Harley Benton SC-Special TV Yellow

Highly recommended! What a great take on the classic LP special.

Bought this because last week I bought the HB DC-Junior faded cherry single p90-pickup guitar. I was so impressed with that Indonesian made guitar, that when I saw this was available and made in Indonesia (probably the same company) I knew I wanted it.
I've been playing, building and fixing guitars for over 50 years. I went over this guitar inch by inch when it arrived. It's FLAWLESS.

The finish, fretwork and setup is spot on. Intonation is almost perfect (I'll be setting that up later when the guitar gets used to the humidity here in Nashville TN) . The nut is cut perfect and feels like bone. The neck is straight with no dead spots. Pickups sound great with minimal buzzing, so probably good shielding inside. Pots sound good and spin well. Fretwork is very nice with no sharp edges and reasonably polished for this price point. The fretboard wood looks and feels exactly like ebony - really! All the side markers are in the right position and spaced perfect. The wraparound bridge is well made and solid as a rock. Plays like butter and sustains well. Good balance, no neck dive when you hold it.

Like others.. I'm astonished at the value you get for the price. I know guitars, this guitar literally is a good as guitars costing thousands more. More importantly, it is really fun to play. It sustains and sounds good "unplugged" which makes you want to play it more.

Note: The finish is not "satin". It's gloss (just like in the photos). Mustard color is exactly like in the photos. Also, I'm pretty sure the neck is one of the "fat" necks that HB sells on their "Jr" models, because it's thicker than my DC-junior. Guitar weighs 6 pounds 14 ounces (almost 7 pounds). Looks like the body could be 2 or 3 pieces of mahogany glued together.

I'll be doing a full "set up" on this guitar later.. but I won't be changing much. Someone who knows nothing about setting up electric guitars could pull this out of the box, tune it up and play it with no changes.

Cons: This guitar is new and shiny and sparkly. It's covered with polyurethane and not nitro. So if you are looking for a vintage look, this is not the guitar for you.

Hats off to Harley Benton and Thomann regarding this guitar, quality control is spot on.

Update Dec 2020. This thing acoustically rings like a bell! My personal test of any electric guitar. You can always swap pickups... but if a guitar is dead you can't do much about it.

This guitar is "Alive"

My 2nd Harley Benton and again very happy i bought it.
Body: Really nice processed. No faults at all. Color isn't TV yellow but light brown leaning more to orange then yellow. No complaints - I like it.
Bridge: Ok. I had to file sharp edge on 6th saddle that was hurting my palm. Not a big deal. Design of the bridge is a little problematic if you only need to change one of the strings since pickup is very close to string holes. But I think most wraparound bridges have same issue.
Pickups: Ok but not so happy as I am with Roswell Filtertronics on Harley's FLT90 Telecaster. They sound decent but my ear missing something. Can't say exactly what. Always had trouble explaining sound to others. It's not so important since sound is very subjective thing. I'll just say that they don't match so well in my setup as the rest of pickups I already own (setup: Marshall JVM with 4x12 Greenbacks 25).
Elektronics: Great. Feels and works even better than on HB FLT90.
Neck & fretboard: Really nice. Feel and shape is almost the same as on my Gibson SG 2008. Really comfortable to play. Some frets needed sanding. No sharp edges - good job on fret ends. Fretboard was really dirty and all frets needed polishing but I am not counting that as a bad thing.
Nut: Not cut as it should but it's not a big deal.
Tuning machines: Great. They don't hold tune so well but that could be cause of the headstock design (eternal Gibson problem) or because of the nut not cuted as it should.

Why I gave 4 stars on quality?......Bridge desing is very high so you cannot raise pickups close to the strings. Because of that I had to put 8mm thick wood shimm, screw it underneat bridge pickup and drill holes through it for pickup screws. Now its posible to raise or lower bridge with ease. If any of you going to do the same you don't need 8mm shimm, 5mm thickness should be enough.

Would I buy HB again?.....Of course.

Rock on!