…some assembly required.
Actually, what I found today was a fifties(ish) archtop guitar, something that I ordered from the fates a while back. The label says “Stewart” but my eyes say “Harmony”. I’m sure it has a plywood top, curved not carved, but it’s got the floating bridge and tailpiece I need. Even better, it’s a blonde which must mean that this top was one of the least ugly pieces of wood going through the factory that day.
I’ve had my eye out for a cheap one of these for years. What I intend to do with it is to swap the six guitar tuners for eight, change the nut and bridge, and set it up as an octave mandolin. I’m hoping that if I’m careful about string gauges I can keep the neck from doing the twist and the top from spelunking, I will end up with an instrument that sounds OK and cost very little.
I’m thinking that I’ll have a go at removing the present tuners, filling the holes and slapping down a some new veneer on the peghead front and back to cover up the scars myself. If I can find (or buy; that something I should own) a drill press, I’m also comfortable installing new tuners. After that I’ll take it to a luthier for the trickier things like swapping and filing the nut and fitting a new bridge to the arched top, as well as for a pro set-up. And as far as I can tell, that’s all that’s required to change this to a mandoid.
As it happens, I already have two matching sets of vintage planetary banjo tuners, which even my lit major’s math tells me adds up to 8. The peghead is long, so there’s no difficulty finding the space to install that many, but I’m wondering if 8 geared tuners is too much weight. Willl that make a guitar top-heavy?
