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...

...notice the rust on the stock strings. They're D'Addario 10-46, but I guess a couple of months of warehousing did not do them much good. They'll be binned very soon anyway, as I play and set up all guitars on Dean Markley Custom Light 9-46 strings.

Now there's something else which, to be frank, can be noticed on the webshop's stock pictures as well and which I therefore sort of expected. The rims of the sockets of the bridge and stop bar posts tend not sit flush with the top. That's of course because of the extra work it would require to neatly cut out flat circles from the unfinished arched top before finishing it and fitting the sockets. Too tedious, not cost effective, never mind the aesthetics then... But how bad it would be I could not foretell.

That tail piece post socket is protruding quite a bit. Not a very pretty sight.

The lower end is not much better either.

We'll see what can be done about it. Not much I'm afraid, but then if it doesn't kill the tone, then it's not a very serious issue to lose my sleep over. Same for the little molding flash you tend to see everywhere around mass produced cheap plastic parts: some of them are unfiled, others got scraped off too roughly, making the end result look messy and cheap.

That pickup ring has flash on one side and an ugly recess on another. Those will be easy repairs.

Another element that instantly gives away Chinese LP knock-offs is the sheer looks of the toggle switch. Check out this one: the plate is of the inelegant black and white type, and the switch is secured with the bulkiest of hex nuts.

This is a disgrace to look at and a very tough and clicky beast to operate, but electrically, I tested it, it works perfectly.

Moving up to the neck, the show must of course go on. 

Very minor but clearly visible glitch in the binding just at the octave marker.

Look at the shaft of the post of the A string's tuner. Protruding, are we? 

Wow that trussrod cover is a rather ugly piece of workmanship!

But here's much worse: what did they sand this fretboard with? A rhinoceros?

By now, I am conscious of how far this is from any possible comparison with its Gibson counterpart - which, given the price point, is entirely fair. But let's see if we can get closer to the ambitious benchmark. There's lots of fun to be had giving it a try! It gives me courage that the guitar looks very nice as a whole, and it does sound pretty okay in spite of the rusty strings. The Wilkinson alnico humbuckers do a decent job. Not Burstbuckers or original vintage PAF's, but they're more than okay for the price.

Oh, and let's not forget this little finding: the bottom strap button was pretty loose. Looking at it closely, I realised why: it looks like the guitar at one point fell quite heavily on its butt, well actually on the button itself, which made a very clear and unsightly round dent on the finish, thereby also coming a little loose of its tightening screw. I won't be able to repair the finish but tightening the screw again should at least secure the button. And the strap will hide the ugly sight anyway.

Ouch! That must have hurt!

Here's the video run-down of this inspection, along with the first few notes played on the guitar before modding anything. It runs straight through the clean and drive channels of my Blackstar HT5 ministack.

Coming up next: fixing that strap button.