Harmony Flying V Copy

I bought this Harmony Flying V copy in about 1985 or 1986, new out of a J.C. Penney catalog. It was painted white, so I don't know what it was made of. It was not terribly heavy. It had two passive open-coil humbuckers and a Strat-style vibrato (trem). I recall the neck being medium-sized. The tuners, trem, and knobs were gold-colored. It had a three-way switch and (if I recall correctly) two volume controls and one tone control. It was a 22-fret bolt-on neck. I recall the frets being medium-sized--not jumbo, but not too flat.

I played slide blues with this guitar, and it worked great for me--after I set it up. I played it through a number of amps, including an old Peavey 6x10 120-watt beast, a Silvertone Twin Twelve, a tiny old Danelectro, and an old 1x12 solid-state 60-watt Crate (made back when Crates looked like crates). The sound out of this guitar was never refined, but it suited the Hound Dog Taylorish sound that I wanted to get.

From the factory, the guitar was set up very badly. I shimmed the neck a trifle, replaced the terrible plastic nut with a brass nut, and blocked the whammy bar. The whammy in particular was junk: it served only to detune the guitar immediately to some new, random tuning. Surprisingly, I never had any problem with the tuning machines, even though they were clearly very cheap. And the pots, jackplate, and three-way switch never gave me any problems. (Admittedly, though, I usually kept everything in the same position.) And the neck was reasonably straight, and the pickups were reasonably well dressed. I'm giving it a 6 for this category in some absolute sense--but, given that I paid $120 for it brand new, it was really a 10 for that price.

I don't think that this guitar would have withstood a lot of live playing. I mainly jammed with it. The tuning machines would not have lasted long had anyone yanked around on them much, and I can't imagine that the pots and switch would have lived long. But the strap buttons were all right, and the finish looked great for the more than 10 years that I owned the guitar.

I returned the first one I received because it had a crack in the body near the neck pocket. But I really have no opinion.

I have now been playing for 25 years. I sold my Harmony Flying V about 11 years ago, and I really miss it. It was surprisingly comfortable to play, and its raw sound worked well for me--after I set it up to my taste. It had good access to the upper frets and beyond. (I sometimes slide up above the fretboard.) I regret having sold it (for a bargain . . .),and I wish that I had another. I've had a lot of other guitars since then, but that was a fun one--especially for a guy who likes cheap guitars! For the price I paid, it was perhaps the best purchase I ever made.

My Harminy Flying-v was bought for me as my first guitar by Dad. He got it at a good price in a yard sale with a Hamer Case (for about $60 I think). It has a 22-fret mahogany neck with rosewood board and I belive was made in Korea or Japan (apparently all the Harmony guitars that have "Est 1892" on the Headstock and look like Fenders or Gibbo's are late 70's or ealry 80 Korean made). I think the body has a mahogany facing but the wood is definitely not Mahogany as I can see a paler wood when I look in the control cavity. It is not plywood either (in the sense of being nasty multi-ply stuff that you buy from DIY stores), it seems to be made from several blocks of pale coloured wood (I'm guessing ash or basswood). The finish is really tough and the mahogany facing colour is very reddy-brown (love it or hate it). The neck is pretty good, if a touch on the chunky side...though it wasn't set u[p that well when I bought it. I have changed some of the original parts (see below) and had it set up nicely. The original nut broke and I replaced the tuners with some generic but solid ones from the WD parts catalogue.

I like lots of different types of music from early 60s to present day and use this guitar for bluesy stuff and heavier rock. I play it through my fender blues junior, with no effects to get a bluesy sound (just whack the gain up), or play it through my RAT pedal to get a Smashing Pumpkins type heavy rhythm sound. It can sound quite cool clean too. It used to sound terrible until I changed the pickups for Kent Armstrong PAF+ ones and changed the tone controls to have different capacitors. The old pickuos really squealed and were very badly made. There is quite a good variation in sound between the pickups now and it can do sharp, jangly sounds (though not quite fender-ish) and smooth heavy ones too. Nothing really to dislike about its sound really.

The action wasn't great when I got it, the neck had a slight bit of warping (due to bad storage), but it was usable. A new nut and set-up sorted that out. The pickups...well I'll say no more about those nasty units. The mahogany finish of the guitar is OK, if a little boring. The bridge and tailpiece are solid with one minor rust spots, though the bridge finsh has worn in a few places. The tuners were a bit loose and not very positive when I got it, but they are nice and solid now.

