Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit Single Cut 4-stars Reviews

Great fun to build, Great fun to play

I built this from its individual parts in around a day-ish. Took some time to figure out the wiring and whatnot but it works really well. Sounds great, has a classic Les Paul style for a decimal of the price. Instructions were slightly unclear but i figured it out with some common sense (and my dad). Overall, plays great, feels good, easy build.

First try

Simply I was wondering how it sound, how it's made and I have to say it's very good product. Briliant fretboard, desk perfect. Lot of fun with getting parts together :) at the end you've got solid guitar with nice sound. For sure I'll try other products, definitely !

Very good kit for the selfbuilding enthousiast

For this price a very fun kit to assemble, endless options to colour your body and sound is amazing for this kit!

Fantastic Launch Platform

Harley Benton makes some of the best, most reasonably priced DIY kits out there. Add in the cost of shipping to the states and it's STILL a better value than most of our domestically available kits.

The parts are mostly of decent quality, save for the strings and the instrument cable (still handy tho). I did some basic finishing on the wood and then threw it together, strings and all. Performed a quick setup (tune, relief, PU height, intonation) and it sounded great. It's not a Gibson, but it plays as well as a Squier I've got as long as both have been set up to play.

For a very reasonable price you get a well made kit that will provide hours of joy just putting it together. Set it up well (or have someone help) and it plays better than most would believe. From there, you decide! Level and finish the frets, swap out the pickups (why not?!?!), throw in some wiring mods and no one will believe it's a kit.

As a side note, being a mass production guitar kit you can find replacement parts (pick guards, plates, covers etc.) fairly easily. Just make sure to measure first!

Single cut kit

I edited it according to my idea in the style of the 60s. If it wasn't painted.....sanding, sanding, sanding. 6 layers of tung oil and red paint and top coat.

Fun build

I built this with my son and it was fun and ended up a reasonable, functional guitar. It is a bit on the heavy side and he's yet to give it much use. It will possibly be taken apart now to put a unique design on the body before it's used much more. Great value.

Un proiect interesant si satisfacator

Chitara vine cu toate accesoriile necesare care se pot asambla in maxim o ora fara probleme. Cea mai placuta si interesanta parte a proiectului este personalizare si finisarea acesteia. Ea vine relativ bine finisata dar daca doriti un rezultat satisfacator sunt necesare cateva zile bune de finisare, vopsire si lacuire. Pentru pretul platit, calitatea este foarte buna iar sunetul suficient de bun pentru hobby.

Good quality but could be improved

The guitar overall was ok , but some annoying issues, like the holes for the back posts being off centre, also the bridge posts needed a "love tap"to fit the wraparound bridge.

The holes for the tuning pegs should have been placed in line, but definately not wider (bass E is closer to the centre than A or D) so now the strings tough each other, easy thing to change in the design, but never done.

It is ok for the price and worth the money. But to someone who is quite OCD towards misalignment it is not the best.

Edit: the quality of the wiring is really sub par, it basically falls apart. Never seen anything like it, I ordered wiring etc for this now.

But really that should improve

Optimal price/quality

The wood is beautiful, even in the current unfinished state. A fault in the 3-way switch prevents the bridge pickup from working independently, but the neck/bridge mid-switch position works. There is also a dead-spot in the neck potentiometer. Overall, it plays well and sounds awesome. It was fun to assemble with my son, and for the price, I am very happy.

Great product

I was very impressed with the wood that has been used for the body and the neck, with very little finishing needed on both, and the fit between neck and body needed no attention on the kit I received, I was thinking I would have to fill the grain on the guitar body for a paint finish but because off the great piece of wood used for the body I am now thinking of an high gloss oiled finish, the only slight criticism I have is the wires from the pickup switch should be colour coded for easer connection, instead of guessing what cable to connect together, as the ones used are all black or red.

build your dream guitar with this perfect kit!

absoluetly perfect kit. i modified this kit seymour duncan hot rodded set and more. finish is perfect. you can paint it what do you want. shipment is good fast. thats a best price&performance kit ever i seen. i like that much

Nice kit, would recommend

This was a nice kit to build and I would go for another one. Although, I had a few issues.

