Harley Benton Slider II Lap Steel w/Stand

Good Starting Point

I’ve been using one of these for four years now and initially found that although the overall usability out of the box was fine, some reasonably economic upgrades were highly beneficial. Specifically, heavier and/or correct strings for the chosen tuning was the first thing, followed by a heavier steel bar for better control. From there, it was ready to gig. Subsequently I rebuilt the electrics for a clearer sound and to have better tone and volume graduations. The circuit was copied from the ‘59 Fender Champ, which can be found online. Overall, these mods have doubled the cost of this lap steel, but it is now superb, and still only half the price of one bearing an American brand name. I did also change the machine heads for a set of Klusons, but the original ones were more than adequate, so that was more of a personal whim. Overall, this is a good starting point to learn the genre and with simple economic mods can get you gigging with everything working as it should.

Incredible value. Sounds great!

New to lap steel so this entry point made sense for me. Honestly feel like I won't need to upgrade from this. One thing that needs to be improved is the stability of the legs but overall this is an excellent value that sounds great!

Great value, well manufactured instrument. I have yet to master it, but it's fun trying

Great Lap Steel

A brilliant lap steel for staring out. Sturdy and compact with some really beautiful inlays. Currently on loan to a friend who's loving it!

Nice Lap Steel, shame about the strings.

Bought this Lap Steel as I needed to record some proper slide guitar. At £95 (plus £10 shipping to the Highlands of Scotland) I wasn’t expecting miracles. There is a cheaper one without a stand, but I really don’t have any worktop space in my home studio, so I went for the one with the stand. It means it is ready to go when I need to use it, without having to move things out of the way. Comes with a steel slide in a box, the aforementioned stand and a gig bag for the Lap Steel and a bag for the legs. These aren’t great, but will keep your stuff from getting scratched during transport.

Took it out of the boxes (very well packaged for transport), tuned it up and played along with a backing track. Now considering that this is less than £100/€100/$100, it was surprisingly good. The only let down with the entire experience was the strings, with the weight of my hand and the bar, it was putting the strings slightly higher than the “fretted” note. They are too thin, but as these are just on it to make it playable, that is not a bad point against the Lap Steel. With a change of strings to a much heavier gauge this will be much better. Sound wise, again let down by the strings, but the pickup seems reasonable, but in the future I will be putting in higher quality electrics.

Overall, this is a nice instrument, and would highly recommend this to anyone wanting to get into, or just curious about, Lap Steel guitar. At this price, what is stopping you…

does the job

Sound and construction is great for the price. ~Tuning is stable enough to use at gigs as well as pickup.

very good for beginners

It's a great option for beginners, very good quality for the price. I'd suggest swapping the pickup with an higher output one, but the standard one will work ok.

Quality and price

Hello Jim hear. Am absolutely impressed with the lap steel. Pick is strong. The sound quality is perfect for me. Fit and finish as expected highly quality product and the price well can't be beat. Thank you Harley Benton.

INSANE DEAL

Got this to start learning lap steel and with the right amp, it sounds just as good as other laps i've listened to.

B-Stock condition on non-b-stock purchase

What do you expect from something this inexpensive? Don't be fooled by Harley Benton's good reputation -- I believe they are simply slapping their logo on a lap steel that is available under a number of budget brand names.

Poor alignment of components, so the pickup is so far off center that the last pole piece isn't even under the high string. Cheap tuners meant for a nylon string guitar, very delicate to dial in tune. Legs slip no matter how tight you turn the thumb screw. One of the tuner holes has tear out. Plastic box for tone bar arrived broken in half. Included strings aren't well balanced for C6 tuning. Short scale length make intonating more difficult. I'm skeptical the legs will survive many times being taken off before the attachment threads strip / cross thread. Tone rolls off very suddenly at the end of its range, like it maybe does not have the correct taper (audio vs linear).

Considering the number of quality issues I do think they overcharge for this. It should be much easier and cheaper for them to manufacturer than a cheap Strat clone, since no fretboard, only one pickup, hard tail, simple shape. But it costs more.

This thing is fun enough I kind of wish I'd just spent more money on a higher quality instrument.