Harley Benton TE-52 – On the Bench and Upgrades #guitar #telecaster #harleybenton

I love to find inexpensive, but quality made guitars and use them as a modding platform. Some would say the Harley Benton guitars are quality. Some would argue that they are not. I have seen it in the comments. I would say – do not just assume they are junk or crap and pick one up for yourself and try it. You will be really surprised.

I ordered the TE-52 which is the Harley Benton equivalent to the Squier ‘50s Classic Vibe Telecaster.

Here is where my doubt came in. The Harley Benton TE-52 lists retain on the Thomann website for $139 and add on a gig bag for another $12.50. Yes, you do have to pay about $80 for shipping and handling but I have paid that a lot of times buying used guitars from private parties on eBay and Reverb.

I had my doubts as to the quality of the TE-52 and was excited to put it on the bench and go over the guitar. I also wanted to see if the guitar’s specifications allowed for the guitar to be a good modding platform. Some of the questions I had were did it have a proprietary bridge and other parts where I would not be able to swap out the readily available Telecaster parts that are on the market.

I figured for a guitar at this price point I would want to replace the bridge, saddles, pickups, and electronics.

After ordering the guitar showed up around a week later. There is nothing you need to do with importation or anything out of the ordinary. You order your guitar and pay for it and it shows up a week later.

A little about the guitar –

The body is made of American ash and the neck and fretboard are made of Canadian maple.

The neck has 21 frets and a truss rod accessible at the headstock.

The fret board radius is 12 inches, and the scale length is 25 ½ inches.

The neck profile is a C.

It comes with Kluson style tuning machines.

The pickups are 2 Roswell TEA Alnico 5 single coil pickups.

It has a three-saddle bridge with string through body loading or top loading.

The guitar came with 10 gauge strings installed.

The pickguard, control panel and bridge all came off easily.

I was really happy to find that a traditional vintage style Telecaster Fender bridge was a direct drop in replacement for the TE-52. I had a loaded bridge with brass Gotoh compensated saddles. The bridge I was replacing although looked like a Fender bridge it was much thinner and lighter.

I recorded the TE-52 prior to making the modifications and will include at the end of the video compared to the upgraded version of the TE-52 recordings as well.

The pickups and control panel I installed were both from Tone-Rider Pickups. The Pickups are their Hot Classics and the wiring harness is a modern telecaster wiring harness with a .22 uf cap instead of a .047 uf cap and is made up of:

(2) CTS 250k Potentiometers
(1) Oak/Grigsby 3-way switch
(1) Switchcraft mono input jack
(1) Sprague/Orange Drop capacitor .22 uf Cap

Here is my view of the TE-52

The tuners are fine and functional. My one complaint is the hole in the slot is not deep enough as the typical Kluson is and it sometimes makes it difficult to insert a string into it and keep it inserted while winding, especially with the high e string.

The neck is straight and has a satin finish. I like the look of the neck. They describe the finish as caramelized. The frets are typical for a guitar in the $200 to $500 range meaning there is fret rock at least three to five locations on the fretboard. The edges of the frets are not terrible but not great. It could use some filing up and down the fret board. All-in-all the neck is very playable out of the box without buzz.

The body has great grain and I like the finish although it is kind of on the tan or brownish yellow instead of aged blonde. I cannot see the seams in the wood showing where the wood has been joined.

The pickup and control panel cavities are routed well and are clean.

Out of the box the guitar had correct string height and intonation and the truss rod did not need to be adjusted. The guitar came with the same gauge strings as I already use so the nut did not need to be filed.

The electronics work and are adequate. I am surprised to see Alnico 5 pickups at this price point. Usually, you get ceramic magnet pickups. When you plug the guitar into an amp there is no hum or buzz as it is adequately grounded.

The bridge is the same dimensionally as the fender branded unit but much thinner and less substantial.

When plugged into an amp the guitar has clean sounds in all three positions and takes to a distortion pedal well.

After the modifications there is more umph in the pickups and I think they have more rage and clarity.