Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit Single Cut

I purchased this kit, as I wanted an LP style guitar for the tone produced for recording some backing tracks, but had a limited budget. The result really surprised me. The veneer on the body is thin, so use minimum pressure when sanding. The finish is amazing. I am into natural finishes and so after a light sanding, just used thin clear varnish applied with a cloth. The result is quite stunning. A natural butterscotch with a light catching grain. It literally reflects light on stage in places.

The electrics are wrong. If left unchanged, the tone pots do not work. Five minutes with a soldering iron chnging one wire on each tone pot to the correct lug cured the problem. The cure is detailed on several reviews, so I won't bore you with repeating it hear. Once done, the volume and tone controls work very well indeed.

The back of the neck, I left as it came. The fine smooth varnish finish is perfect to play.

The only other problem was the nut. It came with the high E slot cut too near the edge. A replacement for under 2 euros cured the problem and allowed me to file it to the ideal depth.

The Frets were surpisingly good. After fitting the new nut, I set the neck to Gibson Les Paul specs and it plays perfectly. No buzz, surpringly low action. Can't ask for more.

The pickups are very acceptable, producing the rich creamy sound I was specifically after on the neck pickup, with the tone pot turned fairly down and very capable of the typical LP scream on teh bridge pick up if required. Sustain is amazing. In my opinion, a far superior performer to the Vintage/Revelation LP copies that cost 3 times the price.

The bridge is an obvious copy. Typical of a Chinese ebay replacement. I was lucky with mine, it works and I have left it on.

If I add the price of the nut and a set of D'addario 10's strings to replace the ones that came with it. I got the bargain of the century for under 100 Euros. I have played live, recorded 7 songs with this guitar and a professional performer (an ex-guitarist from Mott The Hoople) asked me if it was for sale. It isn't!

The wiring, bridge and the nut brought the quality rating down to Okay for the price. The rest is good.

So in short, if you want a good LP copy and are willing to spend 5 minutes resoldering, maybe a new nut and reasonable time setting up the neck carefully. go for it, you will not be disappointed. I reckon I would have to pay at least £500 to buy a ready made of equal playability. In fact, it has turned out to be a far superior performer to the Gibson Studio.

I have been as honest and detailed as I can. I hope this helps you.

i bought this kit several years ago, and intended to delay the review as i wanted to see if this guitar can stand the test of time, and frequent use. so i indeed bought one, and then assembled it, and kept it in its default configuration, including the finish, since after assembly. played the guitar for years on a daily basis for hours.

okay, fast forward three years, and here's what's happened to it.

1. the frets wore out. i had to refret it using harder frets.
2. the neck bowed a bit. i was rather baffled by this because i was only using standard 10-46's. it was made more evident when i used 10-52's. so i adjusted the truss rod while there was tension on the strings, and that fixed it, but then it had a bit of back bow with the strings removed. i just surmised that probably the neck was too soft.
3. the pickups sounded muddier. this was, more or less, a perception issue, and only got resolved when i replaced them with stock epiphone pickups that i had on hand. not to say that the stock pickups were bad, but for me, i felt that they weren't good either.
4. bridge saddles wore out fairly quick. this must've been caused by my hands as they keep rubbing with the saddles as i do my palm muting. i swapped the entire bridge with an aftermarket roller bridge, and bought a harley benton tailpiece to complement it.
5. pots started becoming scratchy after a few months. since they became so, i chose to buy log pots and replaced the linear ones installed in the kit. i recycled the stock capacitor, but i also intend to replace that down the line.
6. stock tuners went all over the place. you can't make the guitar stay in tune for too long with the stock tuners. there were also dead spots when turning the pegs, and that greatly affected the tuning. i replaced them with an old set of taylor tuners that i had on hand, and that worked wonders on the tuning.

three years on, the guitar is still working, and is still in its default unfinished state. i've never laid any paint or refreshed the sealer on the wood, as i liked how it looked as a barely finished guitar. my hope is to see it work for more years to come, hopefully outliving me too.

to sum it up, it's a very good starter kit for those who want to learn how to build, play and maintain guitars. for those seeking something more robust or something that requires less maintenance, then this might not be for you.

