Guts - by Snapcase and others

Snapcase : I think would be interesting posting pics of Harmony innards. Some of these pics were already posted in the harmony board. I just gathered them together.
Enjoy and post yours.

Archtone bars. (Obviously in the first pic they're unglued).

H954 Broadway bars placements.

These are the bars and the tail block.

Below is a Silvertone

H1215 Archtone

This butchered H1215 shows the problem if you want to convert an acoustic to an electric

H945 Master

H950 Monterey leader

The pics above were from birch topped guitars. Below is from a spruce topped one, probably an early 15 1/2". Quite similar with paralleled tonebars.

And these are the bars on a higher-end 16 1/2" H1456 Monterey

Notice here the bars don't run paralleled. They open towards the lower end. Classy archtops use to have similar arrangements. Look at this early Gibson L-5. Like in the H1456, the bass-bar ends by the tail block, while the treble bar goes further away, though in the Gibson this arrangement is more radical.

Note: The small hanging plate is a tuned secondary internal sound board called Virzi-tone producer used in many Gibson instruments during the Loar era. They were attached underneath the bridge area, and are intended to increase treble response and resonance. Some love them. Some hate them.

Any Cremona or other Hi-end Harmony archtop internal pics over there?

This a full reinforced Silvertone H53 electric archtop.

All this bulky stuff inside is intended to reduce the solid top vibrations to keep feedback somewhat under control.

This is a side view of the reinforcements in a Silvertone H54

Now let's go with flat-tops. H1203 Sovereign.

H1260

H1265

H929 Stella top and back

Until seventies, virtually every single Harmony flat-top acoustic was ladder braced.

François : Great compilation ! I have added some (with the red numbers) above...

Robdefries : Great, I could add some but it would only give the same information pictured here. To me, the bars used in the archtone are more like reinforcement bars than tone bars.
I can't imagine they would call those chuncks of wood tone bars.
The ones in the higher end look more like the braces found in any acoustic. Slim, lower and for sure not as ugly.

Snapcase : I completely agree. Cheap guitars have cheap construction. They didn't waste time fine tuning bars and tops in budget guitars. Bars are bulky and raw, but even this way some guitars sound great. Any of those good sounding examples could be improved and become excelent by working a bit on the strut.

Geo : I was checking out this guy who just uped the bid on a guitar i was bidding on and found this, i think he did this work himself and i think this is an H165 he calls this "Martin style bracing"

Snapcase :Yep, Some guys like to change the ladder strut for "OM" prewar Martin style scalloped X-bracing in H165, H162 and H1203. Lisa has one modified like that. She said great things about it.

Geo : Snap what's OM ?

François : OM is one of the classic Martin guitars size/pattern, the H162/H165/H1203 "grand concert" Harmonies are very close to this Martin shape.
Below is an "OM" Martin, and another re-braced Harmony (H1203 Sovereign)

François : Below some internal photos of Harmony carved spruce tops, only found on some older high en archtops, like the Cremonas (before the fifties). You can see the braces are carved from the same piece of wood as the top itself...

Auger : Below inside a H73 '66 Roy Smeck
The huge gaping crack / hole in its side allowed me to take these photos
Hole for whammy's spring not completely through the top, looks like someone punched through it with the unit

raz : I knew there was a reason I never liked that tremolo especially on the hollow bodies. Quelle horreur !!!

back to Kamikazie Lutherie Index