This a very solid guitar. The strap buttons aren't great, but with a good strap, shouldn't be a problem. I have dropped it a few times when I had a crap strap, and some minor cracks appeared at the edge of the mahogany facing, but it looks OK. I would be happy to gig with this guitar with no back up....though if I would want another guitar if I wanted more variety of sound. I have a nice strat, but it is a bit irritating because of the hum from the single coil pickups.

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I have been playing on and off for about ten years. I don't own much gear, just the V, my strat, fender amp, a few distortion pedals and a Wah. Would love a phaser though.
If i lost this guiat I would definitely want another or perhaps an Epiphone Flying-V.
I love its sound and its look, though the plain wood look is a little dull. If I would change anything about this guitar it would be just to have a different finish...but I don't care really, as it rocks !

White flying V, this was made probably in the 80's. Not sure where its from jc penny? Laminated plywood body, not mahogany.
Neck material unknown. Tune o matic bridge style.
Cheap tuners.

microphonic sound from pickups a bit noisy but decent sounds.
good for rock and blues.

Bought at a pawn shop, some chipping on body.

I would have a backup for this. Constantly have to retune this guitar. Not dependable for this reason.

been playing for 25 years. I have numerous other guitars including a
washburn flying V. This is a good starter guitar.

dont know what year it was made, 22 friends, shiny wood grain finish, 3 way toggle, 1 volume and 2 tone controls, two humbuckers, im guessin its mahogany, about medium width neck, nice action, the guy at the pawn shop gave me a fender acoustic gig bag with it, it fits pretty good

it fits my blues/soft rock/hardcore punk style that i play, i run it through a fender blues junior tube amp, it sounds good clean, i usually use nickel rockers on it and it sounds pretty mellow, it can put out quite a variety of sounds, likes- unique body, good sound
dislikes- sometimes its hard to hold sittin down

i dont know how it was when it came out of the factory, but i like it how it is, pickups are adjusted pretty good, just a few little dings and scratches here and there

i've played it live before, hardware is pretty good quality, finish is good to last, strap buttons are good, its dependable

been playin for 3 years, i also own a danelectro electric, babylon acoustic electric, a mexican one, fender blues junior tube amp, crate gx30 amp, dean markley 40 watt, when i first got it, it had scotch tape all over it, but after a little cleanin it up, it looks good, i am havin a hard time findin a hardshell case for it, its a good guitar overall

I have two of these Harmony Flying V guitars in my cheapos collection. Both are late 70's early 80's, 22 frets. Mahogany bodies, rosewood fretboard, mahogany neck I believe. One is white with gold hardware, the other is woodgrain, both have dual passive humbuckers. Both have tune-o-matics with stop tailpiece. Unknown tuners. Both have a 3-way toggle switch, 1 volume and 2 tone controls.

The White V has excellent sustain, great harmonics and really smooth action. I doubt this guitar came new in this condition. It had been professionally set-up by it's last owner possibly. I put on gold humbucker rings and covers to make the gold hardware complete on it. A few nicks and dings on one of the wings and on the back, nothing too bad. The woodgrain V was absolutely horrible when I first bought it. The sound was terrible no matter what I ran it through, action was not too bad but harmonics were non-existant. It stayed that way for a year but I recently changed the tone and volume pots and put in a set of BC Rich pickups out one of their platinum series guitars. WOW! What a difference. It brought that thing up to par with the white one with that change. Both would be great for hard rock/heavy metal.

These guitars get a bad rep because they were sold out of the JC Penny catalog. The hardware and pickups typically are cheapo no-name stuff. But the necks and bodies are solid, good pieces of wood. Buy one used off Ebay for 100.00, strip it, spend 100.00 for new hardware and pickups and you may be pleasantly surprised.

Both guitars have fat necks with jumbo frets which I really do not like so I rarely play them, just my preferance is all. But with a bit of work they both are durable and reliable enough for any application. I own 3 Harmony Les Paul copys which suit my needs much better so the V's are just wall dressing for now.

Never dealt with them. I repaired them myself. No warranty.

The older Harmony's were made in the USA, I believe in about 1985 the company was sold to a Japanese outfit and now they all come out of Japan. I go for the older ones from the 70' and early 80's as they just seem to be better made bodies and necks. You can spend half the money on an old used one, upgrade the pickups and hardware and for about 200.00 bucks you will have 3 times the guitar compared to a brand new jap model for the same amount of money.

