Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit T-Style

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.

After 4 months of build, I can write a few things. I'm intermediate guitar player, mainly playing alone/with friends just for fun. This was my first build and first tele.

First, if you're wondering if it's any good or if you can put it together, but you would like to try it.... Just buy and try it. It's great fun, quite well built, easy to assemble, and it sounds quite good.



Build quality
At first glance, you can see that the neck is made a level above the body. The frets are well measured, with no sharp edges. The whole neck is very smooth, it fits well in the hand. A plus for me was that you can give your own shape to the headstock.

The body consisted of 3 pieces, and I didn't like it enough to cover it with clear varnish. The body was already primed and quite smooth, but not as much as the neck. This is both a plus and a minus. Plus - you can go straight to painting. Minus - it seems to me that priming does not fill the pores decently. Therefore, when you cover with nitro varnish small holes come out. For me this was a plus, because I wanted to achieve a relic-style finish over time. However, if one wanted a perfectly smooth finish one would probably have to wipe off the primer, fill the pores, prime and then only paint (unless one knows better, I am a beginner in woodworking).

As I mentioned the body one mesh lower than the neck. Holes made with a hole saw have large splinters. This can be easily corrected with sandpaper. I also experienced one splinter in the primer, which was a bit harder to paint afterwards. This did not interfere with the installation. That's why 4/5.

Painting took me several days to apply several coats of nitro varnish, after each coat I waited for it to dry (I wasn't in the hurry, maybe you can do it faster). As I want to achieve a relic-style finish over time, I didn't buy an expensive varnish specifically for the guitar, but found a universal varnish at a local store. I did not protect it with an additional coat for the time being.

Just screwing the whole thing together took me 1-2 hours. All screw holes were well measured (I saw that in some egemlars people complained about this). I also decided to drill the body so that the strings could pass through (the bridge allows this solution as well, but also has holes if someone doesn't want to drill the body). The cables connected easily, but it was necessary to slightly bend the handle in the cable of the bridge pickup for it to work.

Setup and sound
As a beginner, setting up the string action and truss nod proved quite difficult and I had to try several times, but eventually I learned. It was problematic to set the strings because of the bridge (you can set 2 strings at a time, not each one individually), but this is typical of tele. It also seems to me that the zero fret (the nut) is not of the best quality and some light sawing may be necessary to set the string action. Other than that, the guitar tunes on all frets and that's the most important thing.


As for the sound - it depends on what your expectations are. The average pickups cost as much as the kit itself, so your expectations should be low, but they exceeded mine. Both pickups sound quite good (I especially like the neck pickup), but I have to admit that compared to the more expensive ones they are a bit muddled. I don't like the middle position - it sounds strange and 'plastic', although with some effect it can be interesting in the funk. Tuners are good, and hold the tune quite well. I play mainly jazz/ blues/ blues-rock and for this the pickups hold the overdrive quite well (those are single coils not humbuckers, so playing metal would sound quite specific). That's why sound 4/5.

It doesn't prevent you from having fun playing both alone and in a small band with friends. When I gave it to my guitarist friends to play and asked for a quote, the closest shot was 3x the actual price, the others were even more expensive.

All in all, it is not perfect equipment, matching guitars for hundreds or thousands. But I've been playing it about an hour a day since I put it together, and I have the enthusiasm to learn to play better again. It sounds quite good, tunes and holds tune, and can be played with pleasure.

In the long run, you can treat it as a project and replace the pickups, the note, and the bridge, tuners and so on.... But you can also have a lot of pleasure without these modifications.

Thanks if you have read so far and have fun if you decide to do so!

An overview of how the building of my Harley Benton telecaster kit went.

Step 1: Neck
I started with checking if the frets were level. They were playable but still needed some levelling. They were also very scratchy and the top was barely crownded.
I levelled, crowned and polished the frets.
Then I cut the headstock into shape, sanded it smooth and covered it with 6 coats of clearspray.

