Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit Single Cut 4-stars Reviews

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.

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!!!

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.

Pretty good

I did not have great expectations. It is pretty solid and very affordable for someone who wants to build his own guitar.

Maybe the best kit for the price. Good quality.

The kit is from good quality and maybe is the best for its price. The body is from several parts but of good make and needs just some 600 or higher sandpaper sanding to be perfectly polished. There were some very small holes from some work-tool but they are easy to fill. I like that the neck is completely ready for use and has mat lac finish - it's comfortable for the left hand. I prefer it that way instead of the high gloss finished necks. You can leave it as is and paint/varnish only the body. It is already treated with sealer and easy to paint after light sanding. Maybe the hardware is what most people will change and that's what I did also. Especially for my needs I purchased hot-rail humbuckers and gotoh tailpice. Also I prefer complete rewiring with custom pots, knobs and switches. In general this is good quality kit - maybe the best for it's price.

Good DIY kit

For the money and design possibilities these are great.

Easy enough to put together and everything fitted as it should. Holds tune well enough, although the tuners are cheap and very sensitive. All hardware is cheap chinese stuff but does what it is supposed to. Plastic parts are rubbish, but do whats needed.

Sounds good enough for the price. Make a good platform for modding/upgrades

These kits are well worth the money. With some time and effort fret leveling, ect, giving it a proper setup with good strings and you will have a guitar thats easily as good as the well known budget brand.

Relatively easy build leads to fun guitar

The guitar is fairly easy to build, just follow the instructions for the most part, and sand like you've never sanded before with 800grit to remove the latex based sealer before final sealing for painting.

The only stumbling block is the use of plug in connectors for the loom. There were no instructions on how to do this quite important step and some fumbling around was required to get the relevant connectors on the correct controls. Not beyond half an hour of head scratching though.

I built it as a present for one of my children. They're delighted that Dad built them a guitar and it is now a prized possession. worth it for the learning experience, the satisfaction of doing the job right and the end result isn't too shabby either.

The wood on mine showed no figure worth highlighting, so it got a solid colour. The neck was straight, all frets OK with no sharp edges.

The tuners all work and it holds tune just fine. Easy enough to set up and intonate with the supplied brdige.

The pickups are a little dull and woolly, but played with gain and they're acceptable.

All in then, an enjoyable build experience that lead to a working guitar and an appreciated present.

Great Kit, just reporting...

Here's the final result and description of the process:

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Unfortunately, the front pliers were kinda ugly...not a nice top as in the picture. That said the end results came out awesome.

If you plan to stain the wood as I did, be aware that the wood sealer will be a PAIN to sand down. (would be better if they provided kits without any sealer) ..is specially difficult on the sides.

Overall, after sanding the wood has responded nicely to the dye, no problems at all with that. Went for Turquoise on the front and Red on the back, quite nice!

The neck is quite good! thin and the wood is quite robust. The hardware is also good, but I'm replacing the tuners with Grovers.

The bridge, well...really not the best, you can see is gonna catch the string after a bend....so I'm replacing it with a Göldo roller bridge. Be aware that the Göldo comes with smaller studs, so you'll need to redrill or fill the gap with something (I'm gonna use bits from a hose from a talkbox, it works perfectly)

I'm right now in the lacking process, so I cannot review the sound yet....I expect it to be more or less like my vintage Harley Benton which sounds lovely.

UPDATE:

I just finished the project.

Some tips:

- The nut comes REAL high! I suggest you to get a ruler and measure your best set guitar, take the nut out of the neck of this kit and carefully sand it down until is right...DONT TOUCH THE SLOTS they're perfect, is only the nut that is pretty high...otherwise you'll have intonation problems mostly on the first fret.

Hell, is almost impossible to properly play a bar chord at the first fret if you don't do that, after the nut is lowered the guitar plays like heaven.

- Try to avoid using the tuners and bridge that comes with it. They're simply not the best (good but there are better). Get a Göldo roller bridge and some Grover mini tuners.

