Kit’S the BuSineSS
Your recent feature on kit guitars has inspired me to tell you about my project. My Harley Benton kit was a gift (bought from Thomann). And as you can see from the pic, it is not a ‘clone’ as such – the horns are offset to a greater degree than an original SG.
The first thing I did was paint the body. Badly, as it turned out, but I was keen to get started! Assembly took less than an hour. The loom was already wired up, the pickups used push-fit connectors — no soldering required. I didn’t bother with the strings supplied, I went straight for my usual Ernie Ball. I was surprised to find that apart from setting the action, there was no other setup required. Intonation was spot on, as was the neck relief.
The second surprise was how well it played – a very playable neck, nice and smooth, perfect binding, no sharp fret ends. The pickups were adequate, as were five out of six of the tuners. It sounded sort of like an SG. The only playability issue is balance – it has a basswood body and, bearing in mind an SG body is thin anyway, it is very neck heavy.
Having established it was a keeper, it came apart again for a better paint job and some Gotoh tuners. This paint job was only slightly better than the first, so I stripped it down again for a third go and to add a Seymour Duncan Hot Rodded Humbucker pair.And that’s how you see it now – a very playable and lovely sounding guitar that’s unique to me! Ewan Bent, via email
Thanks for sharing your kit-building experience, Ewen. Constructing a guitar can really add to the pleasure of owning and playing the finished item. Meanwhile, the experience gained grants you extra insight and confidence when modding factory-built instruments, without risking an expensive ‘go-to’ instrument during the learning process. Nice work.