1950s Harmony H950 Monterey Archtop Guitar

The story on this one is that a customer bought this off of a guy because he felt bad for the seller. So what's the new owner to do but send it up here and make it work? He wants to use it for bottleneck slide, but for me that translates to: get it going right and then jack-up the treble side of the action by 1/32" -- to me that's a much more successful playability scheme "for slide" than the millions of eBay hawkers telling you so-and-so old guitar is great "for slide." The translation of that means that it's overdue on a neck reset and probably $200 worth of other repairs, too, and might as well be a Hawaiian guitar.

Anyhow, this one was actually in pretty good order save that it'd had a poorly-done "neck reset" and that the finish has yellowed/aged to a "brownburst" rather than its original "redburst" -- oh yeah, and the neck had warp. Let's not forget that. It's turned-out pretty good, though, in a sort-of chunky, dull-ish way and a tone that sort-of leaps right out and then hops into a puddle, if you get my drift. These have surprisingly-decent volume and an OK feel to the neck, but "she ain't no Gibson," that's for sure. Well, you can hear it in the clip.

Work included: a neck reset, fret level/dress, side dots install, fitting of a replacement parts-bin rosewood bridge, mild cleaning, and a general setup. It plays spot-on with 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE action at the 12th fret. I've used a set that will ape 11s (to preserve the neck) when it's tuned in open D or open G as the owner will likely keep it in one of those -- gauges 54w, 40w, 30w, 22w, 16, 12.

Scale length: 25 1/8"
Nut width: 1 3/4"
String spacing at nut: 1 1/2"
String spacing at saddle: 2 1/8"

Body length: 19 1/2"
Lower bout width: 15 7/8"
Upper bout width: 11 1/2"

Side depth at endpin: 3 3/8"+

Top wood: solid birch
Back/sides wood: solid birch
Neck wood: poplar
Fretboard: ebonized maple

Neck shape: 10" or 12 " radius with medium, C/V profile

Bridge: rosewood

Nut: original bone

Weight: 4 lb 1 oz

Condition notes: everything is original save the bridge, side dots, and an older strap button at the heel. The finish is chipped and flaked here and there throughout and shows plenty of weather-check. The "flame" is painted-on faux-flame in the finish. The original brass frets are low near the nut and near the body joint as I had to level/dress them pretty heavily to get the tops of them level and thus get the neck acting like it's straight. In reality, there's about 1/32" overall warp but the fretwork means that it works-out to being 1/64" overall relief when tuned to pitch.

Note all the cross-board "chatter" and tool-marks. This is because of whatever worn-out machine Harmony used to radius their fretboards.

There's a hint of original finish color below and to the sides of the bridge feet.