.

Only a couple of niggles.. There were no screws for the strap buttons as the ones provided slipped right out of the pilot holes. The truss rod cover pilot holes were slightly in the wrong place,,,, and that was about it !. The neck needed a little cleaning and the frets needed a quick buff (but an hour of playing would sort that). I don't know what the provided strings were like, I tossed them out.

Easy to build and customize

Easy to build and refinish. A nice kit with lots of modification options that you can do. I'm adding a balanced output to be able to feed a mic level output into my console. That way I can sent unbalanced to effects boxes and an amp and direct at the same time. This allows both a clean and an effects track to be recorded to my studio workstation. The only con I've encountered is that the electronics were not clearly labelled which meant I had to test and mark the interconnects before mounting on the head of the guitar. Building the kit has helped me learn a great deal about guitar construction. A number of things I never really thought about with my other guitars. Overall a beautiful kit and I'll hopefully build others in the future.

Unbelievable

This kit is easy to build, the quality of the neck is incredible for the money spent, the body is also ok, pickups are what you can get with the minimum expense but the sound is not bad at all, in reality at the end of the building you get a playable instrument which is a good base for future improvements (machine heads, bridge, pickups above all).

The it is also funny to build, definitively recommended!

A decent produkt for its price

A good kit , everything fits nicely together.

Quite joyful to build your own guitar and by tuning and finishing it with a nice paint job you will be proud of your work and learn a lot about guitars.

All up to you

An amazing kit in total, but let me break down the various different parts for clarity and to help set some proper expectations.

Wiring:

In general is kind of ok if you really have no clue what you are doing, but my advice would be to use something better for various reasons (scratching sounds, loud hiss, sticky knobs, bad switch),

Pickups:

They almost make the sounds you need them to, as long as you don't compare them to something else.

But the second you put a better set of pickups (irongear?) in it you'll have a beautifully singing masterpiece.

General hardware:

It works.

Change the tuners and you will get better tuning stability. Change the bridge and you will have better intonation, better sustain and less weird overtones.

Add some graphite in the nut slots (draw in them with a pencil) and it's just fine for now.

Wood and general make:

Amazing!

In all fairness, this is what you paid for. Everything else matters little.

Sand your surfaces with no shortcuts, show the finish some love, do a proper set up, do a fret dress and you have a GREAT guitar.

Summary: 98 euros of amazing possibility!

Great DIY kit

I decided to buy this kit for a fun little DIY project. It was great for that purpose. The sound is not mind-blowing but decent. The kit is easy to assemble and comes with clear instructions. The different components made of plastic feel a bit cheap but considering the price, the kit is great for the money.

great for students

great for a student thats curious how to build hes own guitar for sure a try out for the price

Good kit to start

I bought this kit as preparation to understand how to build a guitar. My goal was to restaure the old 1994 Fender Stratocaster made in Japan which was in terrible condition.

I learned a lot about wood , painting finish and electrical parts and the result of this kit was acceptable because the guitar made sounds and play good as entry level guitar.

The pickups are good and the starting finish too. I think you can really enjoy the result , make experience and then go to new project. I think I will buy a new kit for a telecaster very soon.

Very good project guitar

Ok, so, I should probably disclose that I was already planning on heavily modifying this guitar kit before I bought it, so some things may or may not be applicable.

Build quality - this was pretty much perfect, the neck fit perfectly, string alignment was spot on, scale length and intonation was excellent. Basically, if this is your first kit, all the hardest bits were already done.

Frets needed minimal work, sharp edges needed filing, a minor leveling/crowning job and I was more than happy.

The guitar actually has a top, not a veneer, so after plenty of sanding to remove the sanding sealer that it has applied at the factory, I had no problems with the top peeling off the body like on other kit guitars. Whilst the guitar I received didn't have remarkable grain patterns, aside from a minor flame on the neck, it is pleasing enough to look at. The body itself had quite a few marks from the factory (saw marks and little bits of minor tearout) nothing was unfixable with patience and a lot of sanding.

Binding was expertly applied, no gaps on the body or fretboard, though I ended up modifying and carving extra bits, so its not there on my finished guitar.

I cant say much about the included hardware as this isn't my first guitar kit, and I already had plans to replace every bit of it, so very little actually ended up on my finished guitar.

All I can really say, is that I had issues with the included stop tailpiece with the posts being different sizes, though I would put that down to QA making a very rare minor mistake, it was good enough for me to check the string alignment, but replacement was necessary before I finished the build.

I cant comment on the electronics, I never used them, though I would probably say if you *are* going to use them, consider soldering instead of the push fit connectors as they looked cheap.

In summary, this is a fantastic kit, giving you the perfect foundation for an excellent quality guitar, especially considering the price.

