Check out this old archtop I was given today...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/s480x480/533130_10101422487375740_315836792_n.jpg

Theres a crack in the back that might need seen to. And the binding has pretty much disintergrated.

https://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/469675_10101422487754980_1210090513_o.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/177105_10101422486936620_1637361236_o.jpg

Somebody put "Gibson Deluxe" keys on it. I don't know if those are repop or original Klusons from back in the day.

https://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/456887_10101422486262970_473043911_o.jpg

She's got a straight neck but some of the frets are low so I might have to do a refret. Also, the fretboard is completely flat. Would it be blasphemy to sand a radius on it? Maybe something very slight like 20"?

Also, the endpin is broken so I will probably have to drill it out. And I'll have to make a nut and find or make a bridge.

Having dirty thoughts about putting the Value Leader pickup from my 2012 challenge build on, and maybe putting a piezo and an endpin jack in since I'll have to replace the bridge and drill the endpin out anyway.

No idea why theres a strap button beside the fretboard.:?:

I've always wanted an archtop. :cool:

Don't sand a radius on the fretboard. I've been gigging with a flat radius fretboard for about six months now and I love it. You can bend forever with a flat radius. I have no issues whatsoever with the flat radius and I can go effortlessly between flat and non-flat.

The guitar I'm building now has a 12" radius, but that's only because the guitar isn't for me.


https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/s480x480/533130_10101422487375740_315836792_n.jpg

Theres a crack in the back that might need seen to. And the binding has pretty much disintergrated.

https://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/469675_10101422487754980_1210090513_o.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/177105_10101422486936620_1637361236_o.jpg

Somebody put "Gibson Deluxe" keys on it. I don't know if those are repop or original Klusons from back in the day.

https://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/456887_10101422486262970_473043911_o.jpg

She's got a straight neck but some of the frets are low so I might have to do a refret. Also, the fretboard is completely flat. Would it be blasphemy to sand a radius on it? Maybe something very slight like 20"?

Also, the endpin is broken so I will probably have to drill it out. And I'll have to make a nut and find or make a bridge.

Having dirty thoughts about putting the Value Leader pickup from my 2012 challenge build on, and maybe putting a piezo and an endpin jack in since I'll have to replace the bridge and drill the endpin out anyway.

No idea why theres a strap button beside the fretboard.:?:

I've always wanted an archtop. :cool:

What I am about to say might be.
Save the keys and tailpiece. Toss the rest. I have never seen one that didn't need a neck reset. The fretboard on the one I had which was identical, was poplar with brass frets. It just wasn't worth trying to save. ymmv.

The keys are worth quite a bit. The guitar is worth very little and generally are hard to play from my experience with them. They sound best with telephone wires for strings as that is what they were designed for. Go ahead and mod it if you want. If it is the one with the painted on binding and fake painted curl...they are the low budget ones.

\http://www.ebay.com/itm/1960-Gibson-Kluson-Deluxe-Tuners-Single-Line-Double-Ring-BURST-1961-1962-1963-/320918762651?pt=Guitar&hash=item4ab83fb49b

yours are double line and worth a bit less, but I'd sell them off if they were mine and put on a new set of kluson with the butterbean knobs.

Think it's cool but the advise above is sound.

I actually have a VERY similar Silvertone. Different headstock and obviously different tumers. A friend found it dumpster diving and I gave him a 6pack for it. The neck was partially out of the joint and I just popped it, glued and clamped it back. Tuned to pitch it holds well, but the action is so high it's only a novelty as it is.

That said, it does hold the tuning well and I use it fairly often with a slide. Sounds OK for what it is and looks pretty. At least to my eye...

Hey Open G,

I have a 57 Silvertone like it. Almost impossible to play, actually painful. Have been thinking about making it playable recently but have too many projects in front of it.... It's actually my Halloween Elvis guitar.......... Anything is fixable if you have the ability and time. If you have the time, go for it. I'd love to see what you uncover along the way. On mine the neck has a small gap between the heel and body but the neck seems completely solid. Mine has these tiny frets on it. They definitely have to go.

Rob

Look at it this way: anything you do to it is probably going to be an improvement. Go crazy; see what you can make it do. If worse comes to worst and you wind up with an unplayable guitar, well, at least you tried.

