Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit Victory

A good solid kit guitar at a very affordable price. I was looking for somewhere to start when it comes to building, setting up and customising my own guitar, and this thing was exactly what I needed.

The body was well cut and the neck went on no problem. The body needed a bit of extra sanding and with hindsight I should have primed it before applying the colour coat as that would have made life easier, but once the varnish went on the finish was perfect. (Note that any paint/varnish/lacquer etc will need to be bought separately). The setup was quite easy and ended up with a very playable guitar. Truss rod only needed a bit more relief and the action is simple to set (the bridge is two adjustment screws only, bass and treble, there is no individual string adjustment). The intonation worked out pretty easy too. This from someone who isn't super experienced with setups, I've only ever tweaked stuff already mostly done by a tech.

Two minor gripes: 1) the strings, 2) the instructions. The strings that come with are not great. I used them for initial setup then ditched them for my usual set and re-tweaked. The instructions I received were in German. Not a big deal as I have a translator app, it just made it a bit more awkward as a UK customer. The instructions for the electronics were a bit hard to follow though - the pictures are black and white and refer to colour codes wiring, also my wires were different colours to those referred to in the text. That said, I managed to get everything in place and working just by making some assumptions. If you're not at all familiar with guitar electronics, it might be a bit confusing. YouTube will be your friend if so.

I'm already considering getting another with a different body shape in the not too distant future. For the price point it's hard to beat, and honestly I could probably gig with this guitar now it's set up and I doubt anyone would notice it was a ~£100 kit guitar. That said, it probably isn't for the total beginner - you will need to be reasonably confident about doing the set up if you want it to play well.

The good:
Budget price, looks good, no missing bits,

The bad:
Pickup wires wrong colours, bridge and neck wrongly identified in the instructions.
Unhelpful instructions on orienting the switch and getting front and back pickup volume control located in the correct order.
Knobs don't fit the splines on the pots
2 screws securing tuners sheared at hand tishtness - ridiculous
String ferrels lose and fall out if no string present
Poor strings, high e broke on crome delta plate, possible a sharp edge
Pre drilled wood holes slightly inaccurate, truss rod cover looked wonky

Most importantly: Nil response so far to my support ednquiries emailed to Thomann.

As a retired Chartered Electronic Dev Engineer I would be happy to assist in re-writing the instructions. However, quality control would require consistency of components and colours of wires.

Arrived in good time and well packaged, with all parts present
As per my 1st kit, decided to stain using Crimson stains. This means quite a lot of prep work to remove the pore filler coating.
Assembly straightforward, good quality wooden parts, fretboard well finished with no sharp frets and fitted snugly to body. Pots and pickups of good quality, surprisingly good sound from pickups. Strings poor so used Ernie Ball instead, tuners very poor with lots of movement, so bought vanson instead. Screws of average quality, neck screws poor, nut OK. Solderless wiring a breeze and well put together
Uncomfortable to play sitting but fine standing
All in all good for the money if you upgrade the poor quality items!