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Online source of vintage guitars, some of which feature in my blogs.

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Harmony, Silvertone, Supro, National, Airline, Kapa, Barclay, Smeck, Stratotone, Magnatone, Newport, Valco, Regal, Sears, Old Kraftsman, Premier, Holiday, Alden, Orpheum and Stewart

Desk!

Very loosely related to my blog theme, but this is about my guitar room. To date, I've done all my work spread between the carpeted area inside the attic window, and the top of a tall, closed, cardboard box as a make-shift table. When walking home from work last week, I saw a pile of rubble on someone's front curb which looked like they were refurbishing a bedroom. I went back later that evening with the car and asked for permission to take some of the wood. I got a couple of sliding wardrobe doors, and a bunch of framework, mostly 1.5" x 1.5".
I find it MUCH easier to pull two notes together than two pieces of wood, so I celebrate my small achievements. It's not pretty, but it's functional. A box of screws, some circ-saw action, and about 2 hours work has me set up nicely now upstairs.
I suspect that Rick Springfield poster was introduced in the early eighties, about the same time as those untouched cob webs! Best to leave well enough alone...

TheDeanFiles - the truth is out there...

I was randomly searching for Stratotones, and surprisingly found my blog pages in Google search results. Also, this was flattering to see that a forum has linked to my blog page:

1964 Harmony H17 Bobkat

If you've followed my posts, this is another variation in the Harmony Bobkat family. This one is marked as 11/27/1964 production, and is badged as an actual Harmony.



It sports two Dearmond gold foil pickups, and has a simple whammy tail. I have to say, the neck position pickup is still my favourite on these. The action is a little higher on this one than some I have, but it still plays nicely. This won't be kept in 'inventory', so I am not going to mess with the neck adjustment - since it is nicely playable, I will leave that up to another owner if they choose to tweak it. The Dearmond pickups are glorious, and the sound from this thing could rival anything from the era that you care to stack it up against. These are fun little guitars!
This one had its tuners replaced when I bought it; vintage enclosed strip USA Grovers, which should return a few bucks. I found some NOS tuners for it, but they don't fill the holes left by the Grovers. Slight flaw here, but again, since it's not going to be mine long term, a new owner may choose to replace the tuners again.

1964 Harmony H14 Bobkat

I'm slowly working through my guitars and cleaning them up. Today's lucky victim was this little Bobkat.



You'll notice the similarity between this and a Silvertone I have posted in another blog. Essentially they are the same body and neck. I think Harmony was going for a copy for Fender's Musicmaster for the single pickup model, and the Duosonic for the dual pickup model, possibly.
The neck is short scale, so it plays like water. Action is easily adjusted by the turn wheels on the bridge. The Dearmond Gold Foil single pickup is very nicely located, kind of central to where the two would be in the two pickup model, I really like the sound there, these pickups are just wonderful.
You may think it has limitations to sound variety... well, I guess it depends what you like. I like simplicity. I don't use effect pedals. I plug a guitar into a tube amp, and turn it on (although I do use my vintage Ibanez Tube Screamer on occasion.) A simple circuit in a guitar is music to my ears. The one switch here that you can see is a tone cut, which behaves the same as the switch on the H42's and H44's. Essentially it bypasses the tone pot completely, and the output is what it would be if the tone pot was wound all the way up. So, I can wind the pot down slightly to muddy up the sound when it is in circuit, then flick the switch to open it up instantly for a lead solo, for example.
This is a joy to play, a very under-rated little gem.

H162 Harmony Acoustic

This little gem was produced in the mid 1960's. With mahogany back and sides, and very nicely aged spruce top, it has a sweet tone.



I am not a luthier, but I do what I can to preserve and enhance the "aged". Aside from a solid all over cleaning on this one, I cleaned the fret-fretboard joints with a toothbrush, dressed the frets with steel wool, and completely dismantled the tuners, so I could oil the gears, and polish the string posts with steel wool.
I've included some photo's in this album to compare this to the Premier acoustic I have. You'll notice the Premier has a floating bridge with a trapeze tail piece, where the Harmony has a solid bridge. With this in mind, the top on the H162 is remarkably straight. This fixed bridge lends to a more solid and woody tone. Where the Premier has a trapeze tail, it has a slight tinny ring to it, but the all-mahogany body makes up somewhat for this (there is no escaping the brass tail however, it can definately be heard in all aspects of playing.)
What disappointed me with this H162 is the poorly presented fretboard. This is from the factory. It is ROUGH sanded. For hillbilly chords, this is a lovely unit, with a very nice tone. For more fluid paying and incorporating some lead, this fretboard is UNfriendly.
It's a sweet little thing, and you have to agree it looks LOVELY, but it was and is a cheapie, and despite the growing popularity in this model and the H165 (all mahogany from Harmony), it remains a cheapie in my regard. I would LOVE to refret this, and properly finish the fretboard, or perhaps even just replace the fretboard with new wood. There is night and day difference between this and the Premier fretboard. Although there is the tonal difference, I prefer to sit down with the Premier to play.

Silvertone S1477

This is a Silvertone S1477, which has a date marking of March 24, 1965 on the back of the pickguard. It is Harmony-made, and is a "silverfoil" version of the Harmony H15. Can you imagine a 1964 guitar looking so good?? Well, you can now!



I took a chance when purchasing this guitar, given that it was advertised as "not working", and I bid on the auction accordingly, allowing for the expense of possible pickup rewinding. What better outcome, than to find that there was just a poor connection in the wiring that I was able to fix! This thing is marvellous! I stripped it all the way down on the weekend. Aside from general cleaning, I addressed the neck by getting a toothbrush into the fret/fretboard joints, dressed the frets with steel wool, and oiled the fretboard.
I also completely dismantled the tuners, oiling the gears, and polishing the string posts and ferrules with steel wool. I cleaned up the pickguard and applied contact cleaner to all the potentiometers.
This thing plays like water. It has fairly light guage strings on, but with the shorter neck scale on this model, it is so easy to play.
I have found the bridge pickup sounds a little quieter than the neck pickup, due to no fault, but since the bridge is raised quite a bit to get good neck action and no buzz, the strings are a little further away from the bridge pickup than they are from the neck pickup. This actually suits me quite well. I LOVE the neck pickup sound, and have always found the bridge pickup sound from e.g. a Fender Statocaster to be a little too shrill for my liking.
I think I will enjoy this one the most in the neck pickup position, but sometimes in the middle position, blending both pickups.