I wanted to take a Harley Benton SC-450Plus, but since the neck is glued, I was afraid for the integrity of the guitar during transportation - it was a bad experience, I decided to take a Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit Single Cut Electric Guitar Kit SC-Style for experiments and training to play the guitar.

Before starting to build the Guitar Kit, I had to do an additional polishing of the guitar body, so. it was sanded poorly, I found 3 small defects - furrows from the grinding tool. I do not understand why the manufacturer covers the guitar body with a sealant (as it is written in the description, in fact it is some kind of varnish ), and then
finish polishing, spoiling the coating at the same time? I wish he hadn't. I had to finish polishing small defects myself. After that, I wanted to soak the stain under the mahogany, but this was prevented by the sealant applied by the manufacturer, it would be very long and difficult to remove it until the end, so I covered the guitar body in 3 layers with a transparent polyurethane varnish matte - silky. It turned out very well.

The neck was in good condition, very smooth, only the edges of the frets were sharpened so that they did not cut the fingers. Without modification, only by adjusting the anchor, it was possible to adjust the height of the strings above the 12th fret of the 1st - 1.8 and the 6th - 2 mm.
The color overlays of the Fretboard is different from the pictures on the site - it came to me in black.
Tuners have small heads, and have a backlash, to adjust the tone of the string in one movement will not work. they were disassembled and stuffed with thick silicone grease - they began to work a little better.
The upper bridge has insufficient cuts, they had to be deepened a little to adjust the height of the string above the 1st fret.

The strings were immediately put by Harley Benton Value string sEL 9-42, the strings are normal, no worse than the d'addario from the set on the HB-35 Plus, the winding is tight, the sound is pleasant, the mood is kept. I haven't put the strings from the kit yet, I can't say anything about them, but they look the same as HB EL 9-42, only the
lower ball of the string holder with a hole diameter is slightly larger.

Humbuckers disassembled and brought out the ends wire with a shielded wire, for coil split.
The total resistance of the each Humbuckers is about ~ 10.6 kOhm, each coil is ~ 5.3 kOhm.
The volume controls should be A500K and the timbre B500K-they are mixed up in places, just like on my other HB-35Plus guitar (the Chinese assemblers do not understand this).
The Volume controls were replaced with the A500K with push/pull function for coil split, and the Tone controls with the B500K with push/pull function for change phase.

The frames of the humbuckers do not correspond to the curvature of the top, their bottom had to be polished.

After completion finishing KIT's "file", the assembly of the guitar was no longer particularly difficult, except for soldering the electrical part of the humbuckers, regulators and switches. Here I had to turn on the brain and check different options for turning on the pick-up coils.
The following coil switching modes were made: - humbucker, split-coil, parallel-coil, change phase-coil.

The result is a Les Paul type guitar, in a natural wood color with a very interesting sound.I like the sound, you can do any timbre like on a Stratocaster with singles like on a sitar, or Les Paul, or a muddy 60s sound. Sustain is surprisingly good for neck bolt in. The guitar is not heavy and comfortable. Playing the rhythm and solos on it is a pleasure, bends and vibrato are easy to do.

I want to thank the Thomann team for the pleasure they gave me when assembling the Guitar KIT, the kit turned out to be quite good for self-assembly, but somewhat expensive
against the background of the finished Harley Benton SC-200 BK Student Series guitar, which became even cheaper, which is very strange, given the shortcomings of the kit:
insufficient quality and precision of manufacturing the components of the set, the need to refine and self-assemble the guitar. Please take this into account and draw the right conclusions.

