Helpfully, the website where I bought the lacquer from also sells a set of sandpapers of increasing grades which are appropriate for sanding down this type of lacquer. This was one part of the process I was quite nervous about; having not done anything like this before I went into it with no pre planning as to what kind of a finish I wanted - the sandpaper could in theory take me to a super smooth mirror finish but I would be happy with a more matte finish. The first grade of sandpaper I used was a rougher one to get rid of the orange peel-like texture left on the finish from the spraying, and this went really quite well. As I moved up grades to finer, more polishing levels I noticed that in a couple of places the finish was waring thin, especially on the edges of the guitar. This left patches where the wood underneath was visible, so I decided to stop where I was, leaving the finish slightly matte but smooth. Fortunately the areas where I sanded through the finish completely are areas which would wear with time, where your right forearm would rest, for example. This is one area which I would learn from if I was spraying a guitar again - I would need to do considerably thicker layers/more coats of the glass and the lacquer itself to get a mirror gloss finish.
Next up was the construction. Unfortunately one of the four screws which hold the neck in place had the cross in the top of it filled with metal, but luckily I had another screw of the same size to hold it in place. The holes in the neck join lined up perfectly with those in the guitar body (these weren't really square, and one was very near the edge of the wood, but this has not been an issue). Connecting up the pickups to the electrics was pretty easy as everything is solderless, however I did think that the wires were unnecessarily long, which made screwing the pickups in with the pickguard a bit of a challenge. Another annoying thing and another example of the cheap price of the guitar is the fact that the jack plate doesn't cover the pre-cut whole in the body.
I strung the guitar with a set of my usual strings (D'Addario 10-52) and the guitar has been coping fine with them. I was a bit nervous about putting these heavier strings on them as the unbranded strings which came with the kit felt really light, perhaps even 9 gauge. The intonation of the guitar was perfect straight away, but the bridge heights did need adjusting to reduce fret buzz and the pickups did need their height increasing.
I was really impressed with the tone of this guitar. The Mexican strat I had last summer was not resonant at all but this guitar is the polar opposite. If you pick a sting you can feel the vibration from the top of the headstock through to the bottom of the body, and this is a massive thing for me - I can pretty much tell whether I'm going to like a guitar if it resonates like this. The tone from the pickups is really nice, classic tele twang in the bridge and clarity and warmth from the neck, works really well with cleans and gains and especially well with compression. I have definitely noticed from playing Squire Strats or Epiphone Les Pauls that cheaper pickups tend to be really overwound, but I haven't noticed this being the case with these pickups. One thing which was annoying to begin with was the frets which were quite scratchy and could do with smoothing with some wire wool or something, however with some playing in this has lessened. When I next restring this guitar I will probably smooth them down a bit.
I am really pleased with this guitar, it plays perfectly fine for a gigging guitar, tuning is stable and the tones are really useable. I'm looking forward to getting to know this guitar, perhaps upgrading it piece by piece and seeing it wear even more with time. If you fancy a project, I definitely recommend giving this one a go, plus you get a cool guitar out of it! I'd definitely try a different Harley Benton kit again in the future.
