Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit ST-Style

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.

Bought this out of curiosity but it turned out to be great fun. It can be as simple or as complex a project as you like. Putting the guitar together is very simple. Setting it up can be achieved with a quick youtube tutorial for anyone not familiar with that process. Complexity comes from deciding how far you want to go with the finish/modifications. The wood has some sealant on it so it can be ready to go with no modification if that’s what you’re looking for. I went down a rabbit hole of learning how to paint and finish a guitar from bare wood but it was a good learning opportunity. For me the trickiest part was cutting and finishing the headstock to my liking but it can be done well. The hardware is as you would expect from the price but solid in terms of sound and function. If I could change anything I would like some better quality tuners but at this price point they are perfectly acceptable. Some small imperfections in where the holes were drilled on the headstock for the tuner screws - they weren’t perfectly aligned; a minor issue in the scheme of things. Frets needed to be polished prior to use but again no big deal really, easily sorted. Overall a fun project and would recommend for any guitar enthusiast who would like to learn more about the instrument they play while getting to build one to their own liking.

We've customised & assembled quite a few of these Guitar Kits from Thomann, especially these: Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit ST-Style; one's. Generally we've found them very good, but there were a few issues with this one, but it worked out great in the end. The lad who we assembled this with eventually decided to go with it as it came out of the box without customising it. We fitted the machine heads & string trees without a problem, but when we tried to fit the neck to the body the heel wouldn't seat into the neck pocket. At first I thought I'd have to ease a little wood out of the neck pocket - I was surprised at this as I've usually found them to fit like a glove - then on closer inspection noticed that it wasn't just a tight fit, but the end profile of the neck heel was different to that of the end of the pocket. After puzzling for a bit I realised that the the neck was probably intended for a Telecaster Kit & had probably got put into the wrong box at the factory where it was manufactured. I contacted Thomann & within a week received a replacement neck. When we began fitting the machine heads & string trees we discovered that the pre-drilled pilot holes were to big & so the screws just spun around & did get grip. Fortunately I was able to replace the screws with spares that I have. But the problems with the neck continued when we tried to fit the new neck to the body - the fit was like glove - & discovered that each of the pilot holes in the neck had been drilled in the wrong place. I drilled 4 new pilot holes, in the correct places, & finally managed t attach the neck to the body. The rest of the build was uneventful, but what is worth mentioning is that with all the problems & after 2 necks,the action on this guitar is great. All-in-All, these: Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit ST-Style; are great value & it's well worth having a go at one.

Rock On & Good Luck, mddwoody 3.

Are you consider this to get a decent guitar for very little money? Don't bother -- just buy a pre-built guitar. Do you want to learn more about guitar maintenance/repair and don't mind fixing any number of flaws in the kit? Read on.

Pros:
- Neck is very well made and worth the price alone. The only flaw was the slightly recessed inlay on the 3rd fret. That's an easy fix.
- While the routes on the body are a bit rough, there are no major flaws.
- Neck pocket has a nice, firm fit.

Cons:
- The screw holes for the tremolo were not in a straight line. These needed to be filled and redrilled.
- The tuners were junk.
- The bridge and electronics are not horrible, but I would actually prefer to be able to buy the kit without the hardware -- most of this stuff will just end up in a landfill.
- While some plastic packaging is no doubt unavoidable, the plastic pickguard (that will be full of scratches anyway) was itself both covered with a plastic protector and then packaged in a zip-lock bag. Unnecessary.

The kit strato is in general well done, as the wood of the body is hard, so the guitar will be immune to scratches! the pickups are super for the low price! the negative points are that you need to file the frets of you don't want to scratch your fingers. andy you need proper tool for that if you don't want to take it to a luthier.
second, the body neck joint Is wider than the neck, also after you paint the guitar, so you need to do something to fill the gap, if you want a precise joint (and it's better to have It). now, I don't know if all the kits are the same in this regard. but this was my experience. so If you have some experience in guitar making/ mod, you will have a great Instrument!!

I've had a few Harley Benton's which have all had issues so I wasn't expecting wonders when I bought this but have been pleasantly surprised.
Pros:
The body weight is perfect for me, not too light or heavy (like the swamp ash ST90SA) and this one is very resonant.
The bridge is serviceable, nothing wrong with it but I had a spare Wilkinson available which is much better.
The neck is good with straight fretboard edges and polished frets. I'm not sure if HB have upped their game here as the ST90SA I bought a few years previously had fretboard edges which literally zigzagged and really rough frets. In fact I've used that neck on this kit due to the work I put into it (fret job, re-profiled and bone nut) and will use the kit neck on another project. That said there was no issue at all with the fit of the supplied kit neck.
The pickups are also much better sounding than I expected. Not sure if this is an anomaly as cheap pickups vary wildly but these sound great and all the supplied electronics also work well.
The fit and finish of all the supplied parts was good.
Cons:
The tuning heads are very sloppy which is a shame as they feel quite solid. The problem, as with the ST90SA, is that the insides are so poorly machined that there is far too much play in the gears so that 1/4 to 1/2 a turn on the peg just takes up the slack in the gears. I had Wilkinsons here so wasn't a problem for me but may well be for others.
The strings supplied are very poor and started snapping soon after setup, which I expected but was really trying to get my money's worth!
Conclusion:
This is a good kit and could be the basis for a very useable instrument as it has been for me, with the caveat of the issues and upgrades mentioned above. Certainly not much to gripe about at this price, the tuners being the only real problem. If these were functional the review would have been 5 stars.

This is a great kit for very little money.
The main points are -
The frets needed quite a lot of leveling.
The nut needed a lot of adjustment.
The truss rod needed a fair bit of adjustment.
I replaced the tuners.
The 1st string was much too close to the edge of the fretboard so I re drilled the holes for the bridge/trem unit and moved it.
I really enjoyed making this kit and all of the above add to the fun of completing it.
These are not complaints or faults, it is a DIY kit and a really good one.
I played a friend's strat a couple of weeks ago and I honestly wouldn't swap my kit for it.