Harley Benton DC Style Kit (think SG)

Welcome to the Next Project!

Here we go again!
Another kit assembly video, which will lead us into a modification project series. Let's start at the beginning, what's in the box and is it any good?

00:00 - lights, camera, action
00:04 - project intro
01:08 - what's in the box?
01:53 - follow the instructions / install the tuners
02:57 - electronics bench test
04:00 - electronics stuffin'
05:17 - trim n' tom
05:57 - neck pain
06:35 - strung up
07:02 - bad nut n' more
07:49 - tactical fretwire
08:06 - kit takeaway
10:58 - noise sample

At first glance, everything looked pretty good, especially for and $80 guitar kit. As the saying goes "don't judge a book by its cover", or maybe a better saying is "looks are only skin deep".

Giving the instructions a once over, I jumped in and kinda attempted to follow them. Adding the tuners to the neck was step 1, but I did some prep work first. I took one of the tuner mounting screws, rubbed some bar soap on the threads and pre-threaded each of the mounting holes. This helps ensure I won't snap the head off one of the little screws later during actual assembly.
Now the tuners were dropped in, screwed into place and the threaded bushing was secured. Hmm, something doesn't look right...due to lazy manufacturing and/or poor Quality Control, the tuners don't all line up nicely, but rather look a bit drunk in their posturing. Oh well, they will still work - as good as the poor quality tuners can be expected to.

On to bench testing the electronics. Again, this step isn't in the instructions, but I find it's easier to fix potential issues before everything is stuffed into the guitar. There were NO issues with the wiring, pickups, pots, switch and output jack. All went well.
Now to stuff all that wire into the little body.
Almost instantly I found the cavity routing left the top a little thick and the 3-way switch was then a bit short on threaded shaft. I wasn't able to use the little poker chip Rhythm/Lead decorative washer. No worries, I just left it off. Other than that, the trick is just to stuff all the excess pickup lead wire into the control cavity. Oh, the output jack mounting screw holes were not positioned perfectly, but I was able to get the screws in without redrilling... probably should have plugged and redrilled, but that's another day.

I now added the small pickguard/scratchplate. It honestly is cut and finished really well, I was surprised!
This was followed by pressing/hammering in the stop tailpiece posts and the bridge posts.
You won't have too much issue with these, the holes were properly drilled for size and spacing, and the wood is just soft enough you won't need a press or excessive hammering to get them in place. Again, this step went well.

This is where the "fun" ended.
It was time to mount the neck to the body. ( this is the second step in the directions, but I didn't want to wrestle with a full guitar to do all the other things. )
It was easy to see that the manufacturer didn't bother with a template for drilling the mounting holes in the body. It would have been nice, and made the kit look more professional, but that isn't the case.
The neck mounting plat holes and the body/neck holes aren't really close to being aligned. But in true caveman fashion, I put it together anyway.
I rubbed bar soap on the screw threads and pushed them in as I tightened them. Not ideal, but it worked well enough.

— This kit will be coming apart and getting a complete overhaul –

Time to string it up, and as this was underway, I was thinking something looked very wrong with the nut. With all the strings on, I adjusted the bridge to get the string action in the ballpark, but it was now clear that the neck has a major flaw.
With playable string height at the heel of the neck, the strings were all resting on the 1st fret. Funny, I didn't know this was a Zero-fret SG kit.
Off came the strings, and the nut. Only to expose an issue with the trussrod. It was projecting into the nut slot, the nut was just glued on top of the trussrod. We'll just say this is a big problem and the neck is a reject, and so would be the entire guitar kit because of it.
But, I shade-tree mechanic'd a crappy fix, got the nut and strings back on and plugged it in.

Honestly, it sounded pretty good. In the right hands it would likely sound very good. I was able to get the string action pretty low, but there was one more major issue with the neck. THE FRETS ARE TERRIBLE!
This is the worst fretwire I've every seen. They have the texture of beach sand, pitted and rough with sharp ends. UGH, I give up on this one.

Time to take it apart and start the repair process.

I give this a 1 star rating, which may be very generous. However, with any kit, there is a chance to get a great kit, a terrible kit, or something anywhere in-between. My kit was in the terrible range.

Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for the upcoming MOD project series!
Take care!

[canyoncarver]

Lovin' that Stray Cat noise you made!

[achimdg]

Well, this guitar kit is simply excellent.
You don't feel bad about any modification!
Refret it? Heck, yes.
New nut? Heck, yes!
Throw the electronics in the garbage, including pus? Heck, yes!

