Refining the trussrod cover of the Harley Benton

Gibsons come with super elegant bell-shaped trussrod covers, attached with two screws, one on the top and one on the bottom. This is possible because on Gibson headstocks, you access the trussrod nut through a hole in the headstock, and there is room between the nut and the hole for a centre screw at the bottom of the cover. On budget guitars, the trussrod nut sits directly under the nut, so what you have on the headstock is not a hole, but a groove. As a result you need two bottom screws above and under the groove to attach the trussrod cover. Hence those ugly looking trapeze shaped covers you see on every budget guitar and building kit. Harley Benton is no excpetion to this, but this SC-450Plus model comes at least with the trapeze filed into a nicer, curved and roughly pointy shape.

Harley Benton VT Series trussrod cover.

You will have noticed, as I did, that this not only has a slightly nicer shape than the average budget trussrod cover, but it is also cut out of 3-ply plastic sheet. Now what does this tell you?

Exactly: if its edges were filed to a slope, you would see a fine white edge around it, making it look a little bit more elegant. That's not very difficult to do. I blocked a hand tool with a sanding cone in my vice, turned it on at moderate speed to avoid excess heat, and I then simply filed all edges (but the butt) of the trussrod cover to a nice slope.

Maching filing the edges to a slope.

When roughly done, I took a hand file to it to refine the edges and remove the flash, before sanding everything down smooth with 600 grit sandpaper. Be careful with the top surface. you don't want to spoil its sheen by sanding it matt.

Hand filing away plastic flash.

The end result is a trussrod cover with a white rim, looking one inch closer to the higher grade guitars out there.

The 3-ply black-white-black trussrod cover adds a bit a cachet to the headstock.

And this actually concludes the modding of the guitar.

COMING UP NEXT: The end result.