Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit Extreme-84

I've always loved Explorer guitars but they are so expensive. The Harley Benton Ex-84 series looked cool and I almost bought the white one but then decided to get the kit instead.

Everything went together smoothly and didn't need any extra sanding, drilling, or cutting.

It came ready to paint and I tried to paint mine to look like a Viking shield, which was fun to do. Now I have a unique looking Explorer for the fraction of the cost of a real one.

I don't know anything about electronics, so that part of the project was most daunting. Luckily you don't have to solder and only snap together things. With a little trial and error I got it working quickly.

As for the guitar itself it sounds and plays great. This is my first guitar with active pickups and it is great for metal but also fine for other genres too. Then isn't super thin but isn't super chunky either.

There were a few slightly sharp fret edges, but that is not uncommon for budget guitars and is an easy fix.

Overall, I'm super happy with this. I'm glad I went with the kit instead of getting the white one since now I get a one of a kind guitar. It was a fun project and easy to do.

I was looking for a new guitar that I could use as a "workhorse" and this does not fall short by any means. for the price, the tones you get from the original pickups is perfectly adequate and it gives you the freedom to really make the instrument your own.

at first its like blank canvas but once I got going with some sanding and staining + sealing it became a labour of love haha and my guitar came out brilliantly with a natural dark wood grain. I since then have upgraded it with EMG JR pickups and proper shielding also HB strap locks and I plan on adding a bone nut. To add, assembly is as straight forward as it gets and the action can be tweaked to suit any player really so I would definitely recommend this to any guitarist who can't sit still to learn theory haha.

I’d never considered doing anything like this before but this kit was an absolute joy to put together. It doesn’t take forever and isn’t too scary, but the sense of achievement and end result were excellent.
It also gives you a great guitar to experiment with. I put Hipshot locking tuners on mine, as I’d never had locking tuners before (also I felt the supplied ones were slipping a bit) and put Kirk Hammett EMGs in it, so didn’t test the supplied ones.
My only issue is that the fret ends were a bit sharp, but that was easily solved.
A brilliant idea, brilliantly executed, by a brand I’ve grown to really trust.