Post by CTGull on Sept 23, 2023 13:28:28 GMT -5
The Story – I’ve liked the Silvertone acoustic guitars made by Harmony for their differences from the standard Harmony models. This one was obviously made by Kay, by the shape of the body and the headstock. The Jumbo 17-1/4” lower bout and the pinched waist are unique, even though it is a copy of the Gibson J-200. It looks to be in pretty good shape, although it certainly needs a neck reset. The frets are unknown.
I’ve read this model has a “narrow” neck, so I asked him to measure it. 1.663”. That’s narrow! I don’t know if he measured the nut or the neck. I have a fake 1970’s Kay Longhorn has a 1.68” wide neck, and its fretboard is bound, like this guitar. I was able to push the string spacing out to 1.42” (center of E to E) and it felt OK. I typically make the nuts for vintage Yamaha’s at 1.44”, so this isn’t far off, although it’s short of the Harmony’s 1.48” with a 1.75” neck. The frets on this guitar end at the inner edge of the binding. If I do a refret, I will file the fret ends to the outer edge of the binding, and keep the bevel angle steep, I may be able to push the string spacing to 1.44” without risking rolling the E’s off the ends of the frets. We shall see. He asked if I would be happy with the narrow neck, and I said yes. He then accepted my offer, and then I paid for it.
The bridge is reverse strung, the strings pass thru the bridge from the front and wrap over the top back edge, before resting on the saddle. The strings have cut slots into the rear edge of the bridge. I’ve seen some people replace the bridge with a pinned bridge. I’d like to keep the original design, either make a new one from scratch; or remove the bridge, mill out the damaged area, insert a new piece of rosewood, and sand the bridge all over in an attempt to hide the repair. I’ll figure that out after I receive the guitar. In any case, the bridge will be coming off. I will also measure and 3D model it for the future, and possibly design a similar pinned bridge.
Later, I was curious about the range of years this model was made. A couple of years ago I had spent hours downloading the guitar related scanned pages of all the Sears catalogs. I found the 618 was first sold in the Fall of 1951 and last sold in the Fall of 1957. Then the 620 was introduced in the Spring of 1958 and was only made thru the Spring of 1959. Afterward, this body shape disappeared. Then I noticed the 620 has block fret position markers, and the 618 has dot markers. The ad for the guitar says it is a 618, but it has the block markers, so it is actually the 620. The Kay made Silvertone’s don’t have a model number stamped in them, unlike the Harmony made models, so there was no way to be sure what model this was, without looking at the fine details.
He dropped it off at UPS Sunday about noon. It didn’t move until about midnight on Monday, 36 hours later. Then, amazingly, it left Indianapolis at 3:43am on Tuesday and made it to CT at 7:32pm, 800 miles in about 16 hours, which is a 13 hour ride with no traffic or stops. And then it bounced around CT (2 more stops) before being delivered Wednesday evening, as I had originally hoped.
INITIAL OBSERVATIONS – It arrived in a repurposed Taylor box. Lots of recycled packing, bubble wrap, pieces of Styrofoam, and a pressed cardboard insert protecting the headstock. I could have used a diagram to figure out how to cut off the tape and bubble wrap the cocoon over the guitar. An excellent packing job!
Once I finally got it unwrapped, initially there weren’t any surprises. Lots of finish crazing, a couple of scratches, and the typical crappy screwed on pickguard. The bridge is more chewed up than I thought. Not sure if I’m going to keep it or insert the damaged area. The frets are brass, I guess not a huge surprise for the era, I was planning on replacing them anyway. One surprise is they heavily beveled the binding on the side of the neck, which will prevent me from extending the new frets over it. They must have installed the frets and installed the binding afterward. I’m going to have to replace the binding if I want to extend the frets to the edge of the neck. Not surprisingly, there are small cracks and gaps around the large block inserts in the fretboard, I can fill those, and the fretboard will be sanded level after the frets are removed and the new binding is installed.
INSPECTION – The nut & neck width (over the binding) is a very narrow 1.66”. The width of the actual fretboard at the nut is only 1.53”! Replacing the binding will not be easy, since the binding was possibly sanded to match the curvature of the neck. I certainly don’t want to sand the new binding in place and mess up the finish, I would have to shape the binding before installation, which would be a one way trip since I’ll have to remove the old binding with possible damage to the finish. I will need to get some advice on this. And see if the appropriate size ivory binding is
The bridge is .44” thick, and it is rather ugly. The saddle slot is about .06” deep, and cutting it deeper would break into the holes the strings pass thru. The .096” thick saddle sticks out .06”/.08”/.03” (low E/middle/high E). While I like to keep things as close to the original as possible, the bridge will need to be replaced, probably with a modern pin bridge.
The frets are nearly level on the bass side, with a fall away after the 14th. In the middle, the first 4 frets are low, with the rest being the same. On the treble side, the straight edge hits on the 1st & 16th frets with about a .02” gap in the middle. My longest notched straight edge is only 25.6”, far short of the extreme 25.8” scale length of this guitar. Clearly, the frets & fretboard need work!!
