Cavity search on the Harley Benton

It is always worth having a look at the control cavities of any guitar because it's often very telling of how much care was taken to build the instrument. The cheaper the gear, the messier those normally invisible cavities can be. And that's also where it is the easiest to evaluate the quality of the timber used, because surfaces are generally roughly routed, not sanded, not painted or finished in any way. So here, based on the price point, I was expecting some sort of a disaster.

The volume and tone pots' cavity

The toggle switch cavity

And I have to say...

Embellishing the toggle switch of the Harley Benton

You'll recall that last time around, I cleaned up the switch tip. Well that was the easier part. What I really wanted to fix was this horribly bulky and ugly looking hex nut securing the switch, and the very inelegant, rather coarse, B&W switch plate:

On a power tool it would be okay. On a fine instrument it should look better than that.

Having said that, note that...

Cleaning up the plastics of the Harley Benton

Probably one of the most obvious telltale signs of cheapness is poorly sanded plastic moldings with flash around them. They look bad, they feel bad, but luckily in most cases they're very easy to clean up, and the results can be rewarding, both in terms of comfort and in terms of looks. So that's an easy place to start. Let's take for instance this bridge pickup ring here:

Flash on both sides.

Of course...

First quick fixes on the Harley Benton

Let's pick this up where we left off, and let's take that loose bottom strap pin down from the guitar attic to the workbench in the basement.

That pin knocked an ugly dent into the finish.

The rather thin and short screw came loose in no time, revealing that...

Close inspection of the Harley Benton out of the box

I always dread the first close inspection of anything I ordered without having seen it first. Zooming in on every little detail and finding every possible blemish is not being unfair, it's just what you would do anyway. And here I got loads to look at for my -- admittedly little -- money.

Starting with the bridge, which is spec'ed as a "Deluxe Tune-o-matic". It is a ToM alright but what is Deluxe about it I can't tell. The posts are the same simple ones you can only turn with a flat screwdriver, the chrome plating is quite gross, but most importantly the saddles look very rough and they are all slotted to the same gauge.

Even the low E (.46) doesn't sit snugly, and the high E (.10) is lost in the groove. Nothing Deluxe to me!

By the way...

Unboxing the Harley Benton

The order was placed at 3:40 on a Monday afternoon, the pack arrived on Thursday morning at 11:30, and even in the midst of the pre-Xmas madness, is only came so late because UPS mistakenly sent it to Cologne instead of Brussels at first, causing a 24 hour delay. Kudos to Thomann anyway for the quick and free shipping.

The guitar came thoroughly and neatly packaged with ample protection around it, hopefully it did not get damaged in transit. Straight out of the box, it did look very okay:

It does look almost as good as on the stock pictures.

Upgrading my bargain Harley Benton from Thomann

I have had a number of guitars over the years. It is fair to say I have plenty of them now. I remember some of the first Chinese mass produced pieces of junk I've had, twenty years ago. They were really terrible, and there are still plenty of those out there. I got rid of one just last week (and it was actually a recent one, from 2014, and of a brand owned by none other than the big G...). Total waste of trees.

Yet more and more often I've been coming across quite good reviews of white label Chinese guitars. In particular Thomann's latest run of their EOM branded single cuts seemed to stand out of the lot. And they do really look pretty on the pictures! Especially the Harley Benton SC-450Plus VB Vintage Series which comes the closest to my all-time favourite and fancy, the Desert Burst Les Paul Traditional.

That's the real stuff by Gibson.

And that's the Harley Benton's stock picture from the Thomann website.

What the hell, I thought...