1930s/1970s Regal/Japan Jumbo Squareneck Hawaiian Guitar
Update 2018: I was staring at this guitar on the wall for a moment and it struck me: why didn't I just drill some pinholes in the bridge and remove the trapeze tailpiece on this thing? So -- I did that and re-strung it for open D (DADF#AD) tuning, took a video, and took new pics. She's good to go and sounds a little more girth-y.
Yeah -- so this guitar is just weird. It's been put-together by someone just a little bit sillier than me. The body is from a late '60s or early '70s Japanese build (it's all-ply with tic-tac-toe bracing like on this 000 "Rose" or this 00 "Decca") that looks almost exactly like a Harmony Sovereign body at a glance and the neck is from a 1930s Regal squareneck guitar -- and probably a fancy Dobro-coned resonator at that. It's an upgrade over the "base" model Regal Dobro necks and has a rosewood board, fancy inlay, and is made from mahogany. To mix the two together-- you've just gotta be a nut!
Yeah -- so this guitar is just weird. It's been put-together by someone just a little bit sillier than me. The body is from a late '60s or early '70s Japanese build (it's all-ply with tic-tac-toe bracing like on this 000 "Rose" or this 00 "Decca") that looks almost exactly like a Harmony Sovereign body at a glance and the neck is from a 1930s Regal squareneck guitar -- and probably a fancy Dobro-coned resonator at that. It's an upgrade over the "base" model Regal Dobro necks and has a rosewood board, fancy inlay, and is made from mahogany. To mix the two together-- you've just gotta be a nut!
Said mixing-together job was done decently, if a little "off." The neck's not true to the center-line of the guitar, so the strings pass over the saddle a little more to the treble than they should (and thus the new pinholes are not on-center). Still -- the effect is nice. This is a rip-roaring-loud slide box and it's rough-and-tumble, practical, and sturdy to boot.
Work included replacing the too-thin bone saddle with a new one, re-hanging the tailpiece, cleaning it up, adding more appropriate tuners (1950s-style ones as seen on many Harmony products) to replace a set of junky Japanese ones, and setting it up. I've got it strung for open D at the moment with gauges 54w, 42w, 32w, 24w, 17, 13.
The original bone nut (1 13/16" width) survives. Sheesh!
I love the old rosewood board with its white-pearl block inlay and cream binding.
This has a long, 25 3/8" scale.
This has a long, 25 3/8" scale.
The body is a bit of a mess -- there's discoloration, scratches, and use/abuse-wear all over. The bracing is all good and it's ready to go, however.
When I say tic-tac-toe bracing on the top, I mean that it's ladder-braced with two long "tonebar" braces that run from end-to-end, giving a tic-tac-toe "board" shape.
The rosewood bridge is decent and the new saddle is tall. The D-string pinhole is really deep (as it intersects a bit of brace), so turning the pin around is necessary to get the string to hold nice and tight.
While the top is ply spruce, the back and sides are ply mahogany.
Side depth is 4 1/2" -- plenty of airspace to give this some tonal heft.
Note the hilarious amount of patched-up tailpiece-hanger holes!
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