Neck swap for Harley Benton

[Music&Chaos]

Swapping a new neck onto my thinline style Harley Benton. Why would I do this? The neck currently on it feels alright, no complaints really. The neck overall isnt anything to sing about, has that certain import lumber feel to it. Top on the guitar looks better than in the pic I uploaded but the beautiful top isnt why I am upgrading it. Mostly due to it being a gift from a friend a year or two back who is not doing so well now. I want it to really be something I just love.

swapping the hardware helped.

Putting in my custom P90 set made it sound just awesome.

now onto the next upgrade.

I got a great deal when I made a bid I thought would not win and here we are......

Short scale conversion neck.

Nitro finished American Cherry neck with Bubinga board.


I just finished installing the Gotoh vintage tuners I grabbed on sale.

Will get it fitted up and drilled ASAP for testing.

View attachment 455996

 

[VonBonfire]

Nice neck!

How has your friend Jeff been doing? Wasn't that his name? Sorry I had a big list lately and sometimes have trouble keeping track.

 

[Music&Chaos]

Nice neck!

How has your friend Jeff been doing? Wasn't that his name? Sorry I had a big list lately and sometimes have trouble keeping track.

Good memory! Doing better than he was but still not so good overall.

 

[VonBonfire]

Good memory! Doing better than he was but still not so good overall.

He's in my continued prayers!!!

 

[Music&Chaos]

Update on the neck swap:

Before the swap, the neck sounded dead. Like, you could only really hear the sound of the strings coming from the body, and, for lack of a better description, it was really stringy sounding. The A4 Custom P90s brought out the voice of the guitar as much as possible, but it was mostly the sound of the pickups rather than the guitar as a system giving anything back harmonically or in the midrange presence.

Put the new neck on and roughly adjusted everything to the same levels. as far as pickup height and such and dang.....this has way more presence. The sound of the note has been brought clear to the front, along with harmonics and treble. I mean, really just full clarity completely across the borad. There is so much more of the note audible that the current wiring of 550K pots with no tone is really kicking you in the teeth like it just could never do before. Even playing this acoustically, it started sustaining on certain notes on the G string naturally similar to feedback, good stuff. Still have to dial a lot in but damn did that make way more of a change than I imagined it would.

Documenting other possible changes as well and will see what is all summing up to make the guitar sound so much larger and so much more alive.

Pics coming after I polish the frets (soon!).

 

[VonBonfire]

Update on the neck swap:

Before the swap, the neck sounded dead. Like, you could only really hear the sound of the strings coming from the body, and, for lack of a better description, it was really stringy sounding. The A4 Custom P90s brought out the voice of the guitar as much as possible, but it was mostly the sound of the pickups rather than the guitar as a system giving anything back harmonically or in the midrange presence.

Put the new neck on and roughly adjusted everything to the same levels. as far as pickup height and such and dang.....this has way more presence. The sound of the note has been brought clear to the front, along with harmonics and treble. I mean, really just full clarity completely across the borad. There is so much more of the note audible that the current wiring of 550K pots with no tone is really kicking you in the teeth like it just could never do before. Even playing this acoustically, it started sustaining on certain notes on the G string naturally similar to feedback, good stuff. Still have to dial a lot in but damn did that make way more of a change than I imagined it would.

Documenting other possible changes as well and will see what is all summing up to make the guitar sound so much larger and so much more alive.

Picks coming after I polish the frets (soon!).

IME the neck will have as much or more to do with tone than the body. Glad it's working out. Those are nice looking tele bodies, glad to see you bringing it up to par with some better quality parts.

 

[Music&Chaos]

Neck specs:

Fretboard Stock	Bubinga
Neck Stock	Cherry
Fret Wire	21 Jescar "Tall" Frets. Height - .090" Width - .055"
Face Dots	White
Side Dots	White
Truss Rod	Dual action truss rod with 4mm "Allen Key" Headstock adjustment
Scale Length	24.75" Conversion Scale (This neck is meant to convert a 25.5" scale guitar to 24.75")
Profile Shape	C-Shape
Thickness	.891" Thick at 1st fret .966" Thick at 12th fret
Weight	1 lb. 3.5 oz.
Tuner Holes	10 mm
Nut Width	1 11/16"
Heel Width	2 3/16"
Radius	12"
Nut Slot	Flat Bottom
Finish	Thin Nitro

I left it with the thick boat anchor neck. Wanted to try it out. Not angry at it! They suspect most people will pick one of their neck carve options but I specifically wanted something really thick to see how it felt.


This thing is so much more punchy and bright and full that I gotta change the wiring. The 550k with no tone is just cracking the ears now. I have the string height and everything set the same.

The new neck is shortscale, so I expected more midrange and some sweetness but this is like lifting 5 blankets off the guitar.

Figured there would be an audible difference but this is far more extreme than expected.

I even kept the old strings. They are both vintage split faced tuners, so it was an easy swap right over.

No filters or anything, just my crappy phone camera. That Bubinga has some pop to it!

 

[Music&Chaos]

After playing awhile with this neck on....the guitar ascended to another class from what I thought this guy could be. Something about it is giving me Ibanez AZ vibes with the looks and since the frets are the same as on my Jem, maybe that is also pinging the subconscious with the 'high end' feel I associate with a sweet made in Japan Ibby.

Neck is made in USA and thin nitro finished.

Still need to wire in the new pots and cap but it plays like butter after setting up the new nut and such.

 

[Music&Chaos]

Went with a 260k pot in vol and 240k in tone along with a .022 pio cap with 50s wiring. This thing sounds wonderful. It has a wonderful midrange to it that keeps everything present and clear and tight, but has a certain smoothness present throughout the range. The neck pickup does not get boomy, just like I was hoping. This is a semi hollow and you know sometimes they can muddy up the freq range? Not here. The bridge is thick and rich with just the right amount of snap up top and thump down low. Really diggin this guitar more than ever.