Harley Benton ST-90SA Swamp Ash DLX Series

The quality of this guitar is the best of all the Harley Bentons I own. The body consist of two pieces painted with a really smooth satin finish. The matching of the woods could had been better though. It would also had been nice if it was perfectly centered, but it's a ¤169 guitar after all. I guess some of you might hit the jack pot but I'm quite happy with how it looks. The neck and the frets are flawless. It felt a bit thicker than what I'm used to, but after a weeks it feel better.

The 2-point floating tremolo is fantastic. Unfortunately one of the tremolo springs was loose when I got it out of the box but it was easily fixed. I ended with removing it anyway as the tremolo was bit too stiff for me. Tightening the bracket and going with two springs instead gave me a tremolo as good as the best ones I've tried. I've never had any problems with the guitar getting out of tune by using it.

Like the other Harley Bentons I've recently bought the setup was quite bad. The action was ridiculously high out of the box. My nylon string guitar has a lower action. Thankfully it was easily fixed like the other HB's. Just adjust the truss rod and lower the saddles.

The pickups was the biggest question for me before buying this guitar. Some other reviews have complained about them. So I bought a set of Tonerider Classic Blues' before even hearing them. The Wilkinson pickups actually sounded better than I expected. A bit harsh perhaps but it could maybe had been solved with new pots instead of buying new pickups. Having already bought the Toneriders I ended up switching them anyway. I'll re-use the Wilkinsons in some other project.

With the modifications I've ended up with an amazing strat. The only thing I've got left to do is changing the pickguard. Why just not go with 1-play black to begin with instead of the terrible fake tortoise shell?

Inte helt nöjd med byggkvaliteten. Gitarren (eller snarare jag) lider av dess kraftiga "fretsprout". Efter lite spelande är man helt uppriven i vänsterhanden. Inget stort eller ovanligt problem. Och det är bara att börja fila till banden. Är man osäker på hur det går till finns massor med videos på nätet. Känner man sig helt handfallen inför lite mekande med gitarren så blir det ju jobbigt. Dock är det en i grunden bra gitarr så jag ser den lite som ett projekt.

Köpte denna gitarr med intentionen att byta ut de flesta plastdelar mot egentillverkade mässingsdelar, så nu har den fått pickguard, volymknappar, switch knob och bakplatta i polerad mässing. Det var inget fel på originaldelarna, men jag ville göra den mer personlig. Den låter riktigt bra, svajet funkar perfekt, intonationen är perfekt, stämskruvarna funkar fint. Bytte ut sadeln mot en justerbar mässingssadel för att enkelt kunna justera stränghöjden (Thomann art no 250644) och det var en bra investering, har gjort samma sak på flera gitarrer. Det enda jag inte gillade på denna gitarr var den matta finishen på kroppen. Det är ju en smaksak, jag gillar när det blänker, så jag har polerat ytan på kroppen med D'addario restore detailer (Thomann art no 186449). Det har tagit ett par timmar av handpolering men det var det värt, träet är otroligt vackert när det matta överdraget försvinner.