Harley Benton Bass Guitar Kit P-Style

I bought this kit as a challenge for myself as well as to enter Thomann's diy kit challenge. My plan was to shape the headstock, paint the body and neck. Using no power tools.
I can say that the kit has close to decent quality - with a lot of room to improve. With the provided mechanics, it is a neck diver for sure. Body was 4-piece and neck's single piece. Lots of small holes and dents on the body due to the selected wood. (I wish I could upload photos here) Sealer wasn't applied well. Sanding wasn't even either. So I sanded the whole body to P320 grid. Before starting the paint job with nitrocellulose spray cans.
Neck sealer was a lot better comparing to the body. I am still not sure if the fingerboard is an actual wood or a composite material. But it is dense, dark and has a nice silky feeling to it. Like Ebony... With TV Yellow, it made a nice contrast. It is like an F-brand bass painted in G-style. haha Frets were surprisingly well installed! Kudos! Almost no sharp edges (no more than a short filing/sanding can get rid of). I only needed to polish them to improve playing and look.
Tuning machines are decent, but very heavy. My long term plan is to drill 3-6mm holes to the pegs to provide some weight relief to fight with the neck diving.
No soldering is a plus for peeps are not used to that. No noise or other electro-mechanical issue with the electronics.
Bridge is decent but lightweight. I will change it with a Fender HighMass bridge as I did with my Squier J-Bass.

In short, It was very easy to build, instructions weren't needed. For anyone who is confident with their hand skills and arm muscles, can do the job and enjoy the process, in my honest opinion. (Though, I am an electrical engineer with decent hand skills and my own guitar tech for over 10 years. ) At this price point - though it could be a lot better), It would be great start if you want to understand basics of guitar/bass mechanics, start building your own instrument or just want to make a gift for yourself or a friend/kid.

I decided to purchase this kit because it was reasonably priced and I wasn´t sure I could get a good result for I haven´t done anything compared to this before. So to say - not a big loss if I screwed it up and decided to burn it afterwards.

Looked for reviews on it on the net and found satisfied builders. Took on the challenge and this is my review:

The neck: it was straight as an arrow, no nicks anywhere but the frets needed leveling quite a bit. I bought the Thomann fret file, Göldo fretboard guard and ordered a few Euro´s fret rocker from the net. Did my first fret job ever, took a couple of hours and voila - nice result. Fits the neck pocket very well.

The body: in very good condition and smooth surface. took some splinters away with sanding paper from the grinded parts (neck pocket and pickup/pot holes). Other than that it was ready for paintjob.

Painted the body with acrylic sanding primer, painted with acrylic paint and put some acrylic laquer on the surface - all in garage and with spraypaint. Also put acrylic laquer on the neck. Sanded between different paints and polished.

Pickguard: two plastic covers on the surface and no scratches on it. It would have been aligned well on the screwholes of the body, but the jack was about a 1mm too close to the end of the pothole. A very tight fit and could damage the jack on the long run. These don´t cost much though - so... Had to file a tiny bit of plastic away from the neck end of it to fit well (took about 5 seconds).

The pickups: easy to install ( no soldering needed) and work fine. Surprisingly good tone for cheap pickups.

Pots: they are a bit too "loose" and turn a bit too easily. They work though.

Strings: the set that came along was poorly wound and I decided not to use those. Bought the HB valuestrings and they work well.

Tuning pegs: Look nice, a small loose "gap" when turning to both ways. But they hold the tuning nicely. Easy to install on the neck.

Putting it together after painting: everything went to place ok. Putting all together with tuning the strings and adjusting the trussrod took about 4 hours.

Now I´m using it to play in our band and it performs very well. I´m already looking for a new project and would like to find a Musicman-style kit ( Thomann??) Thank you.

Wasn't out to get the P of my life, just wanted to get a P width rosewood neck in the house, also not bad to have some fun putting it together with my son. the package came fast, all there as expected, easy to assemble, the screws are bad and most of the holes are off, that could be better. the neck and the frets are nice, the body has a protective coating which is great, there's a neck dive but it's easily fixed with a good strap. For the money invested it's a lot of bass, i've put on a set of heavy flatwounds, using it unplugged at night to get some muscles working. doesn't sound bad plugged in either, but doesn't get a chance, since there's so many others for the stage and studio... All in i think it's fun and for the amount of money you guys are asking it's unbeatable.

This guitar is no match for the Fender Custom Shop, but let's be realistic....for the price it's AMAZING!

I notice that a few other reviews have said that some of the pre-drilled holes were misplaced, but I didn't find this. Everything was pretty much bang on and the finished guitar is well aligned. I used Fender's online guide for set up, and it plays well, with good intonation.

Body is really light, which is good on the shoulder but it makes it a bit head heavy. If balance is an issue for you then the body may be too light.

Acoustically it seems to resonate really well, but plugged in it initially sounded weak compared to my other bass (which cost x10 more). I swapped the strings for flatwounds and this totally fixed the 'weak' sound. It's both full and open, and I'm so impressed at this price range. The volume pot has a terrible taper that is pretty much all or nothing, but this is a simply cheap swap out.

The only thing that feels cheap (weight aside) is the tuning heads, which are a bit light and not as smooth as more expensive ones, but for the price they are not below expectations.