-Kit is pre-finished, needs to be sanded down before paint/stain is applied.

-One of the knobs was cracked in shipping. I was going to use a different set, but still, could be packaged better.

As for the finished instrument, seems fine to me. I'm an amateur and even I can tell it's improvement from "Student Series" guitars I used.

Not bad though cheap

I bought the kit out of my curiosity. Easy assembly. I made a transparent and satin finish. For an inexpensive kit, the result is satisfactory. Decent sound for cheap pickups, the wood is good and the adjustment was quite simple. Obviously I preferred to fit a good string set to test the quality of the instrument.

a very good product for anyone starting out making guitars or looking for materials to practice on at a low cost

Pros:

the craftsmanship was much better than I expected with a good fitting neck pocket and the neck was particularly impressive at this price point.

Cons:

the electronics aren't particularly great but that is too be expected for this price and are easily replaced at a later date.

Nice toy!

I would consider this product more as a toy rather than an instrument. Bought this as a birthday gift to my friend.

First of all, I was impressed that it produces usable sound! For sure, it is far from the sound of the professional instrument: poor low end, relatively bad sustain, etc. But for the money... I was really impressed.

As for the quality, do not expect much. My friend had to fight against this set. Not all parts fit perfectly, sometimes you have to make an adjustment. Be careful as not all parts are well polished, do not hurt yourself. Also, there were problems adjusting the action: the bridge was at the limit.

Pros:

- you can assemble your guitar;

- all the components are there;

- you can learn how to apply finish to the guitar;

- you can customise your finish and colour;

- you can have fun with your children;

- and it actually plays after assembling!

Cons:

- poor quality: not all parts fit well, my friend damaged a finger while assembling :) ;

- sound is way far from perfect;

- extremely difficult to setup the guitar nicely.

a very good starter kit

i bought this kit several years ago, and intended to delay the review as i wanted to see if this guitar can stand the test of time, and frequent use. so i indeed bought one, and then assembled it, and kept it in its default configuration, including the finish, since after assembly. played the guitar for years on a daily basis for hours.

okay, fast forward three years, and here's what's happened to it.

1. the frets wore out. i had to refret it using harder frets.

2. the neck bowed a bit. i was rather baffled by this because i was only using standard 10-46's. it was made more evident when i used 10-52's. so i adjusted the truss rod while there was tension on the strings, and that fixed it, but then it had a bit of back bow with the strings removed. i just surmised that probably the neck was too soft.

3. the pickups sounded muddier. this was, more or less, a perception issue, and only got resolved when i replaced them with stock epiphone pickups that i had on hand. not to say that the stock pickups were bad, but for me, i felt that they weren't good either.

4. bridge saddles wore out fairly quick. this must've been caused by my hands as they keep rubbing with the saddles as i do my palm muting. i swapped the entire bridge with an aftermarket roller bridge, and bought a harley benton tailpiece to complement it.

5. pots started becoming scratchy after a few months. since they became so, i chose to buy log pots and replaced the linear ones installed in the kit. i recycled the stock capacitor, but i also intend to replace that down the line.

6. stock tuners went all over the place. you can't make the guitar stay in tune for too long with the stock tuners. there were also dead spots when turning the pegs, and that greatly affected the tuning. i replaced them with an old set of taylor tuners that i had on hand, and that worked wonders on the tuning.

three years on, the guitar is still working, and is still in its default unfinished state. i've never laid any paint or refreshed the sealer on the wood, as i liked how it looked as a barely finished guitar. my hope is to see it work for more years to come, hopefully outliving me too.

to sum it up, it's a very good starter kit for those who want to learn how to build, play and maintain guitars. for those seeking something more robust or something that requires less maintenance, then this might not be for you.

Amazing!

I'm baffled by how amazing such a cheap guitar sounds and feels!

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.

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.