Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit HB35-Style

This is an absolute beast of a guitar. I was always looking out for a Gibson 335 but could never afford the real thing. A few years ago I bought the Harley Benton Les Paul kit and found myself a great guitar and had lots of fun putting it together.

When I saw this at 180 euro I jumped at the chance. The Humbucker pickups sound wonderful. I was skeptical about the bolt on neck but the inner step has it feeling super sturdy.

The tuning heads could do with replacing and I found getting the wires in place absolutely infuriating as it has to be done through the f-holes but other than that it is an incredible guitar for an amazing price that I will be using as my main guitar going forward.

Don't buy this if you expect to just throw it together in an afternoon and play in the evening. Don't buy it if you don't have the ability to think on your own and have some basic building/crafting skills. It's not a first-timer kit. These are the main issues I ran into:
1:The screws for mounting the tuning knobs snapped before even bottoming out, so I had to drill them out, tap with wooden dowels and use better quality screws.
2: The connectors on the wire loom are too big to fit through the drilled holes intended for the wires in the body, so I had to cut, re-route and re-solder them.
3: The pick guard didn't fit in it's position between the pickups, so I had to adjust it by filing a wider gap in it. The machine screw and nut to attach it to the metal bracket also wasn't included. Pennies, but still...
4: The screws for mounting the bridge pickup are too short, so I supplied my own.
5: The manual skips steps and does things in a weird order sometimes, so I had to back-track and re-do some things.

Overall it's a real fun project and gives you a neat guitar in the end with loads of potential to get a custom axe for cheap IF you're willing to put in the effort. Probably won't be the last one I build from this product line. Guess that's my last warning. It's quite addictive...

This is the second Harley Benton kit I've built. It was a journey.
Read the instructions out of the box; noted warnings related to stain due to use of grain fill in factory process.
Fired ahead anyway: sanded the guitar body back, 220 - 600 grit. The set about applying water based dye burst. The dye took well and soaked into the wood except for some remaining spots close to the binding (I was reluctant to sand enough to change the contours of the body). It was a a little patchy but I was happy enough. Carried on with a thick epoxy resin coat which I wet sanded right back to 3000 grit and polished to high gloss. After cutting to shape, the face of the headstock got the same epoxy coat and polish.
I oiled the neck and the back and sides of the headstock with Danish oil.
Aftre all this, I finally assembled it. The wiring was tricky and made me profane but in the end, I managed it (look out for missing step in instrictions about harness wiring for pickup selector switch routing through the bridge pickup cavity).
Plays nice, plugged in or not.
Enjoyed the project and love the guitar.
It is a beautiful thing.

It took me almost 7 months to finish this build but mainly because I waited for winter to be over so I have higher air temperatures for lacquer finishing. First i sanded down all the sealling that was on wood and stained it black/turquoise contrast finish but wasn't very happy how it turned out. Sanded it back down to bare wood and started from scratch. Now it's deep high gloss red and it looks and soinds like million dollars. This was my first ever guitar built and it has some tricky moments but in the end it is so much fun and seeing and hearing your guitar in the end is a truly wow moment. For assemble, you really have to be really really careful not to scratch the finish, but with some good tools and a piece of thin wire for pulling electronics thru guitar body, you can assembe it in one afternoon. I'm ordering my next kit soon, that's for sure!