1950s/1960s Gibson/Harmony Frankenstein Rebraced Jumbo Guitar

Mr. Steve bought this weirdo Frankenstein guitar some time back and sent it up here for overhaul. It's a Gibson J-185 neck from the 1950s mated to a 1960s Harmony H1260 Sovereign body. The fella who did that work also made a countrified, mustache bridge for it from oak as well. My job was to make it a real guitar and that's now what it is. It plays and sounds like a thoroughbred, now, in fact. I'm super-pleased with the result, even if on the outside it really is quite the dog. The hound? The wolfhound? I just don't know!

The bulk of my work was to rebrace the instrument. I pulled the back, yanked the original ladder bracing, and fit new "double-x-bracing" like on an old 1890s Bohmann guitar. These braces are squarish in shape and quite low. I used 200+ year-old fir for the braces but laminated it with a thin ply of carbon fiber. This allowed me to get the bracing very light, though stiff and functional. Three days on so far, the top has not started "doming" or "bellying" at all as you might expect with bracing of this sort and lightness (well, as I might expect). It looks the same as when it was first strung-up.

And the sound? Both my buddy Todd and I described it as like a very good J-45 or J-50 from the early '50s but with more. I love that Bohmann pattern because you get an even response across the strings -- lots of mids and a Gibson-esque sort of overall sound -- but the highs are saucy and full, it has extra volume, and the sustain is lingering and clean.

Other work included a reglue/clean-up/mod of the bridge, pickguard reglue, refret, new tuners, and setup-side work.

The top is solid spruce, the back and sides are solid mahogany, the neck is mahogany, and the fretboard is rosewood. These Harmony bodies have a huge 16 1/8" lower bout and wide waist but aren't as deep as a normal dreadnought or jumbo. Being a Gibson neck, it has a 24 3/4" scale length (yippee) with a medium-C back profile and 12" board radius.

Here's a quick shot I took after just getting the bracing in. At this point I was still adjusting the braces via tap-and-edit on the top. The ends got more tapered on the lower bout and I cleaned-up yick and extra glue before putting the back on. The "black" lines on each brace are the carbon fiber reinforcement strips running vertical. I also used epoxy mixed into the fabric patches to reinforce each X-joint. That turned-out uglier than I thought when it dried, heh heh...

I'm going to say here that my rebracing process is a bit more of the Knutsen/Weissenborn bracing philosophy -- do it for tone but don't obsess over looks and fancy profiling. People get crazy with scalloped and nuanced bracing and the details of the shapes and that does have a sound impact... but not as huge an impact as getting the overall weight, pattern, and taper right.