The binding is about .05” thick and .18” wide, but I won’t know the actual thickness until I remove it and measure it. The closest Stew Mac has is .040” & .060” thick x .250”. www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-and-supplies/materials/binding-and-trim/plastic-binding/cream-plastic-binding/ LMII also has .040” x .250” and .060” x .250”, but they are going out of business soon (retiring). The big question will be how to attach it. I have a tube of Stew-Mac’s Bind-All that is still good, but any squeeze out will dissolve the finish on the neck and make a huge mess. CA can also make a big mess. Fish glue??
The bridge is about 6-1/16” long x 1-3/16” wide. I have plenty of different types of rosewood bridge blanks.
I will replace the warped screwed on pickguard. A 8-3/4” x 11-3/8” x .025” sheet of black, self-adhesive pickguard material (from Stew Mac) is big enough to make three of these pickguards. I had also bought some cheap self-adhesive black pickguard material (8” x 10” x .015”) on Amazon, which would probably work fine.
The most expensive part of this job with be to buy a case to protect it! It’ll need a less than popular Jumbo case that will fit a 17-1/4” lower bout. Guitar Center has a Roadrunner Jumbo case on sale for $120!
THE PLAN – I bought the .040” & .060” thicknesses of the .250” high ivory ABS binding from Stew Mac. Along with how to glue in on, a big question is how to reduce the .25” height to .19” so I can wrap it with tape while the glue is drying. I thought I had seen a fixture that had a razor blade and you pulled the binding thru to trim it. I designed and 3D printed a block with an open .03” wide x .19” slot, that I will clamp in my 2-1/2” Harbor Freight vise, I will use a razor blade to scrape the binding down from .25” to .19”. I’ve been told roughing up the back of the binding with 220 grit sandpaper and gluing with fish glue seems to work fine.
But, the first step will be to remove the bridge and 3D model it, then design a replacement that uses pins. The big question is should I make it a little wider to have more room for the pins? Another question is, was the saddle slot in the right place? I wouldn’t know until after the new bridge is glued on and the neck reset is done. I could make a temporary bridge and use the existing screw holes to mount it, then check the intonation. Or remove the bridge, model it, and reinstall it for doing the neck reset, depending on the height of the existing saddle vs. where the new one will be.
The cocoon.
Here it is!
Brass frets. Some gaps around the inlays.
Lots of finish crazing and one scratch. And that W I D E body!!
The crappy screwed on pickguard.
The original tuners are very tight.
Something must have been wrapped around the neck and messed up the finish a bit.
LOTS of finish crazing on the back!!
What's going on with the heel cap??
And on the heel and side of the guitar?
Another scratch.
A better look at the frets ending at the binding.
And the binding is heavily beveled.
The bridge is 7/16" thick! There are counterbores for the ball ends.
That's a bit chewed up.
Chewed up.
The internal marking, that probably mean nothing.
I’ve read this model has a “narrow” neck, so I asked him to measure it. 1.663”. That’s narrow! I don’t know if he measured the nut or the neck. I have a fake 1970’s Kay Longhorn has a 1.68” wide neck, and its fretboard is bound, like this guitar. I was able to push the string spacing out to 1.42” (center of E to E) and it felt OK. I typically make the nuts for vintage Yamaha’s at 1.44”, so this isn’t far off, although it’s short of the Harmony’s 1.48” with a 1.75” neck. The frets on this guitar end at the inner edge of the binding. If I do a refret, I will file the fret ends to the outer edge of the binding, and keep the bevel angle steep, I may be able to push the string spacing to 1.44” without risking rolling the E’s off the ends of the frets. We shall see. He asked if I would be happy with the narrow neck, and I said yes. He then accepted my offer, and then I paid for it.
The bridge is reverse strung, the strings pass thru the bridge from the front and wrap over the top back edge, before resting on the saddle. The strings have cut slots into the rear edge of the bridge. I’ve seen some people replace the bridge with a pinned bridge. I’d like to keep the original design, either make a new one from scratch; or remove the bridge, mill out the damaged area, insert a new piece of rosewood, and sand the bridge all over in an attempt to hide the repair. I’ll figure that out after I receive the guitar. In any case, the bridge will be coming off. I will also measure and 3D model it for the future, and possibly design a similar pinned bridge.
Later, I was curious about the range of years this model was made. A couple of years ago I had spent hours downloading the guitar related scanned pages of all the Sears catalogs. I found the 618 was first sold in the Fall of 1951 and last sold in the Fall of 1957. Then the 620 was introduced in the Spring of 1958 and was only made thru the Spring of 1959. Afterward, this body shape disappeared. Then I noticed the 620 has block fret position markers, and the 618 has dot markers. The ad for the guitar says it is a 618, but it has the block markers, so it is actually the 620. The Kay made Silvertone’s don’t have a model number stamped in them, unlike the Harmony made models, so there was no way to be sure what model this was, without looking at the fine details.
He dropped it off at UPS Sunday about noon. It didn’t move until about midnight on Monday, 36 hours later. Then, amazingly, it left Indianapolis at 3:43am on Tuesday and made it to CT at 7:32pm, 800 miles in about 16 hours, which is a 13 hour ride with no traffic or stops. And then it bounced around CT (2 more stops) before being delivered Wednesday evening, as I had originally hoped.