Be prepared to do a lot of sanding, assemble it before applying finish so you get an idea on what you need to fix during the build. And most importantly, enjoy yourself whilst building it and take your time.

Single Cut Electric Guitar Kit

I recently built one of these kits to add to a growing collection of self-builds and kit guitars. This was my first Harley Benton guitar kit and was influenced by reviews from this site.

The kit arrived very well packaged and protected from knocks. Upon opening I was pleased to see an instruction manual and all parts present.

Building was a simple process with all parts fitting beautifully. I was particularly impressed with the fit and finish of the neck. The only adjustment needed was to the nut height: easily achieved with careful sanding. Fret ends were neat and smooth and the action was perfect.

The electrics are perhaps the most complicated part of the build. Although the entire process is plug-&-play, the cables would benefit from colour coded connectors or tape to aid connecting for the less electrically astute.

The body finish on my kit was excellent with no filling needed, just a light sanding to give a surface ready for paint. I opted for the "Gold Top" style of finish using Rustoleum paints and am delighted with the results. The back of the body appears to be mahogany. I finished this with three coats of teak oil, applied with a clean lint-free cloth.

Overall I couldn't be happier with this kit. The parts are not the highest quality but are more than reasonable for the price and would be easy to upgrade at a later date. The instrument plays beautifully with a very low action and a very comfortable U shaped neck profile. The pickups sounds incredible for the price and respond well to volume changes, going from clean to nicely crunchy.

I highly recommend this kit either for beginners or more experienced players who want to build their first instrument.

Great playing easy-to-build kit

This was my first experience in assembling a guitar, having previously only done basic maintenance and setup. Everything fit together well, and seemed of good quality. The end result was a good looking well playing guitar. The finish of the wood is pretty good, but it's not a very pretty grain and does probably not lend itself to staining. With solid paint though, it is all good.

The one big problem with this kit is the tuning machines. They have a lot of backlash in the gears and are mechanically rather sloppy, so they are both difficult to tune and do not stay in tune very well. Replaced them with a set of Kluson tuners, which made all the difference.

Really good for it's price

It's a really great and fun project to try out especially for it's price.

It also makes you see the inside of a guitar which comes in handy, it also makes you more personal with the guitar because you designed it yourself.

A con is that I would like better instructions on how to actually paint the guitar and to know what kind of paints would work on it.

But overall a great guitar and fun project!!!

If you're thinking about ordering it, do it!

This is a kit you will not be disappointed with. The fit and finish is outstanding. I had originally planned on a black lacquer finish, but when I saw the quality of the wood I went for a natural clear gloss. The edging on both the body and neck looks great. The neck fit perfectly in the pocket and required only minor adjustment of the truss rod. The frets were level and only needed to be polished.

Pros:

Great looking wood.

Top appears to be maple while the back is mahogany.

Neck/fretboard very well made.

finished weight ~9 Lbs.

Instructions in English/German

Fast shipping

Cons:

Strings supplied less than desirable (my opinion)

Nice product

For those who tend to scary to basswood (wich is the main body guitar in this case): they must know to Harley Benton use some species or may be a kind of special wood treatment which seems better than other competitors on the market. I use over time alot of basswood types , various brands and some of that proved poor quality wood. But I bought over the time some Harley Benton electric kits (including JB kit) and I was very pleasant.

So, in this case everything is better, except few holes are rather narrow (bridge and stoptail mount).

Tunners feel somewhat cheap but they can adjust by screw.

Pots are great, very smooth and efficient

Pickups are mid-hot outputs and surprising really matched with body-neck combinations so the sound tend to be closer to LP

More, you can personalise that guitar endless ways.

A Les Paul that lacked quality control

The price dictates the overall quality of this instrument, and that is why all of the problems it came with shouldn't be an issue, but potential new clients should know about these possible problems.

At a first glance, everything seemed ok out of the box.

3 or 4 piece body, with 2 piece neck with a roseacer fretboard (ugly and cheap substitute for rosewood)

The hardware is basic mass produced of cheapest and lowest quality possible, tuners feeling pretty decent for the price.

However after trying a test for playability (neck mounted, bridge, tailpiece, tuners and strings) a big problem arised.

The factory process of sanding the top has been made incorrectly, the convex part of the body top was offset to the overall placement of the strings, bridge and tailpiece. This made the bushings for the bridge and tailpiece be on a different height to each other making setup a bit difficult and look awkward aesthetically.

Playability however isn't such a big issue and most of people can overlook this issue. The frets felt very rough when sliding the strings across them, should need a polish before assembling the guitar.

The neck had a shim glued to the underside of the neck joint, to lift it up to Les Paul style playability (making the neck to stay at an angle). The wood used to make the shim was of

a different type, and could be very visible even to the uninitiated.

Overall, going by the popular saying "you get what you pay for" is very true in this particular case.