I'd make a new fretboard entirely. I'd put in split-shaft tuners (not that those are bad; I just prefer them), I'd make a bridge with a TOM on it, then put in one or two P90s. I'd look into getting a new tailpiece, too.

If you don't worry about resale/profit/money and just do this sort of thing as a hobby, I doubt you can go wrong. Update us, either way.

Oh Picton,

A P-90 you say... Now I am having impure arch top thoughts again.... :twisted:

Rob

That curl probably is painted on, or at least a veneer. You look thru the F-holes and its birdseye on the inside. :rolleyes:

The frets are tiny indeed. I'll probably pull one out and measure the tang etc and order some decent wire from Stew Mac. I figure I'll probably have to glue the ones that overlap the body in rather than pressing.

If I go with a tune-o-matic bridge I may need to sand a radius on the fretboard as I'm not sure you can get a flat-radius T-O-M.

I have some Honduran Rosewood I was gonna use for a neck blank, there should be enough scraps off that to make a bridge (or just a bridge base) out of. I can probably even dig up some thumbwheels and posts from my parts hoarde.

I've always thought these were cool looking guitars, and I can probably make this one playable, at least for slide or rhythm playing.

Those tuning heads may end up on my dad's old J45. The ones on it have definitely seen better days. The keystones were all replaced with round buttons, none of which match. :lol:

As far as the neck set, there is a little gap around the neck in places, but it feels solid. Structurally speaking, I'm more worried about the crack in the back. It looks like there may be a splint in it though. I don't really understand much about hollow body repair techniques.

Theres a repair guy downtown I'm going to take it to tomorrow on my lunch break and get a professional opinion about it. Even if it does need structural repair, I figure it'll be a good learning experience to do it myself, and not much risk if I fail at it.

Darn - Nobody ever give me anything cool :mrgreen: I bet you can have a lot of fun with that. Put a piezo under the bridge and it might be a keeper.

I'm with Nosmo, assuming you can deal with, or live with, the crack in the back, my preference for something like that would be to try and restore it as close as possible to OEM, with the proviso that I'd do what needed to be done to make it a player, including replacing the fretboard.

Personally, I think putting a P90 on it would be a waste of the pickup, and butcher the guitar needlessly, essentially ending the life of the old thing if it doesn't work out well. A piezo under the bridge gives you the option of "reversing" the electrification if you want to, and also, IMHO, should give you more of the acoustic sound the guitar was built to produce. Nice find, and would be an interesting learning experience. Opens up your "opportunity" to spend a whole new fortune at LMI and StewMac on specialized acoustic guitar tools, too !!

i had one exactly like that for many years.
was my only acoustic for 15 years or something.
i did reset the neck.

that should actually be lacquer over a solid birch body, its possible there were exceptions, but harmony used solid wood, usually birch, until the 70s.

i loved that guitar, i listen to recordings i made with it, and it sounds so warm and woody.

i was playing around with a girlfriend at a party, she fell on it and caved in the top.
i put it in its case on a shelf in my parents house intending to fix it when i had time-
but then my brother bought the house, and when i asked, he said he couldnt find it.
so either he wasnt looking very hard, or he tossed it out. i dunno.

i do have a few nos bridges for these guitars, i can fix you up if you need one, no cost.
or if you dont want to bother with it, ill give ya $150 for it, without the tuners even.:smile:

I'd make a new fretboard entirely
Big +1, radiused 14" or 16" for a tunomatic bridge...........with modern frets :smile:
But that's me, the offer to sell it sans tuners is pretty cool too :wink:

i do have a few nos bridges for these guitars, i can fix you up if you need one, no cost.
or if you dont want to bother with it, ill give ya $150 for it, without the tuners even.:smile:

I couldn't sell it, it originally belonged to my co-worker's grandmother who passed away last year and I'd like him to see it fixed up. He said they found it cleaning out her place and the family had thrown several other instruments away before he could get to them. No telling what was tossed out. :shock:

The bridge sounds like a good deal, I'd be glad to paypal you some $$ to cover shipping from Canada. I don't suppose theres any chance I could get poutine and some Horton's coffe sent with it? :lol:

I couldn't sell it, it originally belonged to my co-worker's grandmother who passed away last year and I'd like him to see it fixed up. He said they found it cleaning out her place and the family had thrown several other instruments away before he could get to them. No telling what was tossed out. :shock:

The bridge sounds like a good deal, I'd be glad to paypal you some $$ to cover shipping from Canada. I don't suppose theres any chance I could get poutine and some Horton's coffe sent with it? :lol:

Don't forget some Cuban stogies!!