Step 2: Body
The body was very ruff and had a lot of dings and even a few holes in it.
I sanded it until it was perfectly smooth. Then I filled the holes, scratches, dings and woodgrain with wood filler and sanded everything smooth again. Next I applied 2 layers of primer and sanded everything smooth. After this I filled al the remaining holes and scratches again with woodfiller, after this, again I sanded everything smooth. Next I spraypainted the body with 6 layers of turquoise lacker and 3 layers of satin clearcoat.

Step 3: assembly
The tuners and string trees went in perfectly with no problem. The neck fitted perfectly in the neck pocked. The bridge, output jack cover, strap buttons and the plate with the switch and knobs also fitted perfectly.
The pickguard however not so much. The holes in the body didn't align with the holes in the pickguard. I drilled new holes in the body and now it fits. The pickguard does touch the plate with the pickup selector, this is not supposed to happen.

Step 4: setup
The tuners hold tune but are a bit difficult to tune with, they are a bit jumpy.
The bridge is easy to intonate but impossible to intonate 100% perfect because of it's design, but that was to be expected.
The nut of the guitar is cut to high, because of this the action is always high and the first few frets will sound out of tune. I am going to fix the nut later.
I had to adjust the pickup height a lot.

The result:
- Even with a 9-42 set of strings this guitar is very loud acoustically. It resonates more than any guitar I have ever played.
- The pickups sound remarkably good for such a cheap kit. I dont think I will change them anytime soon.
- The guitar plays very nicely, I expect it to play even better once I lowered the nut slots.
- The guitar holds tune good enough.
- The pickup selector is wobly and stiff. The volume knob is pressed against the metal plate it's atached to, this makes it imposible to operate it with 1 finger. It has to much friction. The tone knob works perfectly.

Conclusion:
The kit I got has a very good neck and body but the hardware is lacking. The hardware is functional, you could keep it, but I am probably going to upgrade it.
I have a feeling once I upgraded it this is going to be my favourite guitar.
Score:
Body and neck 9,5/10
Hardware 5/10
Pickups 8/10
Total 7,5/10


UPDATE:
I placed straplocks, upgraded the stringtrees and the nut to graptech, changed the tuners to harley benton locking tuners, placed compensated bridge sadles and placed a fender 4-way tele switch (I discovered that the original switch used the same pickup configuration in both position 1 and 2). I also maneged to fix the hard to turn volume knob.

After these upgrades this guitar is fenomenal. It holds tune very well and is very smooth to tune, it has sustain for ages, with the 4-way switch you have a lot of tonal options and it plays like butter.
It is my favourite guitar at the moment.

Score with upgrades:
Body and neck 9,5/10
Hardware 9/10
Pickups 8/10
Total 9/10

Брал, чтобы в коллекции появился Телекастер. Разница между этим комплектом и уже готовым телеком от HB составляла 600рублей, и если вы не хотите заморачиваться с кастомизацией, то лучше выбрать уже целый. Однако, в пользу DIY играет дерево корпуса - это индонезийский палисандр. Телекастеры из красного дерева это, как минимум, не обычно.
Из плюсов: цена, нестандартные материалы(корпус: палисандр, накладка: амарант); достаточно нестыдная фурнитура(не ждите чуда за эти деньги), приличный звук.
Минусы: надо заморачиваться со столярными работами; выпиливать голову, сверлить корпус для сквозной протяжки струн; наколки под саморезы для крепления пикгарда нанесены неточно, сам пикагрд надо подрезать в районе крепления грифа, струны сразу отнести на кухню - резать коржи, желе и другие мягкие продукты.
Но это, прямо скажем, мелочи.
Что в итоге? По факту вы получаете очень нестандартный телекастер из неплохой древесины за смешные деньги и фурнитурой, которую можно со временем поменять на более дорогую. Но даже в варианте из коробки это будет инструмент по уровню превосходящий SQUIER AFFINITY, а ценой в 4 раза дешевле.