First off, I have absoutely no idea when or where this was made, but I'm working on that. This guitar has a 22 fret, rosewood fingerboard with dot inlays and a pretty fast neck which I think is made out of mahogany, same for the body. This guitar has 1 volume control, 2 tone controls and a 3-way selector. Some of the knobs were missing when I bought it so I bought a brand new set of black Gibson knobs and replaced them. It has two humbuckers, not a name-brand, so I don't know about that. I'm looking to replace them with EMGs when I get money. It has a string-thru tremelo bridge (which I have to buy a new whammy bar for), non-locking no-name tuners with nomal frets. Nothing came with it as I didn't even buy it from a store.

First of all, I play, uh, metal. All kinds of metal, every style. And as we know, the main parts of metal are palm-muting and power chords. So you're looking for a good sound with both. On the neck pickup, the palm-muting has that strong, trebly sound, not perfect of course, maybe like the distortion on Kill 'Em All, just a bit weaker. But the power-chord attack is weak and there's this weird sound that goes with it? Then when you go up to the bridge pickup the palm-muting is barely distorted, but the power-chords are razor-sharp. I decided to switch to the middle pickup...hoping for the best of both worlds. This is kind of true, but it tends to lean towards the bridge pickup a lot more, so I mainly just stick with the bass pickup and fiddle with my amp to get the best possible sound. I'm planning to replace these pickups with EMGs as I previously stated. As far as clean sound, pretty regular, nothing special. However, when I put the amp equalizers to 5 and turn the Reverb all the way up and switch to the bass pickup...the lead tone rules! No complaints!

This guitar's action is pretty good, but it could be a little higher. However I'm lazy and I don't feel like changing it. The pickups were adjusted well, pretty much had no problems there. I've had no problems with the bridge yet but I've not yet used the tremelo. The poles of the pickups were kind of rusty, and there are some dings in the wood, in the headstock and on the body. However, this is pretty damn good for a guitar like this.

I haven't broken a string on this guitar yet. With my old guitar, I broke one once a week. I've had this guitar for about a month now and I haven't really changed my playing style, so I think that's great. No electronics problems at all yet either. The knobs, well. Because I had to replace the knobs they're not on say as great as they could be so you can turn it around twice. I could see how this can cause problems live, so I have to deduct points for that. The finish feels REALLY thick, a lot better than my old guitar. The strap buttons are crappy, actually worse than my old guitar, but I'm getting DiMarzio straplocks again probably. I would depend on this guitar and play it live without a backup when I got my DiMarzio straplocks. Before then, no way.

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I've been playing for a year and a half. I have a Peavey Scorpion 65 amp and my old guitar is a Squier Affinity Stratocaster. If this were stolen or lost, I would definitely get something else. My favorite feature of this guitar is it's lead sound and sustain. Very awesome! My least favorite feature is it's weird controls.

Dunno when this plank was carved; late '70s, maybe very early '80s? Nice long guitar, though. Two humbuckers, made by ???. Did those accidentally fall in the dumpster? Aaaaww, whatta shame. good thing i had those extra Gibson humbuckers lying around. I'm feeling much better now. I like the fact that it is a straightforward V with a mahogany finish (sorry, not solid mahogany...it may feel like it when it's dangling from yer neck but no way did Harmony have access to this big a piece of mahogany in their price range!), no pickguard and a string-through-body tremolo that actually works pretty well (needs a locking nut). I always liked the original, and with this thing i can pretend i'm Lonnie Mack. turfed the tuners for a set of Schallers, and i've rewired it just often enough that i don't remember the original configuration.

Well, it didn't really suit my folk-boy from hell style when i bought it, but it has changed me. I used to take my Danelectro to the hootenanny, now i really p*** "em off! I play it through a Fender Princeton Reverb II with a Danelectro Fab Tone and/or an Alesis Nanoverb. Great for that Y'allternative sound! Very versatile, with a greater range of sounds available than i want or need. Can't quite get that Fender sound, which is good 'cuz it means i still have an excuse to buy a Tele or borrow my buddy's Strat when he's outta town.

Pickups: garbage
Controls: garbage
Tuners: garbage
Tremolo: functional
Bridge: next on the list for removal
As for the rest, the guitar is just what i hoped/expected when i bought it; a good piece of lumber, with a passable long scale neck. The action suits me well when adjusted properly, and i have learned to play sitting down with the crotch of the V on my right leg (kinda like a demented classical player).

Well, the pieces i threw away still worked when i tossed 'em, but no better than they did the day they were made. As for the lumber part of it, the finish is very tough, and the guitar doesn't show its age much at all. I would take this overweight silly abomination anywhere without a qualm. (I screwed little rubber pads to the bottom points of the V, so i don't even need a stand!)

