Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit CST-24T

First off, the end result is a guitar that sounds good and looks good. It is quite nice to play too, and will be better when after a little work on the frets, which are good, but could do with a polish and removal of a few sharp ends.

The kit arrived very well packaged, with the neck, body and hardware in three individual boxes, with bubblewrap providing further protection.

There were two instruction books supplied (one in German and on in English). It said "Singlecut" on the front, but the photos were correct for this model, and it provided a very easy step-by-step guide for us beginners. The only issues we faced with the build were with trying to work out the correct screws to use in each case, as it wasn't always clear from the photos and written instructions. But it's not rocket science either, and can be figured out.

Pros:
- Everything went together as expected with no drama
- Wiring is very easy
- Korean pots and switches actually feel great, unexpected in this price range
- Frets are good and level
- The pickups sound good, nothing to complain about for this price

Cons:
- The nut is very low already, but the notches are very shallow, so not much can be done about it, but it does seem to work okay
- The bridge isn't all that easy to set up, particularly adjusting the heights of the saddles is somewhat awkward.
- Instructions could be a little clearer about the screws to be used in each case.

Overall, this is a good kit, and I would recommend it. And the guitar is nice.

Here’s why I decided to buy this guitar kit. I’m 40 years old with 7 years of learning piano and music theory when I was a kid and then some experience with local bands as a singer and songwriter. I can play guitar a bit more than cowboy chords, when you watch videos like “see my guitar progress in a year”, I’m somewhere in 8-10th month :) But now i want to improve my skills. I already had an electric guitar at the time of purchase of this kit, a top-of-the-line Ibanez RG, but when I got back to guitar lessons, I understood that Ibanez is too complicated for setup (changing strings and getting the floyd rose guitar back to tune is a nightmare for a non-exprerienced player) and it’s too expensive in case I spoil something trying to set it up.

So I decided to buy this kit and build my own guitar, that I won’t be afraid to adjust or modify while improving my guitar skills. I was also hoping to have fun with the process and save some money comparing to buying a complete guitar of the same quality.

I chose CST24T because it’s a good looking one and has a shorter scale with 24 frets, I also wanted a humbucker-sized cutouts in the body so I would be able to install any kind of pickups later without cutting the body. I didn’t care much about tremolo, but I chose this version because it’s easier to adjust intonation of each string compared to a non-tremolo CST24.

So I got a guitar kit and started with the neck. Lots of reviewers here have mentioned that fret ends need grinding and frets themselves need polishing. That’s all true. So you need a file, a polishing compound, masking tape, a cloth and a few spare hours to make it really playable. Then the fretboard is really dry, so you need lemon oil.

Then 1to the body. I wanted to stain the wood in a few layers (staining-sanding-staining etc) to make its structure more visible. Well, first you need to sand off the factory applied sealer and get access to the wood pores if you want to use stain, and not paint or just clear-coat. So you need an orbital sander, sanding paper and a few more hours to proceed. And then you have to realise that rengas is not at all the wood with a nice structure that you should expose with staining. For a beautiful staining you need to glue a maple veneer on top which I decided not to do.

Ok. You have it painted, assembled and adjusted - then the guitar gets quite playable with low action and minimal buzz. You can make it even better with fret levelling.

So here we come to the two main cons of this guitar.
1. Pickups. They just make some sound and that’s it. I ordered a pair of no name split coil humbuckers on eBay and they made it sound so much better….
2. Location of a volume pot. It’s different from a complete CST24 guitars and it’s really on the way of your right hand. After a month of playing I decided to drill another hole and relocate it.

Because of this I suggest to assemble and try this guitar first - you would understand what you want to improve and what you’re happy with as it is. Then you can order all the parts you need and go on with painting, polishing frets etc.

Please don’t buy this kit if you want to save money or you don’t have time. Better look at ready to play guitars. With all the tools and materials I think I already spent 200-250 euros (kit itself, new pickups, tools, paintwork etc) and a few full days. I’m quite happy with the result (giving it 5 stars) but now I’m buying a complete JA-60 instead of getting a JA-style kit.

In many ways it is better than I expected (of course, as a cheap kit, it has some flaws)

Positiv:
- first of all, it is quite cheap
- the neck is surprisingly good, nice wood, very smooth surface (very tempted not to change there anything)
- the fretwork needs only minimal adjustment (minimal levelling and polishing), the fret ends are really smooth (no need to work on that)
- the wood of the body has quite nice grain, and even it is made of 3 (or 4?) parts it is not so easy to spot the changes
- the electronic parts are easy to install
- the sound is acceptable

Weak spots:
- the sealer doesn't seem to cover the body fully and it is not very smooth on the curved surfaces, so a lot of sandig work is needed for every kind of finish.
- the fretboard wood is very dry and with open pores, takes a lot of oil
- the provided term feells very cheap, with thin, light block (changed is to a 2 point Harley Benton (Wilkinson) trem
- the routing is not bad, but could be more precise, had to make some minor routing for the neck pickup (levelling screw reached the bottom of the cavity). The holes for the neck pickup frame is a little bit too close to the neck (the neck was "bendig" the pickup frame), had to drill new ones app. 2 mm closer to the bridge
- the provided strings are not great, but I only used them for the first assembling (test assembling before I do the finishing).

Overall, it was fun to work with so far, looking forward for the finishing work and a little bit of modding (already done the term, maybe better tuners, would also try other pickups .

The part that is suppose to fit in the neck pocket/cavity should be flat and in angle to be playable.
But it is like an egg, there is almost 1mm higher in the middle so the neck moves when you touch it..
Probably have they try to grind it smooth by hand after milling and failed totally. To get a surface of 4*6 cm perfect flat by hand you need a lot of craftsmanship! I got it but those who hasn't?? Pour people.