c.1972 Harmony H6365 000-size Mahogany Guitar

The H6365 is the 70s version of the venerable Harmony H165 all-mahogany guitar and not much is changed save the neck profile (super thin for a Harmony) and the decal-applied rather than bound soundhole rosette. It also had an adjustable bridge from the factory but for setup purposes here it's non-adjustable.

This example came to me in trade and the work over here was as minimal as possible to get it playing well because these don't hold a lot of value. The neck got a bolt-through reinforcement, the bridge got a shave, the frets got leveled and dressed, and it got a good bit of cleaning. Unfortunately for Harmony necks of this period they're structurally under-built: they're too thin (think gaining on 60s Gibson necks) and made of poplar rather than a nicer-grade wood. This means that to keep the neck happy with the long Harmony scale (25") I've strung it up with extra-light 10s for standard-pitch stringing. The truss rod manages to keep it straight at this tension but even slightly heavier at 50w-11 the truss maxed out and left a touch of relief. I suppose this makes it a good folk-singy or fingerpicking guitar, however, with its light touch.

Solid mahogany body all over with a rosewood board and bridge.

Most of the hardware is original to this guitar but one ferrule is a replacement.

The neck has a 1 11/16" nut, more arched radius than older Harmony products... and the typical brass frets and faux-pearl dots I associate with these guitars.

There are no cracks except for a 1/2" hairline right at the soundhole which is glued up and near invisible.

I didn't want to spend excess time making sure the bridge would stay put over the long haul (it's glued halfway decent from the factory) so I bolted this through with... 1969 Harmony bolts off of an H929 equivalent guitar! The bridge then got a pretty steep shave and the original adjustable saddle was sanded down until the action fit 3/32" bass at the 12th fret and 1/16" treble (quick).

Binding on the top and back edges... and plenty of usewear. There's some scratched-in silliness on the top (a girlish scratched-in "I <3 U" for example) but... it's an old Harmony! I'll forgive it.

Despite being a latter-day Harmony it's still a fun guitar to hang onto. I'm thinking of doing a bit of recording with it while it hangs out here... it's got a nice midrangey fingerpicking tone that sounds fairly full but also 30s bluesy.

This bolts straight through the strap button and right...

...on into the inside. The big hex nut makes this easy to adjust later on.

Now that the sun's coming out a bit here you can finally see some of the pretty light figure in the mahogany. This is so typical of old Harmony guits...