1965 Harmony H945 Master Electrified Archtop Guitar

While this guitar's model is titled "Master" by Harmony, it's almost identical to the lower-rung H1215 and H1213 models save that it has actual binding rather than stenciled "binding." This one has a date-stamp of 1965 inside. It's original throughout save for its bridge, pickup, wiring harness, and knobs. I received this guitar in trade and immediately put it in my pile of "convert to electric" instruments. These sound OK as acoustic instruments but they're much more exciting setup like a poor man's ES-125 or the like.

I'm a big fan of lipstick pickups and so, after structural repairs to make it play spot-on, I then routed the body for a Strat-sized Alnico-magnet lipstick pickup (Korean) and fit a wiring harness in Gibson style (volume and tone to the inside of the treble f-hole). I kept the jack on top to make it easy to find. Depending on if you have the tone "wide open" or "rolled-off" you can get snappy, clean, "bright jazz" or "Dano" sounds from the '50s and '60s right down to blanket-on-your-amp, mellow sounds.

The original bridge was mucked-up so I repurposed an old archtop bridge base from my parts-bins and fit a Gotoh, ABR-style electric guitar bridge to it. Because the saddles are adjustable, this makes it easy to switch between whatever string types you prefer -- unwound G or wound G, flats or rounds, whatever gauge you need. It's currently setup for a normal set of electric 10s with an unwound G.

Repairs included: a neck reset, fret level/dress, replacement bridge, new pickup and wiring harness, crack repairs to the top and back (there's a longer, uglier one on the back but it's in the black, anyhow), cleaning, setup, etc.

Weight: 4 lbs 8 oz

Scale length: 25 1/8"

Nut width: 1 3/4"

Neck shape: medium C

Board radius: 12"

Body width: 15 3/8"

Body depth: 3 1/4"

Body wood: solid birch

Bridge: rosewood base, ABR top

Fretboard: ebonized mysterywood

Neck wood: poplar

Pickups: 1x Alnico lipstick single coil

Action height at 12th fret: 1/16” overall (fast, spot-on)
String gauges: 46w-10

Truss rod: non-adjustable

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: medium-lower

Condition notes: it has two repaired cracks in the body -- one near the bass f-hole on top and a longer one on the back-upper-bout. Both are good to go. There's average usewear throughout the finish but overall it looks nice. The stencil job at the headstock is crisp and clear, too! The bridge, pickup, knobs, and wiring harness are unoriginal but the rest is original to the guitar. The strap button at the heel is added.

It comes with: sorry, no case.

Consignor tag: JW