Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit CST-24

The good:
- It is really fun to put this together and it actually works well.
- The neck feels really good after some polishing of the fret ends.
- I was able to set it up pretty well with low action and proper intonation.

The bad:
- If I had bought this as one of the ready made CST-24 models, I would have returned it in a heartbeat. The fit and finish of the supplied parts are actually quite terrible.
- The neck does not sit tight enough in the pocket in the body.
- The pre-drilled holes for the rear humbucker are misplaced and you can actually see inside the cavity if front of the humbucker. Barely, but still.
- The neck and bridge placement are not aligned meaning the strings are not centered in the middle of the neck.The low E string is much closer to the edge than the high E string.
- The body definitely needs some work if you plan to paint it. Mine have one big dent between the pickups and some minor dents in other places. Did quite a bit of sanding but not enough and some are still seen after spray paint and clear coat were added.
- The nut is barely cut at all.
- Also hade some minor issues with the placement of the front humbucker, one of the tuning pegs and the manual could be improved in showing which potentiometer goes where and which screws to use where.

To summarize: I would not buy it again but building it was fun and the paint job (metallic blue) turned out really well. So, it still looks really cool from a distance and plays ok!

A very well-crafted assembly kit. Everything having to do with the wood parts is very precise machined and fits like a glove. When it comes to fitting the neck to the body you can actually choose whether to bolt or glue it on, there's enough "heel" to permit gluing, much like on the Gibson SG. It's easy to assemble this kit.

The pickups supplied are a different story though. I have owned many guitars with ceramic humbuckers and I'm not too picky - ceramics sound a little whizzier for sure but most of the time they've worked for me. That is, till now... The supplied humbuckers with this kit are among the harshest I've ever heard. I have since replaced them. Don't get my rating wrong - this is an excellent assembly kit. But as it is an electric guitar the pickups will have a decisive bearing on the final sound. Thus, my low rating in the "sound" department.