- Use a piece of guitar string to be able to easily pass the cables that goes from the control cavity to the switch cavity.

- Don't forget to ground the electronics to the strings via the ground cable that goes to the bridge stud.

- Mark the cables before unplugging the switch. If you get lost install it all and plug the guitar then use a piece of metal (rounded small wrench works) and carefully tap the pickups to know whats going on until is right.

- Don't forget to lub the nut with graphite.

UPDATE: I've installed a locking nut and a Schaller stoptail with microtuners. Best decision ever!

UPDATE 2: Changed the original pickups which are very dull to a pair of Seymour Duncan hot rodded kit. They sound awesome.

Easy to put together

I Bought this to try out how to build, and experience the electric part of an instrument, wasn't that hard to put together. The hardest part for me was to get the paint well done!

Really good "learn how to" build/replace and maintaining your instrument. would recommend other strings from the beguinning. Also the volume potentiometer would like to be replaced due to the volumedifferences in 1 -2 on the knob from lowest to highest volume

Overall, nice kit for almost no money!

Harly Benton Guitar Kit

Good item it was fun building the guitar no problems .

Good quality body an neck

The Volume controls are just on or off no decrease or increase in volume when turning them up and down.

apart from that for the price its a usable instrument for playing live

I know because I have done it

Well worth a shot, A great guitar can come from this kit, with time.

A great kit for the money. A well balanced and decent sounding guitar can be made from this kit with some time, patience and a little common sense.

Having assembled many guitars from parts, both refurbished and hand-crafted, I wanted to try these kits to really see if a good guitar could come from such a stock collection of parts. It can. You'll need a little knowledge of wood-working technique to get a decent end result as some modification of the existing parts (namely the body-neck joint and bridge positioning) can be necessary to achieve the best overall playability.

The stock hardware is fair in quality, there is always room for improvement. I opted to remove the solderless wiring loom in favour of a simpler, hand-soldered circuit. With that amendment, the pickups and general sound of the guitar were surprisingly good.

After all that, applying your chosen finish is an absolute hoot!

This is a great product and i recommend following that gut feeling that making guitars could be a laugh ;)

Les Paul on a budget

Bought this model after purchasing the sg has I wanted a little more of a challenge..........but to be honest, it was pretty straight forward to complete. One thing to consider is the neck join to the body - it's a little high so will need to trimmed down about 5mm, please consider this if you want the fret board to be at the correct position - or you can leave as is, and just adjust the hardware to accommodate. Apart from that, everything went together as expected. .... and to be honest, it sounds a lot better than it's price would dictate - overall, and absolute bargain.

I finished mine with a mahogany back, and a natural top....all hand painted/stained....no spraying - and it looks a dream.

If your looking at this kit, buy it...you won't regret it!!!

LP-kit

The kit I ordered looked pretty good, all parts were included. Wood grains on top look superb, on the rear however it didn't look pretty good. First of all, I tested the neck cavity, which needed some sanding to have a good fit. Further inspection revealed that the holes for the small screws were mostly wrong drilled (as on jack plate on body and PU-covers. Overall, these are easilly filled up and redrilled so no big deal. Trying to place the neck showed that 3 of 4 cavity holes are incorrectly drilled (same procedure). I carved the top like the original LP-style. Before spraying some minor sanding needed to be done in order to create a smooth surface. Sprayed mine as a LP goldtop, on the rear in mahagony brown covering the wood grain. Installing the electronics and testing it revealed that installation of pots was wrong (pots acted like a switch, so resoldered it). Upgraded the PU's to WIlkinsons MWCHB and it sounds GREAT! In general, this guitar now looks awesome, and I'm proud to have made it myself which is so much better than buying your already assembled guitar! If you like woodworking, try this to improve your skills!!

a cost-effective way to learn how to build a guitar

the quality of the guitar kit is more than acceptable for this price, but you have to be prepared to make a few adjustment and fixes by yourself.

my kit had a broken solder joint that had to be repaired, and the neck adjustment took a lot of time. also the basswood body seems to be prepared for full color painting, and it has surface coating, so i had to sand it off to apply water-based wood taint.

the sound is surprisingly good for the price, but you have to have a decent set of strings. forget the ones in the package, they are only good for setting up the guitar.

overall, the product is unbeatable for this price. not only it's a valuable experience to build your own guitar, you can also experiment with all sorts of customizations, and learn how to set-up intonation, adjust the truss rod and make your own color scheme.