Not used to the V shape but anyway, solid mahogany (heavy) body. Rosewood fretboard. Mahogany neck, Grover pegs. Frets kinda fat, nice feature. I bought this used from an online pawn shop. So, the previous owner did his own modifications to this. Has 2 hums, the neck is a cream colored Dimarzio, don't know what model. The bridge is the stock chrome one. I guess. Had to adjust the setting on the bridge pickup. Was set too high. Typical 2 piece bridge. Ok. No toggle switch. Just 2 volumes. When one is turned down to zero, the other acts as a booster(?) to the overall volume. Kinda weird. No tone controls. There are 4 holes, and I assume it was for: Toggle switch, one vol. and 2 tones. Or vice versa. But not this one....

The neck pickup sounds good, but duh, its a name brand pickup!!! The dimarzio sounds good :); the bridge I'll eventually replace if I decide to keep it. Bridge chrome one is ech... Not any real variety...I'm really undecided on this. I just wanted a v to see if I'd like it but I don't really.

Buying it used, had to set it up. Well, really all I did after getting it was tweak the truss rod slightly w/ allen wrench. Actually, this neck is ok. Pretty straight. So, put 011.-050. guage strings on it. Wanted to see if it could handle the tension of heavier strings, and it does. And lowered the chrome pickup. Otherwise it is ok. Plays well, action reasonably comfortable. The way the bridge is set, it seems ok. For the price I paid for it....does have some nicks and dings on it. And someone carved his/her initials into one of the v bouts. Oh well, have to change R H into something.

I'd say so, all mahogany. If someone really liked this one, they'd have to eventually change the minorly rusted bridge system. Change the pickup at the bridge. GRovers seem ok. Maybe rewire it to have a toggle switch. Don't know what the old owners set up was that they didn't want a switch or no tone knob....

None....

I think I'll sell it. It doesnt suit me. Probably will consign it at my local store here. SOmeone else might like it, kewl for them. I like strat and strat style guitars more. Have a NUNO Washburn (2), MxZ elite, reviewed it here at H.C. Fame Tele as well, Mahogany body.
But this one is not a keeper for me.....

I bought this guitar in 1980 or '81.I purchased it thru J.C. penny,I think.It is solid mahogany as well as the neck,with a nice clear coat over it.it's 22 frets are well dressed medium fat.the action is quite good.it has the typical stop bar tail piece with tune-o-matic bridge.24 3/4 scale with a bolt on neck.the rosewood fret board has aged nicely over the years.cream binding around the neck has aged to a nice golden color.the body has a body contour on the back,(nice if you could sit down to play this guitar)but other wise useless.unlike the gibson version of this guitar,it has a contoured front edge where as the gibson has the square edges.it has 2 humbuckers,a single volume control and twin tone controls.no pickguard.

the pick-ups are warm and responsive,but very microphonic.the front pick-up delivers smooth,clean tones at lower volume levels,but turns muddy with ANY overdrive.the bridge pick-up is raspy with a lot of overdrive,but can be tamed by turning down the volume.a number of years ago the volume pot went bad.while replacing it,i wired the guitar wrong.in the middle position it has the pick-ups out of phase.a lucky accident i call it.this really opened a new door for this guitar.i've played this guitar on everything from a fender bronco to marshall stacks and the tone is always very good.i've also used this guitar onstage as well,but with the pick-ups being microphonic,where you stand in relation to the amp is VERY important.

when i recieved the guitar it had the strings on but loose.setting up the guitar was my job since it was a mail order instrument.as i remember it had very heavey guage strings on it.i now use 9's to 38 guage strings on it.the finish is flawless.this thing is almost indestructable.the strap pin position was poorly placed,so the guitar has hit the ground a few times.the only damage has been to the tuners.they were replaced with schaller machines.the action has always been good.there is no buzzing even at very low action levels.the balnce on the guitar is good.the only real down side is you have to play it standing up.

the hardware has held up very well over the years.i now own 13 guitars.everything from custom les pauls to a very cheap ventura L5 copy.the finish on my 92 les paul is in far worse condition than the v.there are no cracks or checks in the finish,keep in mind this thing is 20 years old!it has been played ALOT over those years.it just seems to get better.i really should change the pick-ups but i love the way it sounds now.

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after really thinking about this i truly think this is the best money i've ever spent for a guitar.it has been very reliable and durable.i have other guitars (i payed alot more money for)that give me bigger problems.it has sentimental value sure,but in the end it has been a great guitar.