So I bought this as a entry into creating the guitar that suits me perfectly (or as close as perfect gets).
As is always the case with anything I buy from Thomann this arrived extremely quickly considering it was close to Christmas, and it arrived in perfect condition in that the box was undamaged and the same shape it left the factory.
All the pieces were there, all packaged well and looked neat and tidy.
However, I was led to believe that this had been grain filled and annoyingly after primer and first couple of coats of paint it became apparent that this was not the case. This is the reason for four out five stars on quality.
I really hate not giving full star ratings because I'm not picky do I understand that whatever I am rating is relevant to the products cost. Of course this isn't a Gibson but HB guitars are really good so I was expecting something that is better quality than the price suggests.
The body had a nice grain so would have looked good on the back and sides with a decent stain be it clear or coloured.
The neck is nice and straight and didn't need adjusting when the whole guitar was setup.
The hardware (tuners, bridge) are really nice, sturdy and look great.
I didn't install the pickups simply because I wanted a particular set of Epiphones in, so the decision was not based on the quality of those supplied. But they look good and I have HB guitars that still the pickups in so I love the sound that even their budget pups kick out.
Overall, this is a great project guitar that can be almost anything you want it to be.
Frustratingly though... Arg! The lack of grain filler and the fact it is sold as having the treatment!
I will buy another, probably a bass, but bear in mind that it needs grain filler. I'm going on about it because it was frustrating at the time, however I'm quite taken by the effect that comes through beneath the clear coat so I could have been really mean and docked it two or three stars as I'm there are people who would.
Anyway, finished project had Daphne Blue on the front, Vintage White on the sides and back, clear coat and all in nitrocellulose. Epiphone pickups was the other extra.
All in it came to around £160.

Harley Benton SC Guitar Kit.
This kit was purchased to review the quality, fit and finish of the Thomann HB kits, then to use the kit as a platform for and extreme modification project.

The kit arrived a few months ago, and has now been opened, reviewed and initial assembly completed.
Please keep in mind, this is a ± $92 US, guitar KIT, it is not a finished guitar and likely has a different QC process than does a finished guitar.
A few examples of QC would be attention to the fret ends, the fit of the neck plate, potential electronic wiring issues, and some discrepancies in the parts bags.

NECK & BODY:
In general, the body and neck are very well made for a "semi-raw" wood kit. The body has an initial sealer coating applied, it is a clear coating only to control the wood fibers slightly. It is not a filler, nor level coating, just a sealer of some sort.
The neck is coated with a satin finish, but is far more refined than the body. The neck could be used as delivered on a completed guitar. The body is rather rough, and should be refined through sanding and other sealer and finish methods.
The dual-action truss rod works well.

FRETBOARD & FRETS:
The fretboard and inlays look good and well manufactured, however it appears a final sanding set was skipped. The fretboard has a slight coarseness to the feel, like the final sanding was done with 100 grit material. The frets are reasonably well set, and this is the first HB guitar that I have seen some sort of glue used with the frets. The fret ends should be addressed before doing any assembly work on this kit, as the guitar I received will slice your hands to pieces. The jagged fret ends are everywhere, nearly every fret. The fret wire will also need to be cleaned, and polished. There is some fine gritty coating on the wire, with fretted notes or bends this coating, or film, will be evident.
When the frets are leveled, crowned and polished this issue will be moot.

TUNERS:
These are rather low quality items. The only reason I say this is because at least one of the 6 in my kit are bad. In general the others function well, there is some slop in the string post, but otherwise the tuning button shaft works well, except for that 1 tuner. The one bad tuner is bound up and will barely turn. I will be replacing the entire set of tuners.

PICKUPS:
The pickups are wax potted, and marked N, for neck, and B for bridge.
Both pickups have single, two wire leads which include the plug ends. The Neck pickup has a "white" sheathed lead, and the Bridge has a "black sheathed lead (on my kit). The Electronics have matching coloring - so it should go together intuitively - It should.

ELECTRONICS:
The supplied switch has a good positive feel and is prepped with Plug-n-play connectors. Of course the plug-n-play feature fails as the kit can easily be connected incorrectly. So, some shuffling of connectors may be required. This kit is likely intended for someone who may not have soldering equipment, and the presumed "ease" of plugging components together will likely help sales. I expect some purchasers to experience frustration if they connect the switch leads in the wrong pairing - they may get NO sound…
The pots volume and tone all function as they should, and once I swapped a couple connectors all components worked properly.
The wiring feeds easily threw the routed passages in the body. There is ample wire length on each component. In fact, there is almost too much wire included.

