Harmony guitar comparisons

[John Link]

Will,

Here is an interesting comparison of three Harmony H1260s. 1), original ladder braced and original pinless bridge; 2), original ladder braced and pinned bridge; 3), X-braced and pinless bridge.

I can't tell much difference.

1260s are over braced, however, compared to Oscar Schmidt ladder braced instruments. Even Leadbelly's jumbo 12 string had just three braces, no thicker, according to Neil Harpe, than those of the same sized 6 string. So the comparison may be between three overbraced guitars.

[Dave Bagwill]

That was a good comparison test; I could not hear much difference either. The x-braced had a little less volume, but I did not hear a corresponding gain in complexity, as I would have expected.

[John Parchem]

I could not hear an identifiable difference between the ladder bridge and the x-brace, but i did hear a difference from the guitar with the added pins and the two others. The guitar with the pin conversion did not seem to have have deep of a voice less resonance to my ears. For the pin conversion, I would want to hear before and after before I jumped to conclusions.

I was surprised how close the ladder braced guitar and X braced guitar were. I guess a lot of the sound in a guitar is in the top itself, not the brace pattern.

[Tim Benware]

Wow, not sure what you guys were hearing (don't mean that in an insulting way). Did you have head phones on or were you listening through the computer speakers? I was using head phones and to me there was a clear difference between the x-brace and ladder brace. X-brace had more volume (that could have been the way he was strumming it) but more important to me I heard more bass and mid coming from the the x-brace and it had a deeper, richer sound.

Not much difference between the pinned and unpinned ladder braced guitars to my ears.

[Dave Bagwill]

Amazing, that we both used headphones, Tim, and heard the opposite thing. I listened closely, so did you. I guess that goes to prove something, but I'm not sure what. :-)

[John Link]

One of the issues with Harmony 1260s is the approach used to dimension the box, assuming the one I completely took apart is fairly typical.

The top was .16" thick, after sanding off the finish, which may have removed a thousandth more of wood. It used 5 braces plus a pad under the bridge. The bridge pad was short and did not transmit string vibrations all the way to the edges of the top. The ladder braces were quite wide and arranged parallel to each other, more or less, but not perpendicular to the center line.They were taller on the treble side than the bass. They "clustered" beneath the sound hole, where the real action takes place, and restricted the size of the "sweet spot" - this combined with an already thick top. The end block is of the same dimensions as the top block and both the top and back are completely glued to it which reduces the area that can vibrate by tightening up the last inch and a half of the lower bout. Scale length is 25.25" - fairly short and it must drive all that resistance built into the top.


Here is my top viewed from inside:

009_1260InsideTop.jpg (71.72 KiB) Viewed 1793 times

Vintage Oscar Schmidt guitars, on the other hand, have but 3 ladder braces for the top, which are narrower, taller, symmetric, and perpendicular to the center line. The bridge pad is typically longer, to transmit the string energy all the way across the grain to the edges. There is plenty of room to move the top in the "sweet spot". Here is one in the process of restoration by Neil Harpe, to be viewed on his site (I don't like to steal other people's images):

http://stellaguitars.com/repaired..body1.jpg

The rest of the 1260 box had some more unusual measurements. The back was made from remarkably vitreous mahogany - supposedly 1 piece but actually 2 (joined off to one side) with a lot of stain to cover the joint. It ranged from .07" down to .05". Sides were .07" to .06". This explains why old 1260s have so many cracks from being bumped.

The picture emerges: 1), top is thick with many wide braces in the money area, but lacks a pad that helps drive the edge; 2) thin sides that do not anchor the edges of the top and back solidly; 3), thin back, and 4), intrusive end block.

Despite these problems, 1260s are beloved by many. They have good sustain and are built from solid legitimate tone woods. If the truss rod works and they have had a good neck reset, they can play very well too. And they look good.

[John Parchem]

Wow, not sure what you guys were hearing (don't mean that in an insulting way). Did you have head phones on or were you listening through the computer speakers? I was using head phones and to me there was a clear difference between the x-brace and ladder brace. X-brace had more volume (that could have been the way he was strumming it) but more important to me I heard more bass and mid coming from the the x-brace and it had a deeper, richer sound.

Not much difference between the pinned and unpinned ladder braced guitars to my ears.

I re listened, using head phones and I still thought the two unpinned guitars sound closer to each other than the third guitar. With careful listening I did think that the D string had a clearer\richer sound on the X-brace. The guitar with the pinned bridge sounded overbuilt to me (tinny)

we should get this listening part of the thread moved to its own post, as we are starting to hijack this thread.