Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit DC Style

I am a home player and enjoy learning and playing different styles. I've had a few electrics over the years, currently own a couple of decent mid-range guitars. I bought this kit as I wanted something different and to put my own mark on it - it was also a 'lockdown' project to keep me busy!

Arrived very well packaged. I immediately ignored all instructions and focussed on working on the body. My objective was a natural type finish, not too glossy, so I went with Tru-oil. Youtube vids were helpful, it took a lot of sanding over many days and I am really pleased with how it looks. The body is obviously constructed out of pieces, so it was never going to look totally amazing, but I am very happy with it and the graining does look nice. Tru-oil does not darken the wood a great deal, so with hindsight I might have lightly stained it too before Tru-oiling, maybe I'll do that on my next guitar.

The neck is really good straight out of the box. I was very impressed - unlike the body it is already nicely finished and silky smooth. I did paint the headstock black and lacquer it, which makes it look much nicer. I also gave the frets some attention, levelling and polishing. I always fret polish new guitars, makes them feel smoother for string bending. I also adjusted the truss rod, which was a little out. The nut looked like it might be an issue, the slots were wide and not cut very deep, but after assembly it doesn't seem to cause any problems.

It took me a couple of weeks to prep the body and neck. It was then that I picked up the manual...

Assembling the guitar took two or three hours. The neck fitted the body absolutely perfectly, no need to adjust. As others have noted, the instructions on fitting the pots are terrible, impossible to make out from the photo which way around they go, I was lucky to get it mostly right first time but the pickup selector switch I put in upside down but easy to correct. When I got to fitting the pickups it all became clearer which way the pots should go - maybe I should have read forward in the instructions first.
It was not clear which screws to use for which purpose - some were longer than others - although not a major problem I ended up with long screws for the truss rod cover and I actually think they were the wrong ones so I'm just going to find some spare small ones and use those.
Once stringed up it all looked really good. Everything lined up well, I adjusted the action and as soon as I played without going through an amp I was really impressed - it sounded really nice and resonant. It actually felt like a good guitar, which was a huge relief! I then plugged it in to my amp and again I was really impressed with how nice it sounded without much adjustment - I haven't yet fine tuned the setup such as intonation and pickup height and I'm not even sure I need to.

In summary, I really enjoyed this project and am delighted with the results. There were no significant issues at all with the kit I received, everything fitted well and worked. I definitely recommend these kits - for the money they really are excellent and overall exceeded my expectations. For that reason I have given it a 5 star review.

I did have an Epiphone SG a few years ago - to be honest I prefer the HB kit. I might even upgrade some of the components over time.

Pros:
Really fun and rewarding project
Great value
Everything fitted well and worked straight off

Cons:
Tuners do the job but some very stiff
Instructions for fitting potentiometers are vague
This might be a new addiction, I immediately want to buy more kits!!

I purchased this kit for a bit of a project, with no real intent to keep it after I completed it. I have too many guitars already! So I chose an SG style kit as I'd never played an SG as I'm not keen on the looks of them. That may seem an odd reason to choose a kit, but again this was because I did not want to feel attached to the guitar and so feel no remorse when selling it after completion.

I've had a fair amount of experience with setting up, wiring and fret dressing. So my experience in the build maybe different from someone who has no previous guitar maintenance skills.

The kit went together fairly easily overall.

The electrics were a bit of a fiddle as the diagrams were not particularly clear as to which volume/tone pots were connected to which pickups. So a 50/50 chance to get it correct first guess. (yes, I got it wrong on first attempt, so had to take it apart and redo)

The neck fitted the body well and didn't require any shims to get the correct angle. There were two slightly high frets which I spot leveled and re crowned. The overall wasn't too bad so didn't require a complete fret leveling job. To be fair the two high frets were not terribly bad and the guitar would have probably have been adequately playable as it was, but as I have the tools and the skills for it I did them anyway. The overall fret finish wasn't very good though, they were scratched and rough in places. So they did all require a good fret polishing job. Also of note the light satin finish that the neck comes pre finished with make the neck very smooth and playable.