BRIDGE & STOP TAIL:
These are typical low cost TOM style bridge components. The quality is average, and some "repair" may be needed on the bridge. My bridge had an issue with the retainer springs that hold the saddle screws in place. 2 of the 4 springs needed to be removed, slightly bent to improve tension, and reassembled. Not a big deal, but the bridge would be a serious issue without this adjustment/repair.
This is not the first HB TOM bridge that I've had to adjust in this way, it seems to be a rather typical issue, but easily resolved.

VARIOUS HARDWARE & COMPONENTS:
As the kit comes, there are a few little bags containing all the bits and pieces. You should do an inventory of all the screws, washers and parts that you receive in the kit before beginning assembly. My kit arrived a couple washers short, but has a few extra trim screws.

FLAW:
Even for a $92 US kit, the biggest flaw I can't overlook is the poor fit of the neck mounting plate. At a glance it looks nice and appears to be contoured to match the cut of the body, but that is NOT the case.
It seems like it is the wrong neck plate for this guitar. The holes all align with the body and neck, the screws all seat properly, but the end of the plate doesn't follow the body shape. The neck plate protrudes beyond the body contour slightly, but obviously wrong.
Perhaps Thomann/Harley Benton changed a template at one time and this was overlooked, or the Mfg just shipped the wrong part, I don't know.
It works, but looks - wrong.

TAKEAWAY:
The overall collection of "parts" is pretty good, there are some flaws in the bits and pieces, but this is an affordable/ cheap kit. It is honestly better than any kit I've worked on at slightly higher prices. So, I have to give Thomann and HB credit for a good attempt, it's almost right.
This may not be a great kit for someone with NO tools or troubleshooting ability, but it can be turned into a decent guitar. It will just take some work.

I bought this kit to learn about guitar, try out different setups, change stuff here and there and try to fix something on my own. And this kit is solid thing for that. In my personal view it's a 4 star kit that can be changed to 5 star guitar with some work on your own.
So let me rate it like this after playing for some time
Tuners - 3 /5 - regular tuners, does the job but some are stiffer, some are weaker , other than that they work
Nut - 4/5 - pretty solid slots , (A) string seem bit too low, so I might change to new nut someday, but it's decent - usable and playable
Fretboard - 4 / 5 - It's smooth, don't really feel much of a sharp fret ends and they are pretty great up until 12 fret - after that definitely need some work to be done to set decent action .
Body - 5 / 5 - amazing body, smooth, no holes or scratches , pretty beautiful looking . Knobs fit well and looks good too
Cavity covers - 4 / 5 - both slightly out of shape just as the screw holes for them
Pickups - 3,5 / 5 - they not bad, they sound pretty good and like les paul should, but they also are pretty weak . I needed to crank up my amp settings way more than I do on any other guitar.

Overall it's a beautiful guitar, You get what you paid for and with some work and good setup it will be amazing axe to have fun! P.S. - The base setup after assembling the kit was actually good !! Just not my preferred one

Here's the final result and description of the process:



Unfortunately, the front pliers were kinda ugly...not a nice top as in the picture. That said the end results came out awesome.

If you plan to stain the wood as I did, be aware that the wood sealer will be a PAIN to sand down. (would be better if they provided kits without any sealer) ..is specially difficult on the sides.

Overall, after sanding the wood has responded nicely to the dye, no problems at all with that. Went for Turquoise on the front and Red on the back, quite nice!

The neck is quite good! thin and the wood is quite robust. The hardware is also good, but I'm replacing the tuners with Grovers.

The bridge, well...really not the best, you can see is gonna catch the string after a bend....so I'm replacing it with a Göldo roller bridge. Be aware that the Göldo comes with smaller studs, so you'll need to redrill or fill the gap with something (I'm gonna use bits from a hose from a talkbox, it works perfectly)

I'm right now in the lacking process, so I cannot review the sound yet....I expect it to be more or less like my vintage Harley Benton which sounds lovely.

UPDATE:

I just finished the project.

Some tips:

- The nut comes REAL high! I suggest you to get a ruler and measure your best set guitar, take the nut out of the neck of this kit and carefully sand it down until is right...DONT TOUCH THE SLOTS they're perfect, is only the nut that is pretty high...otherwise you'll have intonation problems mostly on the first fret.

