Love the washer scrolling tip and also the fact that you demonstrate the sound of each guitar with an authentic to the time of each instraments playing style
The guitar came out very well. I love that old time Archtop sound. A way to avoid drilling a hole in the top, is to tape a relatively strong small Neodymium Magnet to the top at the correct location, then drop/place a suitable sized piece of Iron/Nickle (washer) into the guitar so it sticks to the magnet. Now you have a visual marker inside the guitar, and that will make placing the Piezo pickups easier. Once you're done, simply remove the magnet and the marker will fall off and can be removed.
No arguing with the end result. It sounds a lot better than it looks (but that isn't your fault). The bridge creation tricks were worth the price of admission.
Ted, you’re a true artist. Too many tips and tricks in this vid, I’ll have to favorite and watch at least three more times to absorb half the information. Thanks bud.
In the early nineties I acquired a 1956 Gretch New Yorker archtop. It was in fair condition and the headstock had been previously decapitated and reattached, needed fretwork etc. The luthier I brought it to offered me $300, and the repairs exceeded that so I took the $$$. I used the money to buy an Ovation that I played for a few years. I traded that for a new Yamaha Pacifica 102s, tele style, still have it. Yesterday afternoon I was shopping for a tusq nut for an MIM strat, and came across a nice 1956 Gretch New Yorker with an asking price of $1000. I have no regrets,I got what I thought I neede at the time. This video which reminds me of that guitar is a fine example of people like yourself who are custodians of these instruments. Thank you for all your videos and your dedication to this valuable service and craft.
What a nice job bringing that old girl back to life. You taught me something really cool, the pencil and washer trick. Also great job making that pick guard, looks exactly how it should. I bet the customer is very happy.
You have many ingenious tips, and deliver them with a great sense of humor. I’m enjoying your channel. Drilling a hole through the top was the first thing that came to my mind.
The "Patrician" badge appeared on quite a few different instruments, but the ones Ive seen are some of the best guitars Harmony offered IMO. High on my wishlist. EDIT Oh snap, hey Clifton! I'm a big fan of your channel. It's through your channel that I discovered traditional banjo and a wealth of great tunes. It has inspired and greatly influenced my own guitar playing. Thanks for all the great content.
Wow, you’re literally performing laparoscopic surgery on an old arch top guitar. Ted, your innovations and attention to detail are always fascinating. Thanks for another killer video.
Your Tool innovation is remarkable the idea's you come up with when your approach each job completely blows me away and you pass those on to us, but most of all they all make sense and they work in other applications as well Ted. Thank You !
It is an absolute joy to watch you work sir. Fitting that pickup brought to mind the old joke: "Did you hear about the gynaecologist who wallpapered his hall through the letterbox ?".
You killed me with the cypress hill prank... loved the sound and how elegant the bridge came out, not as much as the one that was fitted but hey, you did your best
I really like the new tuners. Nice choice both functionally and aesthetically I imagine. I enjoyed this video as methods for overcoming difficult procedures learned through years of experience was evident.
Ypres Hill,was a famous standoff battle in World War Two,as the Hun moved in,all Blind Willie had was a cheap Harmony with an action like a cheese cutter,he garrotted a whole German platoon without snapping a string,although some say it was a bridge too far...this is where the term ‘Arch Enemy’ comes from...probably...
You are a wonderful artist, and I watch your videos every day. You are an inspiration to many. I'd like to know who the 21 people are that dislike this video.
Nice to see an workhorse like that Harmony get back in working condition. Fascinating video, as usual. I owned a Harmony very similar to that one in the mid sixties. It vanished, and I don't remember how. The video brought back some memories. Mostly of how I couldn't play worth crap back then...
Your vids are extremely satisfying. It inspires me to do minor repair work on my own instruments. This type of thing would be a dream job for me. Thanks.
Your ingenuity, not to mention your patience, is remarkable! You got the pickups in the correct place of course, but I was thinking that putting some more bends in your "pick up placement device" to make it a "C" shape so the vertical portion above it (the handle if you will) would line up with the actual pickup location which could have given you a pretty good indication of where they were being placed without drilling the little hole in the top. Just a thought from a non-luthier.
Long time watcher, first time caller. I've learned a ton from your videos and also enjoy watching your work. You were really rather humorous on this one and it made me laugh a few times. Keep up the great work and by all means keep sharing 😏
That washer trick and pencil lead on the straightedge will come in handy soon, I’ve got 2 archtop bridges to make! Love those old Kays, thanks for the tips.
