1930s Harmony-made Tropical-Stencil Parlor Guitar

This guitar has been lingering around the shop for ages before repairs started. It's owned by a consignor who has a bunch of gear for sale through me and he asked me to fix it up for him for use with open-tuned slide work. He wasn't able to get up here to grab it and in the meantime he picked-up more toys (boy, does that sound familiar?), so I set it up for "normal" play and now it's available.

Originally, this guitar probably had a Supertone label in the soundhole and probably had a Harmony date stamp on it, too. There definitely was a label in there at some point. Now it's unmarked but it's clearly a Harmony product. I've worked on dozens of this same model and, interestingly, it's the same basic guitar design that became the '50s and '60s Harmony "Stella" models that so many folks grew-up learning to play on. This was also the same design as the smaller Gene Autry "Melody Ranch" models, too.

This one, however, has cool Hawaiian/tropical stencils with bright red "parrots," palm trees, a sunset waterfront, and a fella serenading his beach-bum sweetheart.

After repairs, it plays bang-on and has a woody, folksy sound to it that's friendly and relaxed. It's a one-trick pony but it's a very comfortable, welcoming one.

Repairs included: a neck reset, fret level/dress, cleats added to old crack repairs, brace reglues, cutting a new saddle slot, a new bone (compensated) saddle, new ebony bridge pins, side dots install, seam repairs, new StewMac "antiqued" tuners at the headstock, cleaning, and setup.

Setup notes: the neck is straight and it's strung with 54w-12 gauges. Action is low and spot-on 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE at the 12th fret. There is only a small amount of saddle height over the bridge deck as I'd originally set this up to mimic the (very low) fret saddle height of the original bridge layout -- I wanted to be able to just swap-out larger/smaller fret saddles for the owner so he could adjust height between "normal" and "slide" action. Still, the low saddle is a non-issue as there are small "string ramps" to give good back-angle downpressure from the strings. The new saddle is adjustable up/down via shims in the saddle slot.

Scale length: 24 1/8"

Nut width: 1 11/16"

String spacing at nut: 1 1/2"

String spacing at bridge: 2 3/16"

Body length: 17 3/4"

Lower bout width: 13 1/4"

Waist width: 8"

Upper bout width: 9 1/2"

Side depth at endpin: 3 3/4"

Top wood: solid birch

Back/sides wood: solid birch

Neck wood: poplar

Bracing type: ladder

Fretboard: ebonized maple or pearwood, wood nut

Bridge: ebonized maple or pearwood, bone comp'd saddle

Neck feel: medium soft-V shape, flat board

Condition notes: it's pretty clean but there is usewear throughout and fine hairline cracking in the fretboard. The worst offense is a large hairline crack extending the length of the back. This was filled/"repaired" in the past, but I added cleats to it so it'd hold-up better. There's also a small, very tight, hairline crack in the side next to the heel. This is a non-issue and glued-up.