Harley Benton CST-24HB TOL Tobacco Flame

The Harley Benton CST-24HB had managed to sneak past quality control - or was there any in the first place?

On a positive note, the neck felt very good and the back wood of the body was of a beautiful dark coffee colour.

However, the pickup switch was very unstable and loose. It is questionable how long it would work close to the f-hole without some permanent breakage.

The installed bridge was too cheap, with strings grouped together and leaving too few adjustment possibilities for proper intonation.

The fretboard had been left uncleaned and messy, apparently with residues from the inlay work.

All in all, this leaves a bad taste of poor quality control. Another waste of time and another Thomann guitar goes back in return.

The Good..
-Sounds good.
-Plays well.
-Frets are pretty level. Only 2 high frets.
-The fret edges are smooth.
-The finish on the guitar body looks nice, even though there are a number small of blemishes.
-Fast delivery and Thomann staff responded quickly to my questions.

The Ugly..
-The blinding on the F-holes don't cover the wood. 1mm without blinding in some places.
-A think black line of filler around all the TOL inlays with brown stains in places.
-The colour of the fretboard. Is a light brown/orange colour (terracotta). The colour of the board was much darker in the images on the website and in all other videos I have seen reviewing this guitar. The terracotta colour makes the poor inlay job really stand out. It looks bad. Oiling it did help but not enough.

So, would I recomened this guitar? Not really.

My main issue is the colour of the fretboard, It fundamentally ruins the looks of the guitar for me. The other issues are just minor things given the price of the guitar.

I was planning on buying a few more HB guitars but this experiance has really put me off.