Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit ST-Style

I bought this kit to build a fully piezo solid body guitar with nylon strings. To do that I used the body,neck and tuners from this kit, and I bought a blank pickguard and a piezo pickup system that I fit to the bridge. The result is a bit in the vein of Ben Woods' Nylocaster (check this guy out). He doesn't take international orders unfortunately, but ..while I can't play guitar like him, I can surely build guitars like him. And I did- and I liked it.
The kit came to me in a good shape, despite the box being crushed in transit and probably used in a couple of football matches as a ball . The packaging was resistant enough that the parts arrived undamaged. The neck finish.. well let's say it needs a bit of fret end polish, but not much, the fretboard itself needed a bit of lemon oil but came alive afterwards. The nut was good on this one, and the tuners precise although not the best of their ilk (still a little play remains present in their mechanism but they do not slip). The body needs special attention in regarding finishing. Some paints do not like the wood sealant here and it needs to be taken down, or special finishing products must be used. I did not, I simply applied pigment suspended in mineral oils and it somehow stuck for a slightly transparent red finish. A sort of lacquer would have also worked - and I think of applying a lacquer on top of that if it would take. We'll see . Knowledgeable folks please tune in. The manual states take the wood sealant off and then paint or just lacquer directly. I went a third way, leaving the sealant on (roughing it up with a 800 grit first and then wiping with a moist cloth several times to get rid of dust) and then applying some so-called "gun stock oil" but before that I threw in it a few grams of powdered red pigment I got in an arts store. To my shame I don't know/remember what it was called exactly, it was a beautiful carmine powder that I bought in an unmarked bag (the original came in very large containers and I only needed two spoonfuls of the stuff). Akin to glow powder but it doesn't glow...The thing was easily mixed in and applied, resulting in a red-orange sticky goo that could be applied and dried in two days. The following layers (up to 5) were clear (no powder) and it worked okay, over a week and a half or thereabouts.
Then I mounted the ebay found piezo bridge for strat - Brenner Piezo One- the same as the old nylocasters that were based on Squier bodies actually.
So how I do know about the sound and why (only?) four stars? I had another incomplete guitar that was a testbed of sorts and it got the loaded pickguard and jack from this kit. The sound is good but the low end is a bit missing- and the jack is made of thin metal sheet that did bend after a couple of tests.. Fixed, replaced the jack with a Switchcraft eventually. The pickups themselves are ok, their sound is good, but the lack of low end was fixed by switching the tone cap! It was the value not the quality. Do your tests and try and see what you like best: 0.47 mfd for glassy highs a la 50's , a bit brittle but sometimes exactly what you want, 0.22 uf for standard mellow sound and maybe 0.1 uF for the brave and fearless who want to cut all highs and let the mid and low range shine...

The body is made up of three pieces of wood and is very light. However, it is surprisingly resonant. On mine, the grain and width of the two outer sections match perfectly. The centre section has a very straight and contrasting fine grain. As I have varnished the body using rub on thinned varnish after hand sanding all over with 400 and 600 sandpaper, the grain shows through and looks good. The result is an ?aged, natural? look, which is precisely what I was looking for. So for me, it is very pleasing aesthetically.

The neck is a perfect and very tight fit into the body pocket. It is an even better fit than the two other Harley Benton kits I have built (Single Cut and TL) and I was very pleased with both of those. The rosewood finger board is smooth and blemish free. The frets are very level for the price range. Only one fret (4th) being slightly high. A quick sand and polish sorted out the problem. The slots in the nut all wanted additional filing to lower the strings for good action and ensure intonation. The groove positioning was perfect. This extra work has resulted in a good low action and enabled me to set the guitar up to Fender strat specifications. Remember you have to shape the head stock yourself. I used a router to cut a strat style shape without a problem. The back of the neck finish is very smooth and only has a light matt varnish. Left as it is, which I have done, it is a perfect smooth playing action. I would question how long the varnish will last though, before sanding and refinishing is necessary. All in all the neck is very good and well worth a little time and effort to get perfect.

