1950s Silvertone (Harmony-made) H3 Lap Steel Electric Guitar

This seems to be an H3 model lap steel. It's got the Sears Silvertone brand but was made by Harmony and these show-up from the very late '40s into the early '50s. The body seems to be poplar and it has a killer yellow finish with tortoise binding and a tortoise fretboard. It looks slick.

To add to the excellent-ness, it also totes a '40s Gibson P13 pickup as its beating heart. These are P90 predecessors and they sound lovely. They're definitely raunchy like a P90 but in a bit of a smoother, less-aggressive way. Maybe sultry is the word.

Lap steels don't usually need much body or setup work, but they almost all benefit from going-over their innards. I replaced the original, ailing wiring harness on this guy. Aside from pots and capacitor, that also meant adding first-time grounds to both the bridge and the wrist-rest/bridge cover and replacing the "hard-corded" connection with a jack plate and jack. The sound improved dramatically. I'm not a fan of murky old pots and tired wiring.

It also got new tuners at the headstock -- StewMac Golden Age repros -- and these are a lot more reliable and functional than the original Harmony-style tuners that were on it... which always slip-around.

The nut appears to be non-original and my new jackplate is from a '90s-era Danelectro and it's been worn-in enough that it looks like a '40s Gibson-style one.

Current tuning is open E with a set of normal electric 46w-10 strings and it sounds nice and responsive with them. I think if it was jacked-up to 54w-12 it would be better-suited to a traditional lap player, but I always seem to run-out of the heavier electric gauges just when I want them most.