Time will tell how stable it is, but first impressions are that it is very useable, and I would happily gig with it. So much better than the cheap guitars of my youth.

Highly recommended!

I will use this bass for playing at home and recording.
What I liked:
Neck seems very good, frets also. There were no sharp ends. Grain on the back side (maple) is really nice. Fretboard also came in a very nice color. Body is very light (and very soft, prone to bruises), finish is great. Hadrware is also good: tuners are solid, pickup sounds really decent, bridge is nice, pickguard is prewired wich was nice. It?s all nice and neat.
What I didn?t like:
prewired holes for tuner screws missaligned. This meant that I had to refill all the screw holes and drill new ones. Also, predrilled holes for the pickup were not good as one hole was drilled too close to the upper edge of the pickup hole and when inserted like that, pickup could not fit. So again, I refilled the holes and drilled new ones. I had to sand the pickguard a little to fit the pickups through a little bit.
If the holes alligned I would have given 5 stars.

When I assembled the bass I was able to get good medium action (little below 3 mm) without fretbuzz. Only fretbuzz was at the last fret which needs to be sanded down a little bit (but that is not a minus, I?ve had much worse on much more expensive basses). Neck needed a fair bit of adjustment as it had quite an up-bow, but it was easiliy fixed.

Sound is really good, and the tone pot is good. There?s quite a difference with tone closed and fully opened.

Anyways I would reccomend this kit, but only to people who don?t have problems in patching missaligned holes and drilling new ones due to chance of holes being drilled wrong. For the price you get a really nice p bas.

Oh yeah strings that come with the bass are sh**, you can use them to set up the bass and see how it sounds.

This kit was interesting for me, because I can see all naked parts... true about those. First thought for me was, that this is a good base for project. OK, I need little bit extra for it.

I got packet and OH MY... which kind of body, it is so beautiful and almost flawless. Only small fissure into lower horns upper area, but it was fixed with putty. Other hardware is OK, exept neck has some minor problems. I took body and gnawed hole for the other, extra bridge pickup (seymour duncan SJB-3), and drilled hole for wire. I needed also new vol pot for this new bridge pup and placed it an tone pots place. Tone moved to last hole, input jacks place. Then I made new hole into side of body between tone and vol pots and fixed input jack there with small plate. Lastly primer, grinding, white color, grinding again and finally hard coated lac... two heavy layer. In same time I vanishing neck (it was shaped before that), except fretboard.

Everything seems to be OK and next... place better pickup for neck (seymour duncan SPB-2) and wireing all parts together. I tried put neck into body... but it didn't sat so well. I needed to adjust bridge so up as possible and try some notes... hmm. I have best strings as ever in place, (in my thoughs, ELIXIR nanoweb .045 - .105) and acoustic sound was liveless. Pickups were too far about strings and the electric sound was poor also. Okay, the first fret was 0,5 mm lower than the others and I didn't get note at all this first position. I measured, that neck drops down so much in this area, and this part needed to change. Also those small tunerholes are made so, that tuners don't sit straight line at all?

OK, back to beginning. Pickguard was partly into neckpockets area and needed gnaw to same shape as neckpocket has. I gnawed also neckpocket 2 mm deeper, because the neck was way too high. I measured, that need to get about 1,5 mm metal plate between necks end and pockets end that screw holes matched exactly. Lastly I needed to do whole fretwork, and then I was ready to put parts together. Neck sit perfectly now. Some basic adjustments (including pup hights) and WHAT... acoustic sound is totally different and I know, that this instrument is alive now. I was excited to get it to my amp... OH MY...

Sound is so rich, powerfully articulated and boom same time. And there is so much alternatives... and all sounds are too perfect for my music (POP, ROCK, BALLAD and some REGGAE, even slapping). I can't stop playing in this instrument. It feels lighter, better and faster than my fender jaguar bass and sound is totally different... bang!

FINALLY CONCLUSION: This kit need some handcraft to be as player want. I made some expensive modifications and now, it is perfect for me. Easy to play, large scale of useful sounds and it is so pretty with white coating. As angel with strong heavenly voice.

The package arrived quickly and in very good condition, kit was very easy to put together and was incredibly easy to customize. Overall I'm pretty happy with the playability, there is a slight issue with the action where it does tend to be quite high no matter how many times I try to reset the truss rod but the neck is comfortable and the body is nice and light allowing me to jump around during gigs. The sound is fairly good for the price, couple it with a clean equalizer and a good amp and you're good to go for a gig. The endless ways you can customize the body and neck will also leave you with a truly unique bass playing experience and the months of work created a project that lead to (while not my best sounding bass) one of my favorite basses in my collection. I wouldn't take this bass to the studio but I would definitely take it to a gig for a few flashy photos.
All in all for the price, I would highly suggest this as a project for anyone looking for a genuine good time with their new instrument.

Overall the product is great. Pickup isn't anything to write home about, but it is serviceable. Tuners have some spots where it doesn't change the tuning but hold up tuning pretty well.

My main 2 issues are:

- Body is sealed but really unevenly. I do recommend sanding this down and polishing at the very least, but i'd suggest adding a couple layers of sealer again, if you want to preserve the wood look.
- One of my kits was missing 9 screws (for the bridge and strap buttons), as well as screws and springs for the pickups. Other than that the kit has everything you need in there to assemble it; the other kit I ordered was not missing anything.