[FrazerJones]

Just finished staining, finishing and assembling a Harley Benton PRS style kit, i did not have the same issues you had but the body did come with some deep gouges and scratches that were a pain to sand out (some were just too deep). Basically you get what you pay for with these kits and to be fair it does sound pretty good (pleasantly surprised by the pick-ups) and has a unique tone unlike any of my other guitars.

[bobvador]

oohh yeah, another guitar kit !
can't wait for the next video :)
Take care.

[theMisadventuresofaLittleWolf]

You could always sell the neck as a fancy cheesegrater. Looking forward to seeing what you can do with this one.

[jimsturgill]

It will be interesting to see what you can do with this one. I’ll be watching. Good luck.

[chriscutress]

I've built two Thomann kits imported from Germany and have had no problems with the materials except for the cheap guitar strings which are o.k. for kit strings but I needed to replace for playing. The first kit was the Les Paul-ish 6 string and the second was the Precision-like 4 string bass. Both well made but I did spend a fair amount of time sanding the finish off so that I could re-stain them my favourite Mocha-Tea green. Also coated the pickup cavities with super-shield to negate RF getting to the circuitry as much as possible. Re-cut both of the neck templates to a non-clonish shape and generally had lots of fun building them. Both sound decent with new strings and no problems with the frets other than a general setup and filing. Could the pickups be better ... YES (maybe a future mod) and the electronics are o.k. but could be improved in the future. I still use my '73 Strat for recording and my Gibson Ripper for bass recording but as practice and added texture instruments both are great. Always love your projects. My next project will hopefully be a double neck kit but I'm waiting until I find a kit I like the look of. I'd like a twelve string guitar with a 5 string bass in a Ricki style. Not much luck finding that in a kit.

[nissesguitars]

Sorry to see you had so much trouble with this kit. I've had three kits (which I heavily modded) from Thomann so far - Tele, LP and PRS-style - and have had none of the issues you show in your video. Looking forward to seeing how you're going to save this one! 🙂

[robertruamps]

Another great project, thank you for this new journey !

[ExtremeGuitarNerdery]

Building mine right now and so far it seems nothings wrong yet apart from a small gouge in the body near the neck pocket. Going to make a video on my channel on how it goes so fingers crossed it comes out alright! Love ur channel as well :)

[DavidHarvey-wu]

Loved the video ! First one subbed 👍🏼

I guess when you unboxed it you could have checked the neck frets for being level and rough before assembling.
Then send it back for another one which could have been a great one ! 😁

[hueffel]

We have bought the same Kit. We had to buy a new bridge, new locking tuners, a new bone nut and of course new strings (as You said in another video, You have to buy such a kit in order to get such cheap strings).
I wish they would offer a kit where you could choose the individual components.

[TheRealChetManley]

Looking forward to this. I like sg style guitars

[martymaker]

Hi, I think you need to stop calling yourself "not a guitarist" :) You're doing pretty good! Nice video. Cheers!

[jurgenzoller]

Hi john....I just know you're going to turn that into something special. With the turning one volume pot down and killing the volume completely, I had that happen to me once. The trick is to reverse the input and outputs on the volume pots. Also your playing is so much better than you give yourself credit for.

[neleig]

Thank you for your real and honest review. I’ll not be buying this kit!

[jacquesoeuf]

Looks like you got a really bad one. I bought one (when bored in the depths of covid lockdown) from Thomann, a strat kit, and was pleasantly surprised. I mean it's not my favourite guitar and the parts are not surprisingly very budget but it went together easily and had none of the horrors your kit had. Like you say, it's the luck of the draw, but I'd have probably sent that back.
The secondary reason for buying a cheap kit was to practice some fret levelling on something that I wouldn't cry about if I messed it up - so from that point of view it worked out well. In the end I liked the assembled guitar enough to bother giving it a finish and, eventually, a few upgrades - tuners and pickups.
I agree with you that if I'd just wanted a cheap playable guitar then I would have probably purchased the very similar assembled and finished HB guitar for just a few euros more.

I have other HB guitars and generally the quality and value is really good.

Enjoyed the video, I always look forward to them.

[stefanoangrisano]

I can't wait to see the mods... Planning to build one of the HB kits, probably the LP-style - I just don't like the bolt-on neck, though...

[argumert]

got the same kit, waiting for shipping - thanks for the vid!

Frets were my biggest scare, and how they look here confirmed it.. What could be done to make them better in this case? polishing would help maybe?

[chadwaller]

Nice Channel. Wish i'd found it sooner.