Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit Single Cut

The price dictates the overall quality of this instrument, and that is why all of the problems it came with shouldn't be an issue, but potential new clients should know about these possible problems.

At a first glance, everything seemed ok out of the box.
3 or 4 piece body, with 2 piece neck with a roseacer fretboard (ugly and cheap substitute for rosewood)

The hardware is basic mass produced of cheapest and lowest quality possible, tuners feeling pretty decent for the price.

However after trying a test for playability (neck mounted, bridge, tailpiece, tuners and strings) a big problem arised.
The factory process of sanding the top has been made incorrectly, the convex part of the body top was offset to the overall placement of the strings, bridge and tailpiece. This made the bushings for the bridge and tailpiece be on a different height to each other making setup a bit difficult and look awkward aesthetically.

Playability however isn't such a big issue and most of people can overlook this issue. The frets felt very rough when sliding the strings across them, should need a polish before assembling the guitar.
The neck had a shim glued to the underside of the neck joint, to lift it up to Les Paul style playability (making the neck to stay at an angle). The wood used to make the shim was of
a different type, and could be very visible even to the uninitiated.

Overall, going by the popular saying "you get what you pay for" is very true in this particular case.

Well, this is in fact my second HB guitar kit. I first purchased the T-style kit, which was quite acceptable. With some upgrades (better pickups and pots, and good strings), it could in fact be a better guitar than my cheap Strat that costs 4 times that price... I know you only get what you pay for, but I'm quite happy with what I got with the T-style kit: a playable guitar that sounds good "as is" and can be upgraded later.
But this LP-style kit is really disappointing ! The electronics is awfull, the pots are "ON/OFF" style and the wiring is completely wrong in the box. The neck is awfull too: some frets raising above the others (not compl. set down in the cut), generating a terrible buzzing sound (especially on the lower E string on my kit), and the nut is so high that it's quite impossible to play open chords because of an incredibly high action at the end of the neck. As I said, "you only get what you pay for", but this time, I feel like I paid too much for an unusable kit... :(

Well, I'm a handyman, and a bit stubborn too... I already solved some of the wiring problems (pickup switch) and will have to re-solder some good pots, but I'll try first to solve the neck problems, which could be a lot more tricky...
If the final result is not playable, this guitar will end up with a paint job on the wall... but that was not my first intention. :(

i may have to deal with a defective piece but
BODY WOOD : outside surface was nice and smooth,but EVERY cavity was full of splinters...had to sand quite a lot to make it at least bearable...on the neck cavity there was some sort of hole,that was filled up with glue and wood chips and was not sanded down at all....
ELECTRONICS : way too much wire for one guitar....could barely fit it into the cavities...i liked the way they have made it so that you dont have to solder anything...but one of the wire broke on the soldered connection and i had to reconnect it with some more wire...overall not bad electronics.....
SCREWS : this was a nightmare....i had to re-drill almost EVERY screw hole....the pickup frames,the keys on the headstock....almost everything....
PLASTICS : they had a really cheap feel....but not bad....what bothered me was that the control cavity cover was not cut the right way and doesnt have a good fit....
NECK-BODY JOINT : i really dont know what to say about this.....since the guitar is a curved top,the fretboard should be parallel to the body's angle where they connect.....on mine they are not....i could really stick my finger under the strings and still not touch them....i have to fill the screw holes on the neck,make a new angles piece that will be stuck on the neck joint,and then re-join them...
OVERALL : if you dont mind having some real work to do besides a simple assembly its nice....otherwise its a bit too messy