Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit CST-24

From pros - yes,it is it - your ticket to PRS like guitar build. Due to choice of meranti wood for body it sounds incredible. Lets say - all is good, except:
- significant neck dive (light meranti body vs very thick maple neck) - incurable;
- tom stopbar was put in the kit instead of wraparound bridge;
- upper bevel cut made deeper that on a photos;
- brown protective sealant - I ubderstood why its there - to protect wood... but it takes so much time to sand it off that pleasure from kit almost vanishes due to it;
- scale length is 24 3/4, not 25.

Would I still buy it again - probably yes.

I bought this kit for £77 because I couldn't afford the ready made guitar at £220. I was giving my mind a treat about my abilities to stain and finish the guitar though. I didn't sand the sealer off enough so the stain applied unevenly too late to fix so I just went with the resulting Cobalt blue satin.
The quality of the components was nice - the best being the neck - the frets are amazing no sharp edges and no tooling marks and it feels fast and smooth(I didn't paint it or do anything to in case I spoiled the feel). Everything fit together perfectly and worked first time(except I put the Volume and Tone pots in the wrong place-but I like it so I left it that way). I changed the supplied wrapround bridge for a slightly better wrapround with individual string adjustment £10 from Ebay. The action and intonation were incredibly almost perfect on first set up. Beginners luck I guess. I don't know what make the pickups are but, wow! I just love the sound - they have a definite quack to them and the sustain is great. The finished guitar weighs just 5.75lbs so on a par with a Strat nd the belly scoop means it feels really comfortable as well.
To sum up - wow I love this guitar - it's right up there with my Epiphone Les PAul Standard which cost 8 times more. Very happy.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied, my biggest complain is that my kit was missing the truss rod cover.

Assembly is easy, some of the holes are slightly misaligned and require a bit of pushing/pulling to get the screws in but no major work was necessary to make it work. Took me 3 hours while taking my time.

The frets are pretty rough at first but after a bit of playing and bending they get smooth. Manufacturing-wise the neck is all good, no sharp frets or rough spots. The same thing can be said about the body.

As the title says, my biggest complain is the missing truss rod cover. Other than that, the instructions could be more specific, figuring out which screws to use could be a pain for somebody with no experience.

A thing that isn't mentioned on the product page is that you get TWO pairs of pick-ups; covered and uncovered humbuckers - it was a really nice surprise!

I don't regret my purchase and would buy it again because the guitar looks amazing.

Basically a decent beginner instrument and great to learn how to build one. It would not become my guitar of choice though! Instructions are OK, but if you have NO experience putting it together, the wiring, despite being clip-together, is not very clear. The earth wire took some sorting out since no instruction was offered and it was too late to earth to the saddle once I'd figured it out. The end result looks decent - I used a tru-oil finish - and sounds ok (D’Addairio new strings, but I'll end up changing the humbuckers and the pots if I keep it. It was my second build, and went better than my first, but I think I'll try for a pricier kit next time around. The neck is fine and the intonation and action are OK.

I've modified most of my guitars. I can do electronics and basic guitar set up. This was my first kit build.

The good and bad: The woodwork fit and finish is excellent. The frets are well smoothed. The binding is very good. It arrives ready for primer and paint coat. If you want plain wood finish you could have this built and playing in four hours.

I swapped the tuners, bridge and electronics for better items. The pickups are actually good but too loud and bright for me. I worked the fret ends slightly.

I decided to stain it rather than paint. Warning: You need to sand the sealer off before staining. Seriously, it needs a lot of sanding before the stain goes on easily. It took two attempts but I'm pleased with the result.