NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Bringing your older offset back to life.
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infiniteposse
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NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Post by infiniteposse » Sat Jan 16, 2016 5:38 pm

There's been a Harmony hanging around my local CL and I'd corresponded with the seller and let him know I was interested, but not nearly at his asking price. We finally connected today and, boy, was his asking price off... The good news is that he was *very* reasonable and I've got the old boy home for some much needed rehab. A cool side note: there's a name stenciled on the guitar's face, Hal Dean. I can't find any reference of a Hal Dean who plays guitar, but there was a pianist named Hal Dean for played in the Les Paul trio at some point. It seems possible that he fronted a band and his guitarist stenciled Hal's name on the guitar, which was common enough back then.

The good: Original finish almost everywhere, original pickups, original Bigsby, all knobs, electronics...everything's working.
The bad: Someone glooped on brown paint on the sides for some reason. I don't see any punch throughs or anything, so I'm not sure why yet. Non-original tuners (older Schallers), non-original (but cool looking) pickguard, frets are toast (complete refret needed), Missing single fret marker pearl inlay, missing binding on the treble side of the first fret and a binding bulge on the other side of the neck and the fretboard itself has had the shit played out of it...which isn't really a big deal. Lastly, it's missing it's truss rod cover. The Bigsby was spray painted with silver paint for some reason. Maybe it was pitting?

All in all, it's not at all hopeless and the look and feel of it's pretty cool, so the work will be worth it.

I'm curious for advice on how to get the brown paint off. It seems like I could use my fingernails but if I could safely use a product that'll just strip it, that'd be good, too. There was zero prep done and it's directly on top of the old finish which doesn't appear to be in horrible shape, so I think I can get it off safely. Lastly, any ideas on getting the paint off of the Bigsby safely?

The rest gets done by my luthier.

Any thoughts appreciated!

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Lee

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MattK
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Re: NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Post by MattK » Sun Jan 17, 2016 3:28 am

If it was mine I'd go after the paint with a thin nylon guitar pick (like a Jim Dunlop white or pale grey).

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infiniteposse
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Re: NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Post by infiniteposse » Sun Jan 17, 2016 6:29 am

MatthewK wrote:If it was mine I'd go after the paint with a thin nylon guitar pick (like a Jim Dunlop white or pale grey).
Great idea. That'll be my morning. I did some fingernail last night, but it's slow going...

Thanks!
Lee

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Re: NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Post by Con-Tiki! » Sun Jan 17, 2016 9:05 am

Guy loved that brown paint! Looks like bridge got it too.
take the bigsby off the guitar, acetone or lacquer thinner on a rag should take that silver spray paint off.
Wear gloves...
(Christopher, also)
I've been to one World's Fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that's the stupidest thing i ever heard come out a pair of headphones.

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Re: NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Post by Fenderguy » Sun Jan 17, 2016 10:54 am

Yeah, what a cool guitar! I`ve got a similar one I restored last year, I love that guitar!

Even if takes some time it`ll be worth it in the end. When I got mine it was so dirty that I had to wetsand the whole body just to clean it. Nothing else worked!

Those pickups sound so sweet btw! Please keep us posted on your progress :)

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Re: NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Post by Dr. H » Wed Jan 20, 2016 8:04 pm

Very cool purchase! Those guitars really have a vibe all their own. My (wordy) input:

To remove the brown stuff, I might use heat to free up the paint. I would start gently and use a hairdryer on the lower half of the unfinished bridge to see if the paint loosened up. If you feel confident, try the top half of the bridge, being careful not to overheat the inlay where the strings cross. If this works, you may want to try it on other parts of the guitar, starting with the areas least visible.

If this doesn’t work, you could use a heat gun. I would start with the lowest heat, and take your time—you don’t want to spoil the fragile finish or unglue any binding. If you need to “turn up the heat”, do so very gradually—just like at a gig!

I like your idea of using a guitar pick. It is much safer than a sharper edge.

For the bridge I might try paint stripper. Citristrip is less offensive than Jasco, but there are two caveats: 1) Check to see if it’s OK to use on aluminum, and 2) there may be original black paint around the Bigsby logo. FWIW, I have heard a war story about Jasco being applied to a vintage 335 and the binding coming undone . . .

The heating method used judiciously would be my first approach as it is relatively non-toxic, non-invasive, and easy to do.

Good luck!

