Harley Benton ST-62MN SB Vintage Series

Amateur player. Country Greece.
My check cleared 4/8, received the package 17/8, a little bit late for a European country.
Some external damage to the package but no internal to the goods delivered.
The guitar's color and finish are perfect, body wood selection not so great, 3 pieces glued together with many wood flaws obvious under the nice finish, pity, it could have been a perfect high end looking, sun burst Stratocaster.
Neck is very nice with level freds that need a little polishing TLC specially to the sides.
The guitar came more or less tuned, but with high action that was set very easy from the bridge adjustment. Nut plastic low quality, a bit off center it will be replaced with a good one and centered.
Tuners a bit stiff probably need some lubrication but they keep up.
Pick guard well set but after of just five minutes playing was full of scratches.
Selection switch nice and two tone knobs that function properly and deliver what they are supposed to deliver ie tone change.
The guitar plays nice feels and sounds nice as well, typical Stratocaster sound, according to its price range expectations and above.
Generally a pleasant experience, but being amazed from my other HB a fusion II Tele style with hum backers and splitting coils, kind I got disappointed or better said earthed.
It seems like higher price HB guitars offer a lot more and lower price HB's offer just more.

I bought this guitar last year. The overall build quality is good. The finish is applied well and the neck/body joint is solid. The neck is a bit thicker than I expected, but I got used to this quickly. The opportunity for improvement on my guitar were the frets. The tops of the frets needed to be polished as there was a gritty feel when bending strings. The fret ends were rough and sharp, requiring filing to cure the fret sprout. The tuners work and hold tune, but they are not as smooth as higher end tuners on my other guitars. Still, considering the price, this guitar is a very good value. It's a great way to try out an "S-style" guitar, as it was for me.

Excellent guitar it have some pros and cons but its the best bang for buck guitar you can buy.
First some pros:
- Great finish there are no stains or blemishes on the paint or varnish
- Good sounding Rosewell pickups
- Stays in tune
- Plays very good after some setup

Cons:
- Machine heads are little bit hard but i think after some oiling will be good
- Frets are very scratchy and first thing to do with this guitar is to change strings and polish frets
- Whammy bar needs also adjusting to use tremolo
- Pickguard material is soft so after few minutes of playing had some scratches

After polishing frets and changing strings guitar plays excellently.

So - for 100 GBP allows you to buy a strat with pickups that aren't trash and a tremolo. Even the pickups are staggered.

Pros

-Mirror-like finish
-Staggered pickups
-Pickups are decent
-Everything works as it should
-Vintage tuners

Cons
-Sustain block is thin
-Tuners aren't the best
-Cellophane gets stuck between pickup and pick guard
-Tremolo was set weird

The guitar came with a set-up already, so it was pretty much ready to go. It was practically already in tune, although, I would recommend replacing the strings, as they might be a bit dirty/rusty. It was clean, the frets were polished and everything. The tuners sometimes "slip" and let my B string go loose. It's easy to re-tune but often has me re-doing takes. Since the strings are already on it, it's weird getting the cellophane off of the guitar itself. Might have to take the pickguard off if I wanted to get the rest. The tremolo is set so that it drops, but can't do the opposite, so you're stuck with diving (unless you fix it yourself).

Over-all, it's alright. I've definitely encountered many worse guitars at this pricepoint and you'd be hard pressed to find something better at this price.

I ordered this guitar for my bro. He starting to learn an electric guitar.
Instrument makes a good impression. Very beautiful sunburst and glossy vintage honey finish on the neck. Edges of the frets are hidden and do not scratch hands. The guitar sounds very good, if all works ok (see note 4). ;)
There are several important notes.
1. Neck and body seems a bit larger than classic strat. In fact this is true phisically fat ST-guitar! ;)
2. Kluson-style tuners works well and keep tuning stable. And wow, shafts are splitted. But holes in shafts are not deep enough and looks too wide. There may be problems when installing thin strings. 1st and 2nd strings may fall out.
3. Jack was not tightened well - I had to tighten it.
4. At the first plug in, the sound was frankly bad and the same in different switch positions - there was a short circuit in the electronics. I fixed it in a couple of minutes, but it took me to take off the pickguard. And now guitar sounds like a classic strat.
5. D'Addario strings... Ok, but why they are rusty? Immediately changed them to Harley Benton Value set.
6. Frets require polishing. They are very rough. Strings are sounds like something scraping on the bends.
7. Pickguard screws are larger than holes and some are screwed not perpendicular. It's traditional feature for cheap guitar's. ;)
Exactly it's very good choice for beginners and very good emergency device for owner of high-priced guitar. Especially when minor bugs are fixed.

This is the second ST62 I've owned. The other was the vintage sunburst with rosewood fretboard. this model has the maple fretboard.

My review is based on a comparison with the rosewood version and with some other lower end strats I've owned.

The Good

good strings
good finish (no sharp frets, very small insignificant scratches in the finish)
Sounds good although to my ear the bridge pickup is a little "tinny" or brittle, maybe a little too bright. Neck pickup is really nice.

The bad
Not really bad as such. Some HBs seem like guitars that are worth three times the price. This one is more like a 200 euro guitar. It's still really good. Maybe just a variation issue, maybe completely subjective but I think I prefer the rosewood fretboard version. It just seems to have slightly more finesse

4 stars