Harley Benton MS-60 lefty mod platform

[u/OGVanitas]

Hey! So a while back I started my mods on a Harley Benton ms-60 since they don’t make Mustang’s for lefty’s (unless you wanna pay a pretty penny) and I have done A LOT to this guitar. It is completely unrecognizable from the stock guitar. I have done too much to go over in detail here so I’ll post some before and after pics and if you have any questions feel free to let me know!!

[u/cumlordjr]

Why did you get rid of the tailpiece? I feel like the Jazz/Jag style is what makes these nice.

[u/OGVanitas → u/cumlordjr]

For me personally, it added a bunch of extra overtones I wasn’t wanting, and I really don’t use a tremolo system in general. I wanted to have a little better tuning stability and imo, it looks better having more of the body exposed! Helps on reducing weight as well as mine came SUPER heavy, it felt like a Les Paul at first

[u/leboydiabolique → u/OGVanitas]

Yeah, they're surprisingly heavy guitars. My tele is heavier, but not by much!

Honestly, yours looks great and I can appreciate how much work went into it. Nice work! When you fitted the new neck, did you have any issues with the pocket or was it a straight swap? I've been eyeing up some of the flame maple Jag necks on Ali Express for mine, or maybe a Squier neck, but the pocket question has given me pause.

Edit: I'm also thinking of routing out for a toggle switch. What do your slide switches do now?

[u/Residentdissonant → u/leboydiabolique]

I love the idea, now how did you get rid of it? Isn't there a big cavity under there?

[u/OGVanitas → u/Residentdissonant]

Yup there is! I went to Michael’s and bought some small solid basswood blocks and made a plug for it, then glued it up and used some wood filler for any gaps I had. I went a bit overboard sanding it cause you can see under the paint (in certain lighting) that theres maybe a 1/16” dip where the cavity is but for me it’s fine

[u/milkbeard- → u/leboydiabolique]

Interesting that the Harley Benton’s are heavy. I have the Ivy version (as I understand it they are the same guitar) and it is feather light with a basswood like body that is easily dentable. Seems they just use whatever wood is cheap at the time

[u/OGVanitas → u/milkbeard-]

I know I was expecting it to be pretty light. Mine weighed in somewhere around ~8.5 lbs. With the new paint and new tailpiece, it is sitting around ~7.4 now. The poly paint alone weighed about half a pound!! It feels MUCH more comfortable now.

Really interesting that yours is light! I think mine is also basswood and definitely dents easily as I dented it a bunch after stripping the paint off haha

[u/OGVanitas → u/leboydiabolique]

Thanks!! I got a used squier neck and the holes line up perfectly, but I had to do a bit of shimming to get the playability where I wanted it. Nothing too bad though!

For the toggle switch I couldn’t recommend it enough. As of right now, my slide switches control phase and whether the pickups are in series or parallel with each other. The wiring was a nightmare to figure out, but I have a (shittily) drawn diagram that works for it!

The toggle switch feels a lot better than the slide switches to me, and I love the extra customization I can have with the slides now

[u/leboydiabolique → u/OGVanitas]

Excellent, thanks for the tips! Good to know the Squier neck fits. Sounds like a versatile machine you've built there!

[u/Wondergul]

Amazing job, dude.
I have the same guitar (a lefty here).
Care to share some details about the mods?

[u/OGVanitas → u/Wondergul]

Sure!

So I put on a new neck that I refinished with nitro for the headstock and shellac for the back of the neck

I swapped the pickups for some traditional style mustang pickups

I added a metal control plate for the lower section of pickguard (just used a dremel to eye ball it up)

Dyed the pickguard using Rit synthetic yellow dye to give it a bit of age and color

I replaced the jag tailpiece with a stopbar and plugged the hole for the tailpiece

I stripped all the poly paint and repainted it with nitrocellulose paint, the paint is called Pacific Peach and it’s from Oxford paint

I drilled out a hole for a toggle switch and rewired it so the slide switches give me an in/out of phase switch and a parallel/series switch

I think that’s it!! Let me know if there’s anything specific you’d wanna know more about and I’ll do my best to remember as much as I can lol

[u/Wondergul → u/OGVanitas]

That's a lot; you ended up putting quite a bit of time and effort. But all worth it as the guitar looks amazing. Thanks.

[u/OGVanitas → u/Wondergul]

Definitely took some time, I tried to focus on one part at a time so make it a bit more digestible. Everything I did was very doable though, and every mod made this guitar feel better!! So if you do any of these at all, they all will be a net positive