New Old Guitar Day!

[dhoenisch]

Well, another guitar found it's way into my shop about three weeks ago.

 

I helped a friend of mine's mother move, and in helping clear out some of the attick, I came across an Airline archtop guitar, made by Harmony (or Kay?), I think. Anyhow, she told me that she had purchased it brand new in 1964 and was taking lessons from an old jazz musician. He told her that she picked out a great sounding guitar. The sad thing is, she never played it much more than a year or two. After that, it sat up in her HOT attic for the remainder of it's life. This attic has no insulation, and is really cold in the winter, and really hot in the summer. Needless to say, this guitar is going to need a lot of help. She told me that I could keep it, and if I can make it playable, she would like pictures of it, but doesn't want it back since it would just sit again.

 

I bought her (the guitar) home, and before I decided to take some pictures of her, I started to tear into her. The guitar was in one piece when I bought it home, with the action of about 2 1/2" above the 12th fret. The moment I clipped off the black strings, the neck fell off of the guitar. I took the tailpiece off of the guitar, as well as the pick guard to assess the damage, and that's where I stopped.

 

Yesterday, I was at the shop finishing up restoring my Harmony H942 guitar (which I did, but forgot to take pictures of the finished product), I decided to take pictures before I tore into this guitar even more than I already had.

 

Here are some pictures in her present state:

 

 

She is a sad case. the binding is falling off of the guitar, the frets are bad, and will need replacing. The neck, needless to say, will need to be reset, but only after I remove the already half removed fretboard. The top and back are coming off in some places. The nut is a bit deformed.

 

Other than all of that, which is already a lot, it seems to be a decent fixer-upper. The finish is about 95%, which is amazing. I already pulled off all of the frets, but stopped there as I didn't feel like steaming off the top, back and fingerboard. I threw out my back on Saturday, so after finishing my H942, I was sore enough to decide to call it quits for the day.

 

Anyhow, here's my list:

 

Pull off the rest of the binfing

Steam off fretboard, top and back

Straiten and sand down fretboard

Install new frets

glue back and top onto guitar

reglue on binding

install fingerboard on neck

install neck onto guitar

make new nut

buff out and oil original Kluson tuning machines

buff out body

de-rust and buff out tailpiece

buff out guitar

buff out pickguard

install all remaining hardware

set-up, string up, and play

 

I'm sure I'll find out more problems with the guitar as I go along, but this is my list for now.

 

Dan

[Terry Allan Hall]

That one waas made by Kay...keep us posted on your progress!

[Catmeister]

This should have a great sound when sorted! It has got to be worth the effort.

 

I love these old archtops, I have an old (195????) Hofner President (deep body) which spends most of its life in open D and rings and sustains for ever! I had to rebuild it in the 70s after buying it in pieces. Not pretty but well worth the trouble soundwise.

 

Good luck and please keep us up to date.