I threw away my "Old Red Harmony" this week ............ but it wasn't a perfectly good guitar........ so I know who I think I are.

Hey Jack,

Are you writing guitar poetry again?

Rob

I was referring to a song that already been written. Know it?

Nope, do tell.

.......ONe27UL_EaE

Today at work (I work at a library) they were throwing out some 3'x6' tables from the study areas. Made from solid maple planks 1.5" thick. Would have made awesome workbench tops. They were cutting them up with circular saws and putting them in a big dumpster. About 50 of them.

Meanwhile, the plans for remodeling of those areas call for the latest pseudo-Ikea modular plastic stuff. Our entrance will get some nice (real) cherry veneer panels though.

Some days you eat the bar, some days the bar eats you.

http://thewareaglereader.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/stranger.jpg

No way to lay hands on the table pieces after they go into the trash? I once scored about 50 board feet of white oak that way when they junked a computer table at my school.

Today at work (I work at a library) they were throwing out some 3'x6' tables from the study areas. Made from solid maple planks 1.5" thick. Would have made awesome workbench tops. They were cutting them up with circular saws and putting them in a big dumpster. About 50 of them.

Meanwhile, the plans for remodeling of those areas call for the latest pseudo-Ikea modular plastic stuff. Our entrance will get some nice (real) cherry veneer panels though.

Some days you eat the bar, some days the bar eats you.

http://thewareaglereader.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/stranger.jpg

THEY OUGHT TO HAVE KNOWN MUCH BETTER - How many trees died to give their lives for all of those books, and it's tough to make guitars or furniture out of books and paper. That maple could have made hundreds of good guitar necks probably, and bodies too. Shame on them.:cry:

Well, if the tuners really are the old Gibby's, then you know what to do there.
I'd think the old girl is worth a shot at a new life, if nothing else but the nostalgia. Plus,
what a great platform to "learn that acoustic stuff"?

Those tables had to have been at least 20-30 years old too. Full of mojo (and covered in chewing gum, lol).

I know theres a unit on campus that salvages lumber and such from the old buildings, I guess this must have slipped by them. They're probably busy trying to get the crown moldings doors etc. out of one of the residence halls they're tearing down.

I also wonder what happens to the old growth oaks they cut down every now and then (some of them planted by James Oglethorpe himself from stock brought in from his estate in England). I wouldn't be surprised to hear they all go to the paper mill, 3ft wide burls and all. :lol:

I couldn't sell it, it originally belonged to my co-worker's grandmother who passed away last year and I'd like him to see it fixed up. He said they found it cleaning out her place and the family had thrown several other instruments away before he could get to them. No telling what was tossed out. :shock:

The bridge sounds like a good deal, I'd be glad to paypal you some $$ to cover shipping from Canada. I don't suppose theres any chance I could get poutine and some Horton's coffe sent with it? :lol:

hey, perfectly understandable.

let me dig up those bridges-
pm me ok?

I have the exact same guitar. Can anyone tell me more about it? Age,model # ,ect?

Those tables had to have been at least 20-30 years old too. Full of mojo (and covered in chewing gum, lol).

I know theres a unit on campus that salvages lumber and such from the old buildings, I guess this must have slipped by them. They're probably busy trying to get the crown moldings doors etc. out of one of the residence halls they're tearing down.

I also wonder what happens to the old growth oaks they cut down every now and then (some of them planted by James Oglethorpe himself from stock brought in from his estate in England). I wouldn't be surprised to hear they all go to the paper mill, 3ft wide burls and all. :lol:

I am always peeking into trash bins, or looking at people's garbage on the trash day. The real sad thing was the Nashville Flood a couple of years ago. Literally tons of furniture was heaped up at the local park to be sent incinerators due to the "contaminated black water". I saw lots of mahogany tables and chairs, and just wished I cleaned a few up. A lady I worked with, her folks got jugs of anti-microbial cleaner and salvaged all of their furniture. Da#@ed waste and shame to let that happen. And now Gibson cannot even get the ebony or rosewood for fretboards, and Taylor's preaching save the forests. Recycling may be the true salvation of woodworkers, yet.