I have a pre-war archtop very similar to this one. The name is no longer visible on the headstock. I took it to a Vintage Guitar Show just after I bought it. The guitar had been with the family for over 35 years. They had gotten it used. Anyways, there were two dealers at this guitar show that were writers for a vintage guitars magazine. ( can’t remember their names). They told me it was prewar Harmony, Kay, or Regal. It has some unique inlays and a different binding ( not plain white). Someone had made a bridge for it. Actually a pretty good job. It has been played. A lot. All I have done to it is clean it as best I could, polish it, and put on new strings. I’d like to electrify it. But I was thinking of using a rod piezo with a preamp. I would have to cut for preamp, but that would give me more room to work with, plus give me a range of tone. And cut way down on feedback.
I love that washer pencil trick for the bridge, it seems very useful for a lot of weird curved shapes. I would say I can't wait to use it one day but I can almost guarantee I will completely forget it before I end up needing it!
Nice job! I've a Harmony flat top, no model indications but I'd estimate it to be from the 50's, early 60's at the latest. It may be what preceded the Sovereign because it is about the same size. The sides are history, split, broken, missing pieces. I'll need to make replacements. Its a huge job. Since I'm going that far, I want to take the whole instrument apart. The top is at least 1/8th inch thick. I'd like to make it thinner, and replace the ladder bracing with X. My ambitions overwhelm... it's in the queue of dozens of other projects. I have to live a long life...
I bought a Barclay USA Archtop today at a garage sale. It has a white pick guard on it that like the headpiece. Has Barclay USA printed on it. I’m not sure what I have but for $25 I brought it home.
I have one of these in my projects pile. A Harmony Patrician that really needs a neck reset, but is probably not worth the trouble. I'm likely just going to level the "rising tongue" out of it as best I can. Nice work on this one!
Love these videos man. Thank you for sharing so much information. It would be great if you played the guitars BEFORE and after you’ve worked on them so we can hear the difference you’ve made? Might not be noticeable in some cases I guess but i think it would still be really interesting. Thanks again!
They are the piezos. I used them sometimes when making Cigar Box Guitars. They are very cheap to buy. You have to be careful about feedback with those though
You my friend are nothing short of amazing. I thought Dan from Stewmac and Jerry from Rosa String works were awesome but you edged them out. Plus you can play quite well. A friend and I piddle around with our stuff but I'd never do it for money. We had 2 warped necks and a Fender tech said to remove fingerboard and rod and run run across jointer a tad and "teach" neck how to be straight. So far they have held up. Who'd a thunk it?
I’ve seen where guys have had their Kay or Harmony arch top’s back removed, removed the parallel tone bars from the top plate and made new tonebars that have the asymmetrical splay like the early Gibson 16” L-5. For a budget that can afford some of that vintage tone.
Many, many of the older Harmonys actually had carved spruce tops. Which is kind of weird---carved tops, we think of as the characteristic of the most expensive Gibson archtops..and that would be true...but the most expensive Gibsons also had all those other aspects which made them great guitars...like adj truss rods to enable good action, and put together without huge runs of glue on the insides. Harmonys can rarely be made to be what anyone would call great guitars without a lot of modding but they can be OK. You did a lot of good work on this old codger! The segmented f-holes were mostly 20's-30's.
carved tops were suprisingly cheap to make tho, especially back in the day. Most wood dealers specialized in selling to instrument makers had a huge pile of rejected cello and double base soundboards lying around that you could get for cheap. I bought a ton of amazing soundboards and back/side sets that just werent big enough to fit a cello due to some knot or other growth defect. (And im talking seriously cheap. They basically discarded those, as the grain structure tended to be too wide for violins/violas. Or they heated their homes with those) Often they didnt even use cnc routing - instead throwing these out by the hundreds through a simple copying router setup. Nowadays that carved tops are rather rare in general they tend to be more expensive and well built.
I wish I could thumbs up twice for the Cypress Hill bit lmao
I always appreciate archtop content.
Me: "He's gonna cut his fingers."
Ted: "No, I'm not gonna cut my fingers"
Been watching every weekend since 2017 and occasionaly look back on older ones and man, you were in a good mood on this one
That washer technique to follow the curvature of the top and the tracing the neck radius idea ... brilliant!
