A Harley-Benton hyper mod

[anthonyferguson]

I did this for a friend of a friend, who subsequently became a friend...
He asked me if I could replace the body of his harley-benton 7 string and do a couple of things to the neck, to which I said yes. It started life looking like this:

looked a bit like this in the process...

and this

and ended up a bit like this

Hope you like!! Also what you can't see is that I completely remodelled the neck heel (the neck is original; I changed the headstock shape) and added steel inserts that are epoxied in and have threads to act as bolts instead of screws to allow easy removal of the neck and a bit more strength as the joint is a little bit small than the original. Body is mahogany, top is flame maple and it's semi hollow. I can't quite remember what pickups it has, but I know they're DiMarzios of some sort. Also has ghost piezo system, with MIDI output. It's great fun to play!!

 

[scherzo1928]

hyper mod alright!

that's pure awesomenesss

 

[Hollowway]

Nice work. Although if that's a mod I'm not sure what a custom guitar is!

 

[vansinn]

Love the body shape, flames and natural finish - oil, right?
Not sure about how I like the 5+2 tuner arrangement; would take more pics..
Do you have pics from the back? I'd like to see the neck shape and how the neck/heel transition ended up.

H-B's are dirt cheap, but are the necks really good enough to consider? Shape, stability, resonance..
I only know the brand from their resonator/dobro series, which are quite good, especially the fully chromed one, but those have non-shredneck necks, so no judgement possible.

 

[TomAwesome]

Nice improvement!

 

[Invader]

Nice work!

I had a fixed bridge Harley Benton 7-string, and the neck was the weakest link in that guitar by far. The fretwork was horrendous and the truss rod was a little iffy. How's the fretwork and trussrod on that one?

 

[anthonyferguson]

Love the body shape, flames and natural finish - oil, right?
Not sure about how I like the 5+2 tuner arrangement; would take more pics..
Do you have pics from the back? I'd like to see the neck shape and how the neck/heel transition ended up.

H-B's are dirt cheap, but are the necks really good enough to consider? Shape, stability, resonance..
I only know the brand from their resonator/dobro series, which are quite good, especially the fully chromed one, but those have non-shredneck necks, so no judgement possible.

Yep it's a danish oil finish! Re. the tuner arrangement, the 7-inline configuration would have looked completely dire with the body shape. I was going for a sort of wolfgang/strat kind of feel, and after a lot of drawings and deliberation we decided the strat style 5/2 was the best option.

Unfortunately I don't have any more pics yet!! I gave it to the guy before I had a chance to take any decent ones.

The necks must be pretty hit and miss. The quality of the neck wood was fairly shit, but the fretwork is livable-with and it appears to be stable. I offered to build him a complete guitar but he said he was on a budget and wanted to save money wherever possible.

 

[anthonyferguson]

A few more pics:

Note: Upside down tuners, I did notify him that if we went with 5/2 they'd be the wrong way up, but he said he wasn't too bothered. It's not all the noticable from the front at any rate!

Cover plates look out of line... They're not, it's just the perspective

 

[dudeinblack]

My guitar is beautiful!

The neck's a dream to play, that's why I kept it! I must've got the best neck out of the factory, it's extremely comfortable.

The pickups are Dimarzios, blaze neck and tonezone bridge.

From neck to bridge, the controls are...
Killswitch (momentary)
Pickup switch
Coil taps (Outsides, humbucker, Insides)
Acoustic (Mags, Both, Piezos)
MIDI (Mags/Piezos, Both, Midi)
Standby

I haven't had the cover plate over the springs on for a while now either, to give me access to the tremel-no (and claw adjustment).

That's all I can think of needing to say!
It plays like a dream, and most people comment on it when they first see it =)
Edd

 

[anthonyferguson]

Edd your username is terrible

 

[dudeinblack]

Edd your username is terrible

It's just what I've had since I was 11! I didn't think I'd be posting much back in the day so I made it easy for me to remember, that's how ridiculously cool an 11 year old I was