Harley Benton SC-Junior Vintage Sunburst

bought it for a friend as payback for previous acts of kindness

The bridge needed work but after a little extra it sounds good.

This is a keeper

I love this guitar, lots of fun to play. I really like the single Roswell P-90, it just sounds nice. As to the fit and finish, all spot on with no flaws. Nut, frets, and neck board are all correct and playable right out of the box.

If I have one minor complaint, it is the tuners. Not the functionality of the machinery, it's the white knobs. They seem to stick out a bit too far which can make the headstock look a bit "big-eared" and also gives the impression they are not super sturdy.

That aside, the guitar is great and plays like a champ. All in all a very good guitar for the money.

Harley Benton SC Junior Vintage Sunburst Guitar

I'm intend to use this guitar for live gigs and recording sessions. The neck is great and the finish is too. I especially like the contour at the neck and body joint. You can reach the higher frets easier than other guitars.

Shockingly good value for the money, the neck and fretwork are lovely, paint and finish on mine was perfect, though of course its got that heavy poly clearcoat. Setup out of the box spot on. A really solid guitar. very comfortable to play with the sculpted neck joint. I found the P90 a little bit weedy, but easily replaceable with a boutique item if your pedals/amps can't squeeze enough tone out of it. The tuners are fine, but the knobs fitted are inexplicably white, they would look better in a creme/perloid finish for sure. Full size pots with vintage wiring - all looks good under the hood. Just a great little guitar.

solid lp jr clone

Its sweet

volume and tone

Sweet Guitar

I had read the Harley Benton reviews online and wanted to see for myself.

I was not disappointed in the quality and playability of this SC-junior.

It arrived well packaged and ready to play. This is an amazing price for a quality instrument. Well done and Thanks!

Good guitar, but for the price it is awesome!

I was really impressed with the overall quality of the guitar. I own many guitars from $100 to $3000 and this one is closer to a guitar that at least is double the price in terms of attention to details.

I love the paint job, the frets are smooth and I even like the bridge. The tuners are Ok and the pickup (P90) is pretty decent. What I don't like is the volume and tone pots (scratchy) neither like the knobs (too small and slippery), but those are the cheapest upgrades you could do. If you are really on the fence, go for it!

power of rock

I am quite satisfied. The guitar is well made. The neck looked wide at first, but then it got used to it

A fantastic budget single cut jr!

I bought this guitar because I wanted a 2nd sc junior. I have a 2005 Gibson Les Paul jr too and this guitar is really not far from the original. For the price I will say that this Harley Benton is absolutely 5 stars, but compared to the original I think I have to drop it to a 4. Out of the 2 I find Harley Benton is by far the best value for money.

This guitar looked just fantastic when I unboxed it. I checked it and could not find any imperfections at all. The finish is perfect.

It also came really well set up straight out of the box. I prefer my strings really low so I decided to lower them a bit anyway. The tuners of this guitar feels very cheap, but the guitar stays in tune so there is really nothing to complain about. I wish this guitar had a heavier bridge and I really don't like how the intonation adjustments rubs/cuts my hands when I palm mute. Both tuners and bridge can be changed without much work or cost so I do not see it as a problem.

This review of the Harley Benton SC Jr will be a comparison to my Gibson and I give you my honest opinion on what I found to be the major differences.

Quality: I do not find the huge differences in the wood and build of the guitars. The harley Benton has better access to the higher frets because of it's angeled neckjoint. The Gibson has got higher quality on the electrics and hardware, but all of that is easy to change and upgrade.

Playability: The Gibson got a satin nitro finish while the Harley Benton has got high gloss polyurethane. I prefer satin necks so I just rubbed the HB neck with a scrub sponge and suddenly I find them quite similar to play. The HB is slightly ligher than the Gibson, but there is not much difference. I have to say that I really can't put one in front of the other when it comes to playability so I will call it a tie.

Sound: This is where I think you can find the biggest differences between the 2. The Gibson has a warmer tone. Gibson also have more note separation and a clearer sound when strummed. The Harley Benton sounds a bit sharper and tend to sound a bit messy when strummed. All of this has got to do with electrics of the guitar, so it's easy to upgrade and improve.

To wrap it up I will say that the Harley Benton SC Junior is an amazing guitar for the money. I also think it's a great guitar to upgrade and improve. The fact that it's got 1 pickup also makes it easier if you are a beginner on upgrading electrics.

I will really recommend this guitar to everyone who consider a one pickup single cut. I would buy again for sure, and to be honest I consider buying the Harley Benton DC Junior as well.

Update after starting upgrades of the guitar electrics:

After playing this guitar for lots of hours I decided that this is a really good platform for upgrading. I just want to tell that during this process I found that the pots must have been switched. The B pot was for volume and the A pot for tone. I have never heard of any guitar who got wired this way before, and I hope it is just a mistake happened during production.

I swapped the pots for CTS 500K and decided to put an alnico 2 p90 pickup in it. The tone got warmer and less agressive, something that fits my playing well. I also wired it like the 50's Les Paul Jr, and now I suddenly have my dream guitar.