1966 Harmony H22 Semihollow Electric Bass Guitar

Not only are these basses woody, thumpy, and fantastic in the first place -- but they're also very hip right now. I kid you not, but as I was editing-down the video I posted for this, a customer of mine asked about another one on Reverb and what its prospects might be for repair. I'd never played one of these done-up properly until this one, so my frame of reference is that these are usually doggy but with a cool sound. They invariably have bad necks or bad truss rods or (more often) both -- this one was the latter, and the one my buddy was asking about on Reverb had the same problems. Kay hollowbody basses are the same, too -- the necks get tired and need rejuvenating to make them real instruments.

I'll admit here that I'm partial to this Harmony design compared to the Kay -- the neck is a little wider and a little less strange to my hand, so I wasn't rolling strings off the edge. The DeArmond pickup is also a little less thumpy and with more mwah to it, but perhaps less body-sensitivity which is what gives the Kay hollows that almost subsonic whomp when you plug them in.

Work included: ...an incredible amount! The truss-rod nut was shorn-off and the neck was warped close to 3/32" down its length. I removed the fretboard, added carbon fiber reinforcement to the neck, repaired the rod and replaced its missing nut with an 8-32-thread Fender-style nut, reglued the fretboard, added side dots, planed the board level, and then refretted with jumbo stock. After that things were easy -- it got new relic'd Kluson-style tuners for easier tuning, a new ground wire to its tailpiece from the harness, a new jack plate (cut from an old Harmony pickguard) to replace a ridiculous oversize washer, and a good setup with LaBella flatwound strings in light gauges -- 95w-39w. It plays perfectly, with 3/32" action at the 12th fret and a straight neck with functioning truss-rod.

Scale length: 29 7/8"

Nut width: 1 3/4"

String spacing at nut: 1 1/2"

String spacing at bridge: 1 7/8"

Body length: 19 5/8"

Lower bout width: 15 1/2"

Upper bout width: 11 3/8"

Side depth at endpin: 1 7/8"

Top wood: birch

Back/sides wood: birch

Bracing type: soundpost

Fretboard: rosewood

Bridge: rosewood, adjustable

Neck feel: medium C-shape, 10" board radius

Neck wood: poplar

Condition notes: it's mostly-original but with upgrades. All hardware save the tuners is original. There's some old crack repairs to the side near the jack (a common issue on these and other Harm hollowbodies as the sides are solid wood) and the finish has some loss in that same area, but otherwise it's pretty clean.

I love the old Harmony wiring -- the "selector switch" is really a tone bypass -- it either engages the tone knob (at whatever setting you want) or bypasses it. Volume works in either case but it means you can set two tones right off the bat -- wide-open and mellow. In the video you can see me switch the tone pot on with it and the sound gets mellowed-out and thumpier per my setting.