Harmony

I recently acquired a 1957 Harmony 1215 Archtop Guitar from my father, and I am in the process of repairing it. As you can see, the guitar suffered some heat damage, and the top and bottom was slightly bowed and unglued. After a bit of research to confirm it wasn't a million dollar vintage axe, I figured that for right now I would simply glue it back together, clean her up and re-string her.


I removed the hardware, which isn't in bad condition, and measured the action at the 12th fret. A massive 9/32" from the 12th fret to the bottom of the low E string. WOW!!! The top has warped and separated from the body, pushing up the bridge. I'll need to shave down the bridge to get that down to at least 5/32", preferably 3/32" if I can keep it from buzzin'. There is a lot of room on that bridge to adjust it higher, so I'll need to shave 3/16" off to start.

The finish isn't too bad, although there is plenty of electrical tape residue all over (no, I do not know why) and a few chips to go with the crackling. The frets will clean up nicely with a bit of painters tape masking and 0000 steel wool. I hope to clean up the nastiest spots, oil up the fretboard, and install the missing pickguard.
I found some good resources at the Guitar Restoration Forum, Stewart MacDonald and Frets.com that are very helpful. There is also a pick guard on eBay that I'll need to get.... should look real nice, and hopefully play well.