Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit T-Style

TL, DR: Definitely buy it if you want to tinker and learn for cheap, maybe not if you want perfection out of the box.

To give some context, I’m a complete amateur learning guitar as a hobby. Zero plans to become a musician or a luthier. Thought if would be more fun to build my first electric, so here we are. I tend to customise/upgrade/tinker with my stuff over time, so a cheap kit as learning project/mod platform was really the best idea rather than getting a fully finished guitar and then being afraid to mess it up.

The good:
- Super smooth neck! Almost felt bad for sanding/painting/refinishing. If you fancy a natural look you can just leave it as it is. The shape is very comfortable to play, you just don’t want to put it down.
- Knobs, pots, switch, plates, bridge, jack all work smoothly and seem durable.
- The bridge plate allows both top-load and string-through.
- Nice fret job, no sharp ends, everything levelled and crowned. Just had to clean/polish them a little.
- Fretboard, inlays and pickguard look and feel great
- Pickups sound surprisingly nice! Nothing spectacular, but decent enough for a beginner like me. Bridge sounds very surf rock/rockabilly, yum!
- Stock screws seem durable, I had to screw/unscrew some of them several times and didn’t see any damage on them as you’d expect with cheap screws.
- The body is very resonant! Even unplugged it sounds very pleasing.
- For some reason there is no hum, even without shielding. Maybe I just got lucky.

The bad:
- I could probably count on the fingers of one hand how many screws/holes fit where/how they were supposed to.
- As someone said in a youtube review (don’t remember who), the body wood is so soft it dents from just breathing on it. Well it’s an exaggeration of course but still, it’s very easy to damage even without serious accidents, you might get a relic finish whether you want it or not. I'm not into relics but if a little damage in looks just happens, I don't mind it.
- Control plate cavity had some damage from drilling the (incomplete!) hole to the jack. Had to cut a piece of broken wood off the opening to make it wide enough for the jack, and then glue the fibers that were almost torn off with said piece of wood during the drilling. (Hope that makes sense?)
- Stock tuners were sketchy, some of them very difficult to assemble because the components didn’t fit too well.
- Stock strings came all curled together in a flimsy plastic baggie thrown in with all the hardware; didn’t use them so can't comment.

The finish:
- I liked the headstock of Harley Benton strats so I cut this one in a very similar shape.
- Couldn’t help it and did a small solder wire inlay with the HB logo on the headstock, the maple took it nicely and I love how it fits with the chrome hardware.
- India ink
- Tru Oil

The upgrades/additions:
- Kluson MS6LC tuners - If you want new tuners for this kit, these fit perfectly.
- Butterfly shape string trees, also from HB
- Graph Tech tusk nut
- Göldo black pickguard - Nothing wrong with the stock one, just wanted black. Had to be shaped a little though, as it is made for Fenders and HBs are slightly different due to trademark issues or something - Thanks Thomann for mentioning this difference in your youtube video about upgrading HBs!!
- Ernie Ball 9s
- For some reason my brain missed the cable in the product photos so I ordered a Cordial one with the kit, does this even count as an upgrade?
- Silver Orleans Ernie Ball strap + Fender Strap Blocks, it all fits very nicely, the guitar has good balance on the strap.
- Blackstar Fly 3 amp

The plans:
- Will want to try alnico pickups in the future, possibly one classic tele + one Filtertron combo.
- Will experiment with pots/capacitors of different values.
- Will drill holes to try string-through as well, with the ferrules from Harley Benton.

I almost feel bad for criticising such a cheap product. Of course, there are more expensive kits/parts out there where you would expect higher quality. But this way you can take it slow and upgrade in time instead of spending more once, which is awesome if you are just a hobbyist.

All in all, working on this on and off in my free time over the summer was the best vacation. Now I have a guitar I am pleased with, but it took a lot of problem solving, patience and research. For my needs it is great, and will get even better. Flaws and all, I love this guitar. It’s my buddy now, I’ll gladly play it and keep upgrading it rather than wishing for a “better” one.

PROS.

1. Technically, this kit allows you to follow an IKEA-like manual and put together a guitar, functionally identical to a cheap guitars of well-known-brands-we-won?t-mention-here for a fraction of their price.

2. The body and the neck are done surprisingly well for a price, they fit together better than I saw on some? ahem? much more expensive guitars. Frets don?t try to cut you to death. Neck is not bent to a propeller shape. Slots in the body for neck and pickups are precise enough.

3. Other parts are inexpensive yet mostly funcional. I planned to replace everything except body and neck, but left tuning machines, bridge and some other things be: they are okay to the level when ?good enough? turns into ?just good?.

CONS.

1. Frets require some work. Frets are unpolished (which is not a problem) and sometimes are slightly uneven (which IS a problem). So if you need a low action without buzzing, fret leveling is in order, and fret leveling is not a task for a complete newbie.

Nut is a regular plastic thing, and it is not set to a proper height. To get a proper action and proper tone, you should cut it to the right height, which requires some minimal understanding of the task, some skills and at least some tools. So, again, not a task for a complete newbie.

2. There?s no shielding and a kit manual never mentions that shielding is required, which could become a problem for a newbie. You?ll need to shield a guitar with foil or graphite, otherwise it will work like a good old radio antenna, buzzing left and right.

3. Build quality is not perfect when it comes to a small things. All screw holes, including holes for neck bolts, are hand-drilled sloppily, which means random depth and direction of each and every hole. If you suffer from serious case of perfectionism, just like me, it?s easier to seal and redrill those holes. Otherwise you probably can ignore it: screws still hold it together, so it?s okay. Tip: always use a wax on screws, it helps.

Fingerboard of my guitar had a small splotch of some brownish substance that tried (with questionable success) to mask a small dent in a wood. It didn?t affect playability, but it wasn?t nice to look at form close distances, so it had to be fixed.

Tone control in my kit wasn?t working. It wasn?t a problem for me, as I just replaced all electronics. But such things could be a problem for some kiddo, who doesn?t know how to solder wires yet. Be ready to rewire the guitar properly.


CONCLUSION.

In general, this kit is a good base for amateur guitar builds and experiments. Reshape the body, paint it wild, cut the head as you please, add pickups of your dreams... Kit has no critical flaws and allows you to build a really good ?semi-custom? guitar for a ridiculously low price if you are ready to put some work in it.

Kit is ?technically functional? even right after screwdriver assembly and basic tuning, but don?t expect much from it. Fifteen minutes of intense screwdriving will turn a kit into an electromechanical tool, which in a dim light could be considered an electric guitar. But it won?t rise to its full potential without additional efforts.