Hell, is almost impossible to properly play a bar chord at the first fret if you don't do that, after the nut is lowered the guitar plays like heaven.

- Try to avoid using the tuners and bridge that comes with it. They're simply not the best (good but there are better). Get a Göldo roller bridge and some Grover mini tuners.

- Use a piece of guitar string to be able to easily pass the cables that goes from the control cavity to the switch cavity.

- Don't forget to ground the electronics to the strings via the ground cable that goes to the bridge stud.

- Mark the cables before unplugging the switch. If you get lost install it all and plug the guitar then use a piece of metal (rounded small wrench works) and carefully tap the pickups to know whats going on until is right.

- Don't forget to lub the nut with graphite.

UPDATE: I've installed a locking nut and a Schaller stoptail with microtuners. Best decision ever!

UPDATE 2: Changed the original pickups which are very dull to a pair of Seymour Duncan hot rodded kit. They sound awesome.

Great experience, if you are looking forward to having something really yours to put your heart and soul into, go for any of the kits. I received mine in April, was preliminary done in a week and been playing around with several bursts and finishes but completely done since beginning of June. 360-400 grid paper is your best friend for the body if you want to try a couple of faces for your Axe but be smooth with the sanding.
Friends, family and wife actually think I have been sabotaging my own work to keep at it and I have to humbly say yes, mea culpa, I did sabotage amazing finishes just to be able to do it again, stain, stain, stain! Now I am happy with this last face so she will remain with her purple burst for a long while I hope.
All works perfectly fine, I was a bit unlucky with one easy connector from Pot to Switch was lose. It took Thomann but a couple of days to send me the entire circuit, switch included. Many thanks since it now sounds great with her two humbuckers and no “humming bird colony” singing along in the background….great service but I think that is a common denominator amongst all these reviews, keep up the great work you are doing Thomann.
Quality of all items is perfect for the task and price at hand. You can always just include your old matching electronics and/or mechanics but with what you get, you are ready to rock! If you find the tuners are not as high quality, get a good synthetic lubricant, take them all apart and give them a day in the Spa ….the nut I have no idea what It could be but with a pencil you just lubricate it nicely….
Body was excellent, thick nice wood to stain with Angelus Leather Dyes, the top is thick enough to play around since you can still sandpaper a lot before messing up. This is a total danger for guitar bodies with a thin veneer…..would look nicer but we would probably sand through veneer quite easily so body as received is perfect…..anyhow please consider internally a Premium body Kit with doubled maple top with unfinished-unsealed wood, to avoid sandpaper problems from source….if you guys are selling these kits already like candy at the school entrance…..imagine if an upgraded kit or body was available to purchase with flamed maple tops…..for a fair price of course.
Mechanics and electronics are also ok, the easy connectors make life much easier, especially if no experience with soldering…..If you can solder though, go for it, the quality of sound will improve I think since these connectors are not as reliable as a real soldered connection but that is a fact, not a quality issue. Still very happy with content. As mentioned I had to play with only one humbucker since one connector was lose and C. Care send me urgently a set of pots and switch.
Once everything was done and I had extensively played it, I took the guitar yesterday for fine tuning to a friend and now it does really sound like a true beast. Amazing, I am actually extremely happy with the sound and feeling. A tank of a guitar.
If any challenges when wiring, the website for the product has pictures in color where you can see easier the position of volume or tone pots as well as clear pic of what goes where and how. A bit of patience and you are done!
I only changed the nut for a Graphite one and to Knuson turners, not by any means top of the line but definitively a good upgrade
Would like to suggest to consider anyone purchasing the kit to put aside some part of your budget on quality consumables such as paints, dyes, sprays and finishes……they are not cheap so just make your peace with it and stay away from low quality consumables and special offers that will make you buy at least twice…….read, check videos and try to learn where you need, will be easier afterwards. I could now stain almost any burst and finish a guitar in no time, drying time aside.
Enjoy your time during the build and don’t rush it, you will experience each little achievement as a battle won and you will be safer by letting things dry as they should and a bit longer just to be sure
Big thanks to all at Thomann!