06/06/2024
Here's a homemade 1950's style Harmony H44 Stratatone. An elderly lady dropped it off for me to look at for her. It was her grandfathers. She and other family members think he built it more than 60 years ago. It hadn't been played in many, many years. I plugged it in and heard a connection. Plucked what had to be 30 or 40 year old rusty strings and the old DeArmond pickup rang out. Pots were very scratchy but remedied quickly with a little Deoxit. Full and thick sounding. Brass frets, original Kluson tuners, rosewood fretboard, big thick C shaped neck, floating rosewood bridge and saddle with a plastic insert that to my surprise had sustain for days. 1 3/4" bone nut and a 25 1/8" scale length. What a gem. Put a setup on it just to see where we are. It plays ok but is in need of a re fret, new nut and a new saddle insert. The neck has no truss rod and therefore over the years under string tension and possibly under high heat conditions has warped creating very high string action that could possibly be addressed with a neck heat treatment. The guitar is being passed down to her nephew for safekeeping but he doesn't play. She said if he decides to learn how to play she'll bring it back to address all the issues. It's interactions like this with people and their guitars that make me love what I do the most. Here's some before and after pics.
