1960s Airline (Harmony) Rubber-Bridge Electrified Guitar

Above: electric clip

Above: acoustic clip

A customer sent this Airline-branded, Harmony-made, "parlor" guitar in for conversion to an electrified, rubber-bridge instrument. It's the same instrument as the H929 "Stella" models that are more common but done-up in a cooler finish style -- that means it's a basic, all-solid-birch, 24" scale guitar with a tailpiece.

After doing the usual work to get it playing right (a neck reset, fret level/dress, side dots install, etc.), I then cut the top to fit a pickup at the end of the fretboard (in this case a $20 Korean-made "double rails" humbucker), installed and wired-up a fresh wiring harness (500k pots, orange crop cap, Switchcraft jack, neat Dakaware repro knobs), and then made a new bridge for it featuring a rubber saddle for that dead, mellow, low-sustain, thumpy sound that "the kids are all playing these days." The new bridge is on archtop-style adjusters so action can be dialed-in to different heights as needed.