As far as the pre-drilled holes go, only the low E tuner retaining screw was slightly out of place. All the others were okay, so no serious complaint, but as it was out by approximately a screw width, I had to plug the original hole and re-drill, as I was concerned the screw may not grip if I just left it.

The scratch plate needed slight sanding on the low E side of the neck in order to get a good fit. It does look good with the gold lettering on the volume/tone controls. The electrics worked well. The pickups are bright, but not very powerful. Setting up as close to the strings as specs allow is recommended. However I found the overall tone to be as good as a Squier, so at this price range, no complaints. To suit my personal taste, the neck pickup could be warmer, but this is personal and not everyone may agree.

The tremolo fitted well, but in my opinion could do with a larger block which would most likely improve sustain. Once again at this price range, perfectly acceptable.

The strings need to be replaced. After using them for setting up, I changed them for D?addario 9 ? 42?s. This made a vast improvement to tone. Definitely change the strings!

Without tweaking, this guitar is better than the cheap range Strat copies, which are twice the price. The neck is worth putting in a little extra effort as the overall quality is very good and if you put the effort in, the result is a guitar equally as good as a Squier.

I am very pleased with this guitar and apart from the fun/pleasure derived from building it, the resulting guitar is very playable. Even if you were unlucky enough to have more issues than I did, Thomann after sales service is the best I have experienced of any musical instrument supplier, so you do not have to worry. Delivery was incredible, equally as quick, if not quicker than some UK suppliers. If you are considering a kit guitar, I would recommend buying one of these without hesitation.

After seeing videos on YouTube and varying quality (it appears the T-style kits are the best by far, which will be my next purchase), I was pleasantly surprised by the entire kit.

Firstly the body. Smooth and well cut, it could have been left as is but the sealant had to go so I could prime it for painting. Sanding by hand using 120, 400, and 600 grit sandpaper as I went, the sealant varied from very little along the back and front to seemingly truckloads along the belly cut. Still, when I couldn't get anymore out, it didn't look too different and I couldn't see any defects. Although the painting process would reveal some anyway (sanding and spraying over the two sections along the back resolved that).

The neck feels extremely smooth and shaping the headstock didn't take long (cutting by hand with a Japanese saw). The frets felt smooth enough out of the box that only an absolute perfectionist would be sanding and polishing them. More importantly, they're also level. Which happily saved me some work! :)

The pickups are decent ceramic ones without much in the way of breakup at the extreme ends. Functional and certainly on a par with guitars that use ceramic pickups from any brand that cost upwards of £200 (depending on how cheeky the brand is). If you want Alnico pickups, either buy a prebuilt Harley Benton (from £110+), a Kramer VS-211 (£109+), or buy a set of Alnico pickups either to immediately replace or later on down the line (set aside £20-£30).

The tuners are much the same as any inexpensive electric guitar. They work and, with the guitar setup properly, stay in tune. Although locking tuners would be advised at some point.

The same can be said for the strings, good enough for setup but I replaced them with a set of 9s I had laying around (budget Johnny Brook brand but they sound better to me).

The real joy though is having a guitar that you painted and put together without any need for soldering. Straight out of the box, you could have this all put together in about an hour or so - although if you're going to be painting this, obviously expect to add days to the build time to allow for adequate drying time as you build up the layers. Paint and lacquer (or clear coat if you go with that instead), expect to set aside around £15 or monetary equivalent for primer, main colour, and lacquer. Of course. if you have unused paint/varnish laying about...

Overall, I'd say if you're willing to budget about £50 extra to cover any tooling and materials you'll need, you'll have a perfectly playable guitar that will not look like any other and, provided you can play well enough, will impress all around you. Expect to tell the story of your kit build many times over! I built this for my sister for her to learn to play guitar on. I wouldn't be at all surprised if I get requests...

I give this kit 4/5 overall - but the enjoyment I derived from the entire project means it gets top marks 5/5 from me!