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.

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

I am an experienced guitar player, but never have built a guitar. I have always wanted to so this kit, even with shipping to the US (I bought two) was very reasonable.

I purchased this guitar because I am also into 3d printing, and the company Prusa 3d released the "Prusa Caster" which is based on this kit. The general idea is that you 3d print the body of the guitar parts instead of using the wood body. Everything else is used (neck, tuners, all electronics, etc.).

I did not do anything fancy with this guitar other than assemble it, but used the 3d printed parts (which are glued and took about 80 hours of printing). The only issue that I ran into is that one of the heads of the screws broke, even while I was using a hand screwdriver. I had to use a left handed drill bit to remove the screw. The screw quality seems to be low. Definitely take your time screwing in and don't be in a hurry. Luckily, there were enough spare screws that it didn't matter.

After the assembly, I did notice the top string was buzzing and I spent quite a bit of time adjusting the neck and then setting the string height on the bridge, and then adjusting the intonation also on the bridge. It took me about an hour to get everything to a point that I would consider "good enough".

I noticed that other reviewers mention the need to adjust the nut and fret. I think that is a good idea and wish I had read the reviews first so I knew to check this. I may look into this adjustment for the future.

Conclusion: I am used to playing $1000+ guitars. This is definitely not as good out of the box, so make sure you have realistic expectations. If you are a skilled guitar builder I think you could do a lot to make this a great guitar. I have no complaints about the sound or pick up, they sound as good as a real Fender Strat in my opinion. The best part about this guitar kit is you can say you built it and have the proud feeling of doing that, and make it whatever you want.

I have to say I ordered this kit not expecting much of it. I just wanted to play around with it to see if I can get a guitar that plays. I got much more than I expected. I actually use the guitar with my band and the fact that I assembled it myself makes for a great story. I'm not a professional, but still. I don't see myself as much of a handyman but I love building stuff and I've built stuff like furniture (much to my wife's dismay).
I'd say that assembling the guitar is a little more difficult than building Ikea furniture but much more fun.

PROS
* The most attention was given to (IMO) the most important part of the guitar - the neck. It still shows that it is a neck of a cheap guitar but it works
* Maybe I was lucky with the kit I got but I only had to adjust action and then the guitar's intonation was great. The neck is straight, frets at the position they are supposed to be - no need for truss rod adjustment or bridge adjustment. That got me really surprised because I generally have to do the adjustments to every new guitar I get.
* The pickups work surprisingly well for the price - they do hum, they're singles, I guess. I expected I would have to replace them but now I'm kinda on the fence whether that is really necessary.
* It's a solderless kit - makes for an easier build. I actually do own multiple soldering irons, so I wouldn't mind that, but it can be a great deal for someone not experienced in that particular field
* Although the wood isn't the greatest quality, it actually resonates really well and has a surprisingly good tone

CONS
* Some of the pre-drilled holes are drilled rather unprecisely. The ones belonging to the bridge (where it really counts) were OK, but you have to make your peace with the fact.
* The pickups would hum less if there were some shielding
* The manual won't tell you which screws to use for what. But it can actually be fun figuring it yourself (which was my case)

REMARKS
* You should paint the guitar. The wood is sealed quite nicely. I used 3 coats of color lacquer and 2 coats of colorless lacquer (I used a brush, I really can't use spray paint in a flat, especially with two small children)
* You should cut the head. The original doesn't look too good and could make the guitar head-heavy
* Okay, the wood on the body isn't the greatest but let's be reasonable

SUMMARY
If you are a guy or a girl who likes to build stuff, challenge themselves and likes electric guitars, go for this kit. It was a great experience, I learned a lot about electric guitars, e.g. that there is a reason that the Tele design stood the test of time.

I put it together after I painted it with a brush to give it an antique look and I love it ever since. Too bad the pickups are not great quality. But what would you expect for such a price? :D You can change those pickups anyways. They have a pretty big background sound especially if hands are not touching the electronics. And the tuning keys are kind of crappy, but hey... I am using it at home for my studies, so I would not wear the frets on the other guitars, and honestly I am reaaaaalllyyyy enjoying this guitar.
Oh... and I recorded and compared all my guitars and found out these pickups have a lower output than the rest of my guitars. Hope that information helps someone out there.

First off the actual kit is fine and you get a lot for your money. Most of the work is already done for you so it's pretty easy to put together. I built a book case the same day as I built this and actually found putting the Guitar together easier and less stressful!

The assembly guide is a bit rubbish though.