Right? It would never occurred to me in 100 years. I mean everybody knows similar trick, but that little washer, so simple and elegant!
I thought so too........I always used a block of wood
Works well for tracing templates to cut material a little big for band sawing and then finishing it with a router
the one liners were phenomenal in this video
I snort laughed when I saw that bridge.
I've become addicted to these videos.
Love the washer scrolling tip and also the fact that you demonstrate the sound of each guitar with an authentic to the time of each instraments playing style
instrument's
That washer trick alone was worth the price of admission. Im definitely stealing that
also the trick to transfer the fret board radius to the top of the nut
The guitar came out very well. I love that old time Archtop sound.
A way to avoid drilling a hole in the top, is to tape a relatively strong small Neodymium Magnet to the top at the correct location, then drop/place a suitable sized piece of Iron/Nickle (washer) into the guitar so it sticks to the magnet. Now you have a visual marker inside the guitar, and that will make placing the Piezo pickups easier. Once you're done, simply remove the magnet and the marker will fall off and can be removed.
clever!
No arguing with the end result. It sounds a lot better than it looks (but that isn't your fault). The bridge creation tricks were worth the price of admission.
Nice to see that old Archtop playing again. In this world of more, more, more, we need to remember that, sometimes, good enough is good enough.
Ted, you’re a true artist. Too many tips and tricks in this vid, I’ll have to favorite and watch at least three more times to absorb half the information. Thanks bud.
Omg when you were trolling about the cypress hill carving I was legitimately losing my mind!!
You just had my life 😂
I’ve been repairing for a lot of years but your videos always have some kind of “aha!” moment. Thanks!
Thank's for that washer/scribing tip. Pure golden idea...
In the early nineties I acquired a 1956 Gretch New Yorker archtop. It was in fair condition and the headstock had been previously decapitated and reattached, needed fretwork etc. The luthier I brought it to offered me $300, and the repairs exceeded that so I took the $$$. I used the money to buy an Ovation that I played for a few years. I traded that for a new Yamaha Pacifica 102s, tele style, still have it. Yesterday afternoon I was shopping for a tusq nut for an MIM strat, and came across a nice 1956 Gretch New Yorker with an asking price of $1000. I have no regrets,I got what I thought I neede at the time. This video which reminds me of that guitar is a fine example of people like yourself who are custodians of these instruments. Thank you for all your videos and your dedication to this valuable service and craft.
What a nice job bringing that old girl back to life. You taught me something really cool, the pencil and washer trick. Also great job making that pick guard, looks exactly how it should. I bet the customer is very happy.
I hope you enjoy your work as much as I enjoy watching.
Wow!! Loved the intricate installation of the pickups. Nice work. I always learn so much.
I love the humor in the beginning !
The washer rolling was a great idea ! Thank you
Love your humor and attention to detail and inviting attitude!
You have many ingenious tips, and deliver them with a great sense of humor. I’m enjoying your channel.
Drilling a hole through the top was the first thing that came to my mind.
Again, just pure craftsmanship.
Love me a Harmony archtop! I played a 1940s one marked "PATRICIAN" for years, and it was actually really nice.
The "Patrician" badge appeared on quite a few different instruments, but the ones Ive seen are some of the best guitars Harmony offered IMO. High on my wishlist.
EDIT
Oh snap, hey Clifton! I'm a big fan of your channel. It's through your channel that I discovered traditional banjo and a wealth of great tunes. It has inspired and greatly influenced my own guitar playing. Thanks for all the great content.
Wow, you’re literally performing laparoscopic surgery on an old arch top guitar. Ted, your innovations and attention to detail are always fascinating. Thanks for another killer video.
Wow, love your washer scribe trick. Never seen that one. Brilliant!
Your Tool innovation is remarkable the idea's you come up with when your approach each job completely blows me away and you pass those on to us, but most of all they all make sense and they work in other applications as well Ted. Thank You !
It is an absolute joy to watch you work sir. Fitting that pickup brought to mind the old joke: "Did you hear about the gynaecologist who wallpapered his hall through the letterbox ?".
You killed me with the cypress hill prank... loved the sound and how elegant the bridge came out, not as much as the one that was fitted but hey, you did your best
I really like the new tuners. Nice choice both functionally and aesthetically I imagine. I enjoyed this video as methods for overcoming difficult procedures learned through years of experience was evident.
A very cool trick for replicating the complex surface of the archtop for the bridge. Thanks for showing us!
