Conversions

The Harmony conversion is a process by which we take old USA-made Harmony and Kay guitars and remanufacture them using our proprietary bracing and internal design, giving the guitars a new life and a world class tone that compares to vintage guitars of the highest order. This re-manufacturing process allows us to create a guitar that is also green, recycling and repurposing by starting with an existing guitar that was originally made with quality woods, and requiring no finish work. These are great guitars that retain their vintage patina and mojo at a price that the average musician can afford.

Many musicians have an old Harmony or Kay laying around that was their first instrument. Some have sent them to us to be rebuilt, and these guitars subsequently became their favorite instrument! Many of our customers are professional recording artists and musicians. If you would like to purchase a remade Harmony or Kay, have one rebuilt, or have one to sell, contact us here.

The Conversion Process

When we get a guitar to do our conversion process we begin with removing the bridge and neck. Then we carefully remove the back binding, if it has binding, and then the back. Next we carefully take out all the old, crude ladder style bracing. After cleaning out the inside of the body and repairing any cracks or structural issues, we install all new, scalloped X bracing of Scott Baxendale's design. This design is based on Scott's more than 30 years experience building and restoring guitars and is similar to the bracing found in pre-war Martin and Gibson guitars. We also replace the back bracing with new, finely carved and tuned braces. All new bracing is made with quarter sawn Adirondack or Engleman spruce.

Once the insides are complete we glue on the back and back binding. At this point it is time to work on the neck. We begin by removing the old frets and planing the fingerboard straight. We sand a perfect 12' or 14' radius into the fingerboard and re-fret the neck. Now we reset the neck and fit the dovetail neck joint so we have the proper neck angle to give optimum playability and saddle height.

Next we make a new rosewood bridge with a bone saddle, the intonation set by a strobe tuner. We make a new bone nut and replace the old gears with new Gotoh vintage style open back tuners.

When all this work is finished we set up the guitar and put it in a new hard case.