c.1939 Harmony-made Supertone "Lone Ranger" Cowboy Guitar

Yet another customer's instrument, this is a rare model in the "cowboy guitar" lineup. This one is a typical Harmony all-birch build on their 1930+ 12-fret body shape, but it's of course the decorations that make it cool: in this case the big, bold Lone Ranger stencil, the black finish, red celluloid binding, and high-contrast painted "crystalline" fretboard. The Harmony date label on the inside is faint but appears to read "S-39" for 1939. It might be a S-38, though.

Work on this guitar included a new rosewood bridge (made to fit the old broken one's profile) with fret saddle, fret level/dress, replacement upper bout brace, various brace reglues, seam repairs, setup, tuner lube, yadda yadda. It came out a decent player with a sort of funky tubby fingerpicking tone. It doesn't have the nasal bark that a lot of these old Harmony builds tend to have -- it's mellower.

The stencil on this one is in really good shape. I love how clean it is!

Oops, I forgot to mention that I cleated a couple top cracks, too.

Strings are 48w-10 DR Sunbeams to keep excessive tension off. Check out the saddle placement -- so close to the front of the bridge -- this is because I copied the bridge size and shape from the original and the original saddle was installed too far back originally, throwing intonation flat.

Cute headstock. Wood nut (original).

The fretboard has that weird, mid-late 1930s crystalline-style painted finish. In this case it's a faded, dirty mint green color.

The red binding really pops out. This is only the third instrument I've worked on with the stuff, and I love it when I see it.

The back has plenty of play-wear wounds...!

These tuners were really stiff, but after a bit of WD-40, they're good to go.