The kit comes with a variety of screws but doesn't tell you which to use where. It just says something like "screw in the pickguard" - do I use the big screws, the little ones? The other little ones? Most of the parts were supposed to be individually wrapped and I think the screws were probably supposed to be wrapped up with their corresponding parts but the plastic bags in my kit had come open and a lot of the screws, washers and machine heads were floating around loose in the box.

It'd be really helpful for the instructions to give each screw type a letter and then eg tell you "screw down the pickguard with screws A".

The instructions tell you to screw in the string tree (singular) but the kit has two string trees with 2 different height spacers. Not very helpful. I was able to work it out by looking at some pics of Telecasters online.

These problems are insurmountable. I was still able to put it together fairly quickly but just a bit more care in the instructions would make this a fantastic product.

The actual parts are all fine. There not top of the range and I think I'll probably upgrade the tuners and pickups but they're definitely serviceable already. The neck is fine - the frets may need some attention (seems ok though), which is fine as it's an opportunity to learn. Honestly the body looks great. It's 3 parts but they're matched pretty well and the top looks quite nice.

I was planning on painting it but I quite like how it looks out of the box.


One common complaint I've read is that the pickguard screw holes don't match up with the holes on the body. Mine lined up pretty much spot on - infact everything lines up fine on it.

No holes drilled for the jack socket cover which is a bit annoying but not a huge deal.

The bridge is a 3 saddle one which makes correct intonation hard/impossible but isn't necessarily "bad" - a lot of telecaster fans prefer the sound of a 3 saddle bridge.

It cost less than £50 which for a guitar is nothing really so I'm very happy with it. I think it's a good kit to learn with and gives you an ok platform to upgrade.

Bought this kit as I love tinkering with my guitars and been wanting a tele-shaped guitar for a while.

Everything in the box was packed neatly and the visible parts of the guitar were in pretty good nick. The main drawbacks when assembling the guitar were that almost all of the pre-drilled were out of alignment, and not by a millimeter. The first thing I did was fill them all in with wooden dowels which allowed me to correct the alignment.

The electronics were all replaced and I was pleasantly surprised by how roomy the control cavity was; allowing me to install large-sized pots, The neck went on next, and was very disappointed with the fitment. There's about a millimeter gap on the side that needed some attention with a thin wooded sliver glued into place and a bit of truss rod adjustment

Next was the tuners which seem to be decent for what they are. I figured I'd use the strings that were supplied with the kit to set up the guitar but that failed miserably; two strings snapped whilst I was tuning them with the high E string drawing blood from my finger as it snapped. I guess this guitar wanted a blood sacrifice of some sort. A set of Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinkies did the trick and it was time to plug it in.

All in all, it's not a bad buy and for the price, you really can't go wrong. It's a good starting point for anyone wishing to understand more about guitar mechanics and fine-tuning. I guess keeping all the original hardware is possible but you will definitely want to spend some money on upgrades.

UPDATE - jsut spent a weekend together with my new build. How to say..., well, my Gibson SG standard is without any use ;) i felt n love with my tele. Sounds great, Elixir strings = huge and wonderfull difference compare to kit string set. Shiedly applied , done with alu foil, connected to earth black cable which is a part of original wiring. There is not better guitar within this pricerange. Tunning machineheads are a bit Sh@tty, but holds in tune surprisigly well. I cant believe it is a standard quality, i m sure, i must have some accidentaly amazing piece of wood or what, because such a sound for such a price is impossible. I m going to buy another kit , different guitar model , to get better view of Thoman kit guitars. THIS TELE WORH 10X EACH PENNY. iT S A PITTY, THAT i CANT SHARE A PICTURE ;)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
great fun when building, great fun when in use. Suprisingly presice fit, straight neck., well done.
Pro:
chep, new, precise, completely mine ;)
Con:
guitar body covered by thin layer of lack , what needs to be removed, when staining is intended. This lack cover is average quality level. some drops and also not the same rhickness everywhere. But we buy it as DIY right? No other cons detected.

There is no other guitar within this pricerange.
thx Thomann ;)

Ok so I did things a little bit diffrent, I used only the guitar head and electronics and not the body because I was 3d printing the body.
and I gotta say something the guitar looks and play even better than I thought in as cheap as this price!

This became my favorite guitar also because it is so nice looking because you can make it however you would like or stay with the wooden which is also looking very cool. but also because when you build something the product is much more fun to use and get you some pride we all want (:

my only complaint is that the instructions weren't the best and could be better if every single step will be explained because it is hard to follow it without very good building mind. but thats all I reccomend to everyone you should really buy it!