1964/2020 Harmony-made "Super Rocket" Electric Guitar

It's a hollowbody with a slim center soundpost -- does that make this semihollow or hollow? Oh well, who cares? It's a Rocket, of course -- but not just an average Rocket. This one was put together from two guitars and a heap of Harmony parts that a customer sent in to get cobbled into one guitar.

He wanted this one-pickup, sunburst (Airline-branded) Rocket body and the neck off of a Silvertone 1441 "Chris Isaak" model -- with its truss rod and fancy trim. Other details just added to the cool factor: two DeArmond goldfoil pickups, a non-standard control layout with a 3-way beyond the treble f-hole, non-standard knobs, and an archtop-style bridge with 3-plain, 3-wound compensated saddle/topper.

The way I see it, this thing is a "Super Rocket" because it's like having a nice, two-pickup Rocket but even better. It's more hot-rod in feel and flavor, especially because the 500k pots it's loaded with let more of the snap and bite of the pickups out to play, too.

Repairs included: a fret level/dress, parts-fitting, cut of a new rosewood saddle/bridge topper, cut of new pickup-mounting blocks and a spring-adjustable pickup height system, new fully-shielded wiring harness, minor cleaning, and setup.

Setup notes: the neck is straight, the truss rod works, the frets have good height left to them, and it's strung with 52w-10 gauges (half medium, half light). Action is bang-on at 1/16" overall at the 12th fret and height-adjustable to taste.

Scale length: 24 1/8"

Nut width: 1 3/4"

String spacing at nut: 1 1/2"

String spacing at bridge: 1 3/4"

Body length: 19 3/4"

Lower bout width: 15 3/4"

Waist width: 9 1/2"

Upper bout width: 11 1/4"

Side depth at endpin: 2" + top/back arch depth

Body wood: ply birch?

Neck wood: ply birch?

Fretboard: rosewood, plastic nut

Bridge: adjustable rosewood archtop-style

Neck feel: medium C-shape, ~10-12" board radius

Condition notes: both the neck and body are pretty worn here and there throughout, but as a hodge-podge project this thing just stinks of cool. Of course, as a hodge-podge, it's a mix of original period parts but isn't original itself.

While the original pickup mounts would've been a simple rosewood block under the strings, the new mounts echo that look with raised rosewood rings, small feet below them, and then springs for minor height-adjustment changes just below the pickup. This makes small tonal/setup adjustments really, really easy and gets the pickups close to the strings for that kerrangy, overdrive-friendly oomph one wants to hear out of these.