1940s Harmony Gene Autry Melody Ranch Parlor Guitar

How many Melody Ranch boxes have we worked on? Oh, gosh, so many. If you want to hear what one of these sounds like, a posting from last year (click here) will help as it's got a video.

Suffice to say, they're simple instruments with the usual Harmony 0-ish-size body shape, solid spruce top, and solid maple (as I recall they're maple, not birch, on these) back and sides. The neck is poplar and the board and bridge are ebonized pearwood/maple but in this case someone replaced the bridge with ebony.

I gave the neck a reset, reglued the bridge, repaired a number of loose seams and a bunch of cracks on the back, and then handed it over to Ancel for a level/dress of the frets, new bone saddle, and setup-side work. It looks like it had just gotten really dried-out at some point because the cracks, mix of loose bracing and turned-out seams, and whatnot were a little tedious as I recall.

Anyhow, it now plays like a champ and has that good, woody, direct sound that one wants to hear from these fellas.