Review of the Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit Single Cut Electric guitar. Where to buy it?

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.

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.