Harley Benton LP guitar kit

H i bought the Harley Benton LP kit just over a year a go now and it has been a great guitar kit ever since, it is one of my favorite cheap guitar kits i have used it loads, the only problem i found with the kit is the fact that the pot knobs once on will not come off without damaging the pots, but this can be easily solved buy buying tome cheap knobs, but other than that it has been a great kit i did replace the pickups with some old EMG Hetfields to improve the tone. all together a great guitar kit for the price i would happily buy another kits just as a little project.

thanks rammstein

Harley Benton Les Paul Kit

Great fun to build, excellent quality - compared to my first build of another make from a UK supplier, and plays really well. I'm going to order another one. Great super-fast shipping, as always. Thanks!

Great guitar, BUT.

I really love these guitar kits, worth every penny. I do music few times a week to make my rent.

When these kits are assembled (carefully), they're a nice piece of kit, they sound and play better than a ready built guitar at up to four or five the price, they look much better too, with all the fancy extras & trim.

I did the telecaster kit a while back, which almost fell together on my kitchen table. It looks sounds & plays so good, without problems or replacement parts at all.

This LP is every bit as good as the Telle I built. I prefer it to my real & genuine LP.. I like the natural wood finish straight from the box & use it just like that. It also plays (when my aged fingers allow) just as good as my original LP.

Then I messed with wiring from from online electric guitar sites & now have some sweet sounds from push, pull tone & volume knobs which swap pickup polarity &, or "cut" to single coil p'ups, my favorite sound is from all the pickups in series, all good fun when out with the band hitting the audience with "new, unheard" guitar sounds.

This particular LP kit was a little awkward, pickup screw holes did not line up, only needed re'drilling, also the wiring had an earth link missing, it all worked OK, but knowing there was more, I visited stewmac.com for some wicked wiring diagram ideas.

So don't screw the pickups down until you get the strings on so you can center the pickups using the strings as a guide, then screw them down.

This guitar kit now looks, plays & sounds great, although I do have a genuine Gibson LP guitar, the Gibson is very heavy compared with this HB kit guitar, apart from that there's little difference HB has a bolt on neck which I prefer, because it is easily adjustable, or replaceable. The Gibson has a integral neck which is neither easily adjustable or replaceable.

There is everything but a plectrum in the box. Do read the "setup" section in the book as this will help understand how all electric guitars need setting up regularly for sound and play'ability, although neither of mine needed much setting up at all.

A very important part of most LP's, genuine or not, is the NUT LUBRICANT, graphite or silicone grease. This stops the "usual" tuning problems associated with the Gibson shape (back angled) head stock.

My first diy guitar!

I had started playing, alone, less than a month before i ordered this kit. Though i had some experience in small craftworks, this was suposed to be a big challenge, since i didn't even knew how to play. Well, in fact it wasn't. The kit was very well prepared, no structural errors, everything went to the right spot. The wood is stable, though a little soft (basswood). The hardware and electronics are not great, but functional. As good as any cheap guitar.

Obviously, this is not a plug and play guitar. But it may be very funny for you to learn something about paints and veneers. If you prefer, you can also ask a prefessional to do it and still make up for the price. The assembly is no harder than a standard setup.

Over the time i have upgraded the hardware and electronics and this is my main guitar nowadays. All in all, i believe this harley benton kits are a very good alternative for someone who want to have their own custom guitar.