The body was made of three parts but not too badly matched so a tru oil finish was acceptable after some thorough sanding and finishing.

The tuners seem adequate, they hold their tune and function smoothly enough. I see no reason why they should need replacing.

The finished product.

I was very surprised with how playable the finished guitar was after a full set up. The neck is smooth and fast and I have managed to get a very low action at both the nut and 12th fret. The intonation is also acceptable after I finished setting it up.

Sound wise, I think considering the cheap pickups that you get in guitar kits they sound not too bad at all. I have no complaints about them. Obviously side by side with an expensive set of pickups you will notice a difference though.

Overall for the money with the correct tools and some guitar setup skills you can achieve a very playable instrument. I'm still going to sell the guitar on though as I have too many other guitars and only made this kit for the enjoyment of working on it.

First things first, shipping was just under 5 days. Crazy fast!
How?! How?! Thomann YOU SERIOUSLY ROCK!!

Ok so full disclosure, my son and I have purchased nearly a dozen Harley Benton's over the years and we love every one of them as daily players. They get no rest, and have stood the tests of time.
We've tweaked and upgraded some of them, yet the Plus's remain stock and stand completely on their own. Flawless.

Together we also own several "high end" name brand guitars as well which mainly serve as art on the walls. The HB's get all the love and attention. And are taking up the majority of the wall space nowadays.

My son and I spend copious amounts of time playing your guitars. Your gear is always the talk of the day. And if your reading this and you don't already know it... the HB cabs btw are just..WOW, incredible!! Very happy there as well.

We are so happy we ordered up 3 of these HB diy kits. After just giving them all a good hard lookover...yep...this will definitely work!
Time well spent in the shop is to be had and we can't wait to get busy on all of them. We have some very big plans here.

All 3 have great grains for stain and excellent surfaces for the paint booth. The necks are as good if not nicer than what we have hanging on the walls currently on our other HB's.

Everything is tip top right in the box. Instructions look straight forward enough. Bravo!

So here we sit, VERY excited about the purchases of the day and yet once again we are shaking our heads. How on earth do you do it Thomann? THANK YOU AGAIN!

It's a rare thing today, service, quality and workmanship. Every time we open a box from Thomann we are utterly astounded at the quality, the price we paid and the speed of delivery here in the U.S.A.

It's no secret to us HB die hards. The energy in the room on the arrival of a new HB instrument has always been, inspirational and exciting. To put it mildly.

We are up 5 HB's so far for 23'. I'd say we're ALL IN at this point on Harley Benton. 17 now? I think that's the currant count.

I cannot express it enough, thank you for getting us in the GAME of HB gear. And for all of the unforgettable father/son time on your equipment.

As a Father, to watch my son growing up on the AWESOME HB acoustics and these incredible 6 string electrics we've purchased is literally priceless at this point. And now to be getting into the diy game, it's going to get even more personal. We are very excited to get started.

Cheers to all the content creators out there spreading the word on these AMAZING kits!


From the HEARTland, in a snow covered cornfield.

OUR very best! Thomann!!

Tl;dr - just buy it!!!

Having always wanted an SG, but unwilling to pay ££££ for a Gibson, and being mostly unimpressed with the value-for-money of an Epiphone, I decided to try my luck with this.

I have been very very impressed with this guitar. The pickups are decent enough (very very good for the price), but I will replace them since I am fairly comfortable with soldering etc.

Some key points:
The only adjustment I needed to make was to adjust the truss rod (which you would have to do on a constructed guitar anyway, so it's kind of moot) and to the part of the jack that holds the cable in (it was quite loose and the cable would fall out). The remedy was literally bending the metal a bit with pliers, no real issue. The intonation was spot on, needed no adjustment.