Doesn't sound bad for a resurrected old lady. Another brilliant job like this and I may think you're capable of miracles.
Ypres Hill,was a famous standoff battle in World War Two,as the Hun moved in,all Blind Willie had was a cheap Harmony with an action like a cheese cutter,he garrotted a whole German platoon without snapping a string,although some say it was a bridge too far...this is where the term ‘Arch Enemy’ comes from...probably...
joel fildes Nice job Joel. Thanks!
You, sir, are a sick puppy. And I salute you for that.
The washer trick and pencil lead on the ruler. Simple and brilliant!
man this has to be your best episode for comedy and quips, you were really on top of it that day hahahaha
You are a wonderful artist, and I watch your videos every day. You are an inspiration to many. I'd like to know who the 21 people are that dislike this video.
As usual, your methods are ingenious!!
I love the attention to detail you give to bridges, always make them with compensation for intonation. Brilliant workmanship. Amazing!
Best channel in TH-cam right now y'all.
Love the washer tracing trick, thanks !
I enjoy your videos. Always something to learn.
Very nice job!
You do some fantastic work Sir…!!!
Nice to see an workhorse like that Harmony get back in working condition. Fascinating video, as usual.
I owned a Harmony very similar to that one in the mid sixties. It vanished, and I don't remember how.
The video brought back some memories. Mostly of how I couldn't play worth crap back then...
Maybe that's it in the video.
Your vids are extremely satisfying. It inspires me to do minor repair work on my own instruments. This type of thing would be a dream job for me. Thanks.
Your ingenuity, not to mention your patience, is remarkable! You got the pickups in the correct place of course, but I was thinking that putting some more bends in your "pick up placement device" to make it a "C" shape so the vertical portion above it (the handle if you will) would line up with the actual pickup location which could have given you a pretty good indication of where they were being placed without drilling the little hole in the top. Just a thought from a non-luthier.
Nice work and great narration of the procedures.
Nice job. Pretty cool old guitar. Thanks for posting
That was one of the best videos I've ever seen
Informative, educational, relaxing, and funny
Thanks for everything
Great job :)
Long time watcher, first time caller. I've learned a ton from your videos and also enjoy watching your work. You were really rather humorous on this one and it made me laugh a few times. Keep up the great work and by all means keep sharing 😏
Also, the usage of the washer is as easy as beyond genious. Thanks a lot for that.
One of your funniest. Man, I don’t envy you with working on guitars like that. Insane in the membrane indeed.
Enjoyed the comedic narration. Thanks for sharing
That washer trick and pencil lead on the straightedge will come in handy soon, I’ve got 2 archtop bridges to make! Love those old Kays, thanks for the tips.
Thank you so much for making these videos.
Fantastic! Great job. Thank you so much for these videos. You totally ROCK.
OMG, I love your sense of humor!!
Another one comes back to life !!!
I have a pre-war archtop very similar to this one. The name is no longer visible on the headstock. I took it to a Vintage Guitar Show just after I bought it. The guitar had been with the family for over 35 years. They had gotten it used. Anyways, there were two dealers at this guitar show that were writers for a vintage guitars magazine. ( can’t remember their names). They told me it was prewar Harmony, Kay, or Regal. It has some unique inlays and a different binding ( not plain white). Someone had made a bridge for it. Actually a pretty good job. It has been played. A lot. All I have done to it is clean it as best I could, polish it, and put on new strings. I’d like to electrify it. But I was thinking of using a rod piezo with a preamp. I would have to cut for preamp, but that would give me more room to work with, plus give me a range of tone. And cut way down on feedback.
I love that washer pencil trick for the bridge, it seems very useful for a lot of weird curved shapes. I would say I can't wait to use it one day but I can almost guarantee I will completely forget it before I end up needing it!
You are so good, your channel give me a lot of inspiration! Thank you.
Great job again.. Thank you for sharing
Ted, you are hilarious, and skillful, and clever. The washer trick made me feel oh so inadequate. I will live humbly until next video.
You killed me with the Cypress Hill thing!
Outstanding Ted!!
BBBBOOOOMMMM ... archtop back to life again ... you're great..
I do find your short films very enjoyable, a sabbatical, every one of them.
I love your videos, they’re relaxing as well as informative.
Thanks for another great restoration video. Just wanted to say again that I'd love to hear a lot more of your playing!
Great work as always Ted
Thank you for lifting my very mundane afternoon
13:26 was my favorite part
Great work on a great axe!!!
