1960s Harmony H955 Broadway Archtop Rubber Bridge Bass Conversion

This is an H955 Broadway archtop guitar that I got in trade recently. As soon as I saw it I knew it would make a perfect rubber bridge bass conversion and that's what we've turned it into. I re-reset the neck that had been wonkily-reset and finalized the rubber saddle install, Ancel did some fret work and did the install and wiring work to get the pickup in, and we even had a new recruit, Jose, do some of the fret work as well.

The long story on this instrument, however, is that the son of the previous owner of a Silvertone we converted saw the Silvertone done-up after it had just sold, so I was keeping my eyes out for another archtop to convert in the same way to then send-on to him. This one became the willing victim and just like the first, it's moved-over into bass territory with aplomb and is simply great fun to play.

It's also easy on the eyes, with neat "checker" binding, a sunny-looking iced-tea sunburst finish, solid birch build throughout the body, and a fun logo at the headstock.

The conversion process yields an instrument that plays quick and easy and has a bouncy, upright-like sound and attack. They're fun to play unamplified for practicing but, of course, sound the biz plugged-in. The tailpiece that we use allows the use of normal long-scale electric bass strings of any sort, though I generally like the sound of roundwounds on these as they give a bit of a "marimba-like" bump and liveliness to the tone. Flats will sound thumpier, though. In any case we usually put strings with a 95w on the bottom on these but they don't mind thicker stuff, too.