INITIAL OBSERVATIONS – It arrived in a repurposed Taylor box. Lots of recycled packing, bubble wrap, pieces of Styrofoam, and a pressed cardboard insert protecting the headstock. I could have used a diagram to figure out how to cut off the tape and bubble wrap the cocoon over the guitar. An excellent packing job!
Once I finally got it unwrapped, initially there weren’t any surprises. Lots of finish crazing, a couple of scratches, and the typical crappy screwed on pickguard. The bridge is more chewed up than I thought. Not sure if I’m going to keep it or insert the damaged area. The frets are brass, I guess not a huge surprise for the era, I was planning on replacing them anyway. One surprise is they heavily beveled the binding on the side of the neck, which will prevent me from extending the new frets over it. They must have installed the frets and installed the binding afterward. I’m going to have to replace the binding if I want to extend the frets to the edge of the neck. Not surprisingly, there are small cracks and gaps around the large block inserts in the fretboard, I can fill those, and the fretboard will be sanded level after the frets are removed and the new binding is installed.
INSPECTION – The nut & neck width (over the binding) is a very narrow 1.66”. The width of the actual fretboard at the nut is only 1.53”! Replacing the binding will not be easy, since the binding was possibly sanded to match the curvature of the neck. I certainly don’t want to sand the new binding in place and mess up the finish, I would have to shape the binding before installation, which would be a one way trip since I’ll have to remove the old binding with possible damage to the finish. I will need to get some advice on this. And see if the appropriate size ivory binding is
The bridge is .44” thick, and it is rather ugly. The saddle slot is about .06” deep, and cutting it deeper would break into the holes the strings pass thru. The .096” thick saddle sticks out .06”/.08”/.03” (low E/middle/high E). While I like to keep things as close to the original as possible, the bridge will need to be replaced, probably with a modern pin bridge.
The frets are nearly level on the bass side, with a fall away after the 14th. In the middle, the first 4 frets are low, with the rest being the same. On the treble side, the straight edge hits on the 1st & 16th frets with about a .02” gap in the middle. My longest notched straight edge is only 25.6”, far short of the extreme 25.8” scale length of this guitar. Clearly, the frets & fretboard need work!!
The binding is about .05” thick and .18” wide, but I won’t know the actual thickness until I remove it and measure it. The closest Stew Mac has is .040” & .060” thick x .250”. www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-and-supplies/materials/binding-and-trim/plastic-binding/cream-plastic-binding/ LMII also has .040” x .250” and .060” x .250”, but they are going out of business soon (retiring). The big question will be how to attach it. I have a tube of Stew-Mac’s Bind-All that is still good, but any squeeze out will dissolve the finish on the neck and make a huge mess. CA can also make a big mess. Fish glue??
The bridge is about 6-1/16” long x 1-3/16” wide. I have plenty of different types of rosewood bridge blanks.
I will replace the warped screwed on pickguard. A 8-3/4” x 11-3/8” x .025” sheet of black, self-adhesive pickguard material (from Stew Mac) is big enough to make three of these pickguards. I had also bought some cheap self-adhesive black pickguard material (8” x 10” x .015”) on Amazon, which would probably work fine.
The most expensive part of this job with be to buy a case to protect it! It’ll need a less than popular Jumbo case that will fit a 17-1/4” lower bout. Guitar Center has a Roadrunner Jumbo case on sale for $120!
THE PLAN – I bought the .040” & .060” thicknesses of the .250” high ivory ABS binding from Stew Mac. Along with how to glue in on, a big question is how to reduce the .25” height to .19” so I can wrap it with tape while the glue is drying. I thought I had seen a fixture that had a razor blade and you pulled the binding thru to trim it. I designed and 3D printed a block with an open .03” wide x .19” slot, that I will clamp in my 2-1/2” Harbor Freight vise, I will use a razor blade to scrape the binding down from .25” to .19”. I’ve been told roughing up the back of the binding with 220 grit sandpaper and gluing with fish glue seems to work fine.
But, the first step will be to remove the bridge and 3D model it, then design a replacement that uses pins. The big question is should I make it a little wider to have more room for the pins? Another question is, was the saddle slot in the right place? I wouldn’t know until after the new bridge is glued on and the neck reset is done. I could make a temporary bridge and use the existing screw holes to mount it, then check the intonation. Or remove the bridge, model it, and reinstall it for doing the neck reset, depending on the height of the existing saddle vs. where the new one will be.
The cocoon.
Here it is!
Brass frets. Some gaps around the inlays.
Lots of finish crazing and one scratch. And that W I D E body!!
The crappy screwed on pickguard.
The original tuners are very tight.
Something must have been wrapped around the neck and messed up the finish a bit.
LOTS of finish crazing on the back!!
What's going on with the heel cap??
And on the heel and side of the guitar?
Another scratch.
A better look at the frets ending at the binding.
And the binding is heavily beveled.
The bridge is 7/16" thick! There are counterbores for the ball ends.
That's a bit chewed up.
Chewed up.
The internal marking, that probably mean nothing.
