c.1955 Harmony Montclair Archtop Guitar

This is a customer's guitar... and a fun one, too! I can't decide whether it's something Chevy decided not to build or if it actually is a musical instrument. At any rate, after a little fret dress and setup, it's not too shabby a player, even with a 1-2mm warp in the neck... plays at 1/8" from the board at the 12th fret.

This is the rarer 1955-only model (model no. H956 "Auditorium" size), with slightly smaller (15 3/4" vs 16 5/8") lower bout, no truss rod (but probably a steel rod in the neck), and super-cool headstock stencil and aluminum edging everywhere.

All its hardware is original -- nice old 3-on-a-plate tuners, which after oiling work well, bone nut, orig. tailpiece and rosewood bridge. Fretboard looks like some sort of ebonized fruitwood.

Faux-pearl dots inlaid on the board, nickel-silver frets. I was originally going to do a neck set on this fellow but upon discovery of epoxy decided not too. The neck's plenty stable, fortunately, and whoever did the "repair" managed to not mess up the fretboard extension, too, as it's set at the right angle in relation to the "true" neck (ie, not angled up causing notes to buzz up top).

Definitely been around the block but a fun guitar for sure. Body is press-arched birch top and back with fiddle-style tone-bar bracing.

Cool stuff! And hot to trot.