I love Harmony Guitars, I have an arch type, a standard box, Tele. and a 1999 - 40th anniversary Rocket. Kudos
the extremely subtle mouse clicks after the cheese puns got me haha quality as always
Great video of an awesome old guitar.
Love the Harmony stuff, keep it coming!
An awesome job as always! Thanks for sharing!
Hi Ted, love your videos and quality of workmanship you achieve... great stuff 👍
Nice job!
I've a Harmony flat top, no model indications but I'd estimate it to be from the 50's, early 60's at the latest. It may be what preceded the Sovereign because it is about the same size.
The sides are history, split, broken, missing pieces. I'll need to make replacements.
Its a huge job. Since I'm going that far, I want to take the whole instrument apart. The top is at least 1/8th inch thick. I'd like to make it thinner, and replace the ladder bracing with X.
My ambitions overwhelm... it's in the queue of dozens of other projects. I have to live a long life...
Love the video, You have made me want to get into guitar making and fixing.
Awesome !!!
Thank You for 'll that you do and for all of the great tips and tricks that you share !!!!
Another great job done, and a surprisingly good tone from that old guitar.
I bought a Barclay USA Archtop today at a garage sale. It has a white pick guard on it that like the headpiece. Has Barclay USA printed on it. I’m not sure what I have but for $25 I brought it home.
I have one of these in my projects pile. A Harmony Patrician that really needs a neck reset, but is probably not worth the trouble. I'm likely just going to level the "rising tongue" out of it as best I can. Nice work on this one!
Most enjoyable, one of your best vids. The bridge profiling tips are especially clever. Thanks, as always.
Nicely done!!
You have great patience, sir.
you are such a cool guy, love from brazil
Nice job, thanks for the tips.
Wow, i dont know why but that harmony sounds amazing to my ears. Similar effect the johnny cash martin gives me. Nice work as always!
Love these videos man. Thank you for sharing so much information. It would be great if you played the guitars BEFORE and after you’ve worked on them so we can hear the difference you’ve made? Might not be noticeable in some cases I guess but i think it would still be really interesting. Thanks again!
Thanks for another great video!
You have some serious skills.
Pretty sure those pickups are out of door buzzers I made pickups out of these for years. Great on an archtop and a few bucks each.
They are the piezos. I used them sometimes when making Cigar Box Guitars. They are very cheap to buy. You have to be careful about feedback with those though
That's a really pretty guitar, I love the headstock.
You my friend are nothing short of amazing. I thought Dan from Stewmac and Jerry from Rosa String works were awesome but you edged them out. Plus you can play quite well. A friend and I piddle around with our stuff but I'd never do it for money. We had 2 warped necks and a Fender tech said to remove fingerboard and rod and run run across jointer a tad and "teach" neck how to be straight. So far they have held up. Who'd a thunk it?
Great job, bravo !
I’ve seen where guys have had their Kay or Harmony arch top’s back removed, removed the parallel tone bars from the top plate and made new tonebars that have the asymmetrical splay like the early Gibson 16” L-5. For a budget that can afford some of that vintage tone.
Many, many of the older Harmonys actually had carved spruce tops. Which is kind of weird---carved tops, we think of as the characteristic of the most expensive Gibson archtops..and that would be true...but the most expensive Gibsons also had all those other aspects which made them great guitars...like adj truss rods to enable good action, and put together without huge runs of glue on the insides. Harmonys can rarely be made to be what anyone would call great guitars without a lot of modding but they can be OK. You did a lot of good work on this old codger! The segmented f-holes were mostly 20's-30's.
carved tops were suprisingly cheap to make tho, especially back in the day. Most wood dealers specialized in selling to instrument makers had a huge pile of rejected cello and double base soundboards lying around that you could get for cheap.
I bought a ton of amazing soundboards and back/side sets that just werent big enough to fit a cello due to some knot or other growth defect. (And im talking seriously cheap. They basically discarded those, as the grain structure tended to be too wide for violins/violas. Or they heated their homes with those)
Often they didnt even use cnc routing - instead throwing these out by the hundreds through a simple copying router setup.
Nowadays that carved tops are rather rare in general they tend to be more expensive and well built.
I almost chocked on my spaghetti when you said insane in the membrane. I never saw it coming.
It seems there’s something that Ted teaches me on every video. That washer tracing on the bridge technique was clever