My only real criticism is that in the manual there is not a key as to which screw goes where. If you are totally new to this, it will require some guesswork (particularly to distinguish which screws go on the humbucker rings and which goes on the scratchplate) , but if this isn't your first rodeo, you will be fine.

Do be careful, the wood is very soft: I dropped a humbucker from about an inch onto the wood body and it made some deep indentations.

One other weird (to me) quirk is that when your pickup selector is in the middle, and you turn one of the volume pots all the way down, the guitar is silent (but maybe this is normal, I've not had a three-way selector before).

All in all, this was well worth the money, and honestly rivals a real Epiphone.

I really wanted to have an “SG shape” guitar but not a huge budget. I owned a very cool Viper back in the days, but neck dive made it unplayable with my sore back. I also wanted to try building a kit and Thomann has this kit for an incredible price. At first I was a little suspicious about the quality of components and the ease of building but I decided to give it a try anyways just for the fun of building it. My fear was to end up with a neck diving/hard to set up/cheap sounding piece of wood. But i was wrong! Because this thing really rocks.
I bought it with the idea of doing some upgrade from the very beginning so i ordered it together with a set of Kluson tuners and planning to mount in it some spare parts (nut, DMT pickups and tom bridge) i had from a mid-high range Dean guitar.

Once i got the package i made a quick mount of main parts just to see if all was matching right and all looked right. I also had a good feeling in handling the Rengas body and the neck. The neck is finished in a very pleasant way, very smooth and fast. I can really leave it as it is but despite so i decided to paint it.

Since i had no space for a nitro spray paint I decided to go for a “Petrol Blue” semi transparent stain job on the body even though the Rengas body i got didn’t have any interesting wood grain.
For the neck i went for a trans black stain and tung oil as well.
Body and neck requires a good and intense sanding if you want to stain.

Despite some mistake i did in sanding, staining and clear coating process the guitar was really easy to mount and a lot of fun to do it. All parts and drills matched well, no need of re-drilling. The only holes that didn’t match well were the the ones for the neck pickup ring, but i fixed the matter filing down one side of the pick up ring a little instead of re-drilling the body. I also had to file one little side of the pickguard because it didn’t fit between the pickups.I think that for a diy kit those are really minor interventions!


I could mount Kluson tuners and my spare nut very easily. Since i was lazy in soldering i decided to connect my spare DMT pickups using the same method of connectors (it was an extremely easy job and it did work well!), maybe i’ll solder them in the future. The Dean bridge didn’t fit at the end and i had to mount the factory one.
Once it was painted and mounted i surprisingly found out that this kit is the only inexpensive SG shape guitar on the planet which is perfectly balanced with no neck dive at all!!!

Doing the setup i was impressed about the ease of achieving a low action (1mm for the 1 string at 12th fret/ 1.5 mm for the 6th string at 12th fret) without fret buzz. I had to file down 2 frets only due to some minor buzzing on 2nd string. After that I was able to set the intonation very quickly.

I was already happy because till that point i already had 2 big surprises, but the final surprise arrived once i plugged it in my Laney tube amp and the tone was really amazing!

So what to say? Once again, thanks to Thomann/Harley Benton for outstanding affordable products and professional service.

I haven't tried the orginal nut and pickups but I wanna give 5 stars because for that price you really cannot get any better, and with a minor upgrading i now have a great guitar for very little money.

Easy to build (around three hours including beer and herbal breaks), instructions concise and all parts intact and in good shape. The neck was one off the straightest I've ever seen and the pickups cook.

Better instructions could be given for wiring to the toggle, it's kind of a crap shoot there, but the quick connect and a screwdriver makes it a 5 munite fix.

I'm leaving it in the wood finish and letting natural stains (most legal- LOL) like snot, sweat, cigarette burns and spilled drinks give it it's rock n' roll finish!

Excellent product for an unbelievable price, no mods necessary (not even the tuning peg).