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Re: NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Post by mgeek » Thu Jan 21, 2016 11:23 am

No offence Dr H, but that sounds a bit much...

of course this all depends on the types of paint involved, but I have successfully stripped overspray off a nitro finished hollowbody with 2000 grit wetsanding, it was very gentle and after buffing out impossible to tell that anything had ever happened. It basically crumbled/washed off and the very light grit just helped it along a little. If you can pick this off I would imagine it's a similar paint situation to mine

I would really worry about seams coming unglued with heat directly applied to the area

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Re: NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Post by infiniteposse » Thu Jan 21, 2016 11:54 am

Here's a quick, but overdue update:

I went to the hardware store and got a plastic razer-blade and also some specs paint thinner. I was cautious using the paint thinner for fear of damaging existing finish under the brown gunked paint and/or the binding, but it turns out those fears were unfounded. Under the poo paint was an assortment of "repairs" done at some point in the instrument's history. I'm unsure what they used when they did these "repairs," but they're solid as a rock and not going anywhere. It could be an epoxy or perhaps a poly or something, but short of sanding it to get it smoother, I wasn't going to hurt it by using the thinner. It also turned out the paint was so thick the thinner was mandatory. The thinner allowed the paint to become malleable and then the razor could do it's work. It took several sessions with a cramped hand to get it done, but the poo is now mostly off. There's some surviving finish under there, but mostly these guys went crazy with whatever it was they were using.

The good news is the guitars body is completely stable. I don't know what the exact damage was, but they fixed it. Under the funk I can see what looks like a few cracks, but they've been set and they're going no where. The body itself looks symmetrically correct, so nothing is off with it's geometry. In short, it's ugly but it's going to be fine for a player. I also hit the bridge and cleaned up about 90% of it. It's not painful to look at now.

I got paint off a few parts on the bigsby and then decided to let it be for now. I was eager to get it strung back up and see how it felt.

The guitar feels and sounds great. It's very resonate (you feel it in the belly/chest when you play) and the pickups sound great. There's some hum that seems to be resolved when I place my hand on the bridge pickup, so I'm guessing it either had a ground wire that attached to the Bigsby at some point or it needs one.

In the future I may sand down the sides and then overspray in a black. I think it would jive with the front and back and then no one would have to look at what's there. It may not be worth the effort, but my gut says this is going to be a great player, so despite the lack of financial sense I'd like to fix it up if possible. Perhaps I'll find a local (Portland), handy OSG member who'd do it for a reasonable price.

Here's some pics of the guitar post-poo-paint. It's a little better.

Thanks again for all of the assistance!

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Lee

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Re: NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Post by Dr. H » Thu Jan 21, 2016 2:06 pm

mgeek,

No offense taken. I'm new at this and just erring on the side of caution . . .

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Re: NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Post by Con-Tiki! » Thu Jan 21, 2016 5:44 pm

so many weird things happen to old, cheap guitars.

it's really common to see repairs like that. The jack's there, if you stepped on your cord, and it didn't pull out, it would bust the crap out of the guitar. The wood is pretty thin, and the jack would have been mounted without a plate originally. I've had a bunch, about 75% had repairs on the lower bout.
Last edited by Con-Tiki! on Fri Jan 22, 2016 4:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
(Christopher, also)
I've been to one World's Fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that's the stupidest thing i ever heard come out a pair of headphones.

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infiniteposse
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Re: NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Post by infiniteposse » Thu Jan 21, 2016 6:01 pm

Con-Tiki! wrote:so many weird things happen to old, cheap guitars.

it's really common to see repairs like that. The jack's there, if you stepped on your cord, and it didn't pull out, it would bust the crap out of the guitar. The wod is pretty thin, and the jack would have been mounted without a plate originally. I've had a bunch, about 75% had repairs on the lower bout.
Great point about the non-original jack-plate. I missed that. I don't own a small guitar mirror, so I haven't seen how the interior looks. There's zero flex though, so I'm not too bothered about whatever happened.

Despite this being a somewhat "cheap" guitar, it's really very well put together. The body's construction is pretty stout and I really do love the sound of these. I'm sort of a fool for investing more money into it to get it up and running, but I'm like the humane society for gimpy, cool guitars.
Lee

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Re: NGD: Harmony H74 - Needs some love, badly...

Post by Con-Tiki! » Fri Jan 22, 2016 4:34 am

infiniteposse wrote:
Con-Tiki! wrote:so many weird things happen to old, cheap guitars.
Great point about the non-original jack-plate. I missed that. I don't own a small guitar mirror, so I haven't seen how the interior looks. There's zero flex though, so I'm not too bothered about whatever happened.

Despite this being a somewhat "cheap" guitar, it's really very well put together. The body's construction is pretty stout and I really do love the sound of these. I'm sort of a fool for investing more money into it to get it up and running, but I'm like the humane society for gimpy, cool guitars.
"cheap" then, even "cheaper" in the 70's and 80's.
No one wanted them, and they suffered ghoulish experimentations, as a result. I have salvaged a couple, they are worth the effort and expense.
rock on.
(Christopher, also)
I've been to one World's Fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that's the stupidest thing i ever heard come out a pair of headphones.

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