1950s Harmony Stella H929 Rubber-Bridge Electrified Parlor Guitar (3/6 in Batch)

This is number 3 of 6 rubber-bridge Stella parlors we've worked on just recently.

It's a classic "Stella" by Harmony from the '60s -- 0-size/parlor-size and with a short scale and 12-fret neck joint. The body is solid birch, the neck poplar, and the board ebonized maple (or similar). This has the classic "stencil" fretboard markers.

Most of these guitars (when found "as-is") are pretty unplayable. They require neck resets, work on the frets, minor brace and seam repairs, and that sort-of stuff. All of that "ground work" has been done and so this now plays spot-on.

To this "good foundation" we've added a magnetic pickup (in this case a lipstick-style single coil fit at the neck position), wiring harness (simple volume control and jack fit to the top, plus a ground to the tailpiece), and then fit a rubber bridge to it.

We use a fairly dense rubber found on the bottom of grout floats for tiling. This stuff works beautifully for these guitars -- it's a more extreme "rubber bridge" sound than many are making -- it's very damped and sounds almost marimba-like. It also intonates on a straight line (like a classical guitar's saddle) which is curious and confusing but true and so it's easier to stay in tune with this material than with the "rubber-wrapped" bridges. Action adjustment can be done by shimming the bottom of the rubber as needed.

It would be easy-enough to convert this to a "normal" bridge setup in the future if desired -- by making a new wooden bridge for it.

Repairs included: a neck reset, fret level/dress, side dots added, wiring harness and pickup fit, rubber bridge fit, strap button added to neck, setup, etc... my guys Ancel and Jose tag-teamed this batch of instruments and they did a great job! I did the final bridge fitting and setup work but they did the major work on all of them.

• Weight: 3 lbs 7 oz
• Scale length: 24"
• Nut width: 1 3/4"
• Neck shape: medium-big C/V
• Board radius: flat
• Body width: 13 1/4"
• Body depth: 3 3/4"
• Top wood: solid birch
• Back & sides wood: solid birch
• Bracing type: ladder
• Bridge: rubber
• Fretboard: ebonized mysterywood
• Neck wood: poplar
• Action height at 12th fret: 1/16" overall (fast, spot-on)
• String gauges: 50w, 36w, 26w, 20w, 15, 11 (nickel-wound)
• Truss rod: non-adjustable
• Neck relief: straight
• Fret style: medium-lower

Condition notes: it's in good order overall, though this guitar was more mucked-up than the others in the batch when it arrived. It has a big not-quite-fit-well crack on the back that's repaired and the back/side seams had to be reglued in a number of places and they had to be trimmed and touched-up a bit to fit right. The back braces are all missing and have been replaced with thin "strapping" back braces instead. 

It comes with: sorry, no case.

Consignor tag: MM