Harmony H45 Stratotone Mars

A 1964 single neck pick-up guitar with volume, tone and a tone by-pass switch. Neck is thick and reinforced with a non-adjustable truss rod. Bridge is a height adjustable floating rosewood bridge that is held in place by string tension. Body is hollow chambered with no "F" holes. I have no idea what woods were used in making these things.

I play this through a fender deluxe reverb. It has a great bluesy, honest tone - bright yet warm. The hollow chamber makes the notes ring out with an accoustic quality. I really like the tone by-pass switch. It's great for a quick flip into a quick attack kind of sound. I like to play clean - so I don't know how it fares when coupled to stomp boxes.

The action on this guitar is spot on. There's no warp or bow in the neck. Suprisingly, the intonation is correct too. I was worried about the chunk of rosewood bridge not being adjustable enough to get it intonated right - but it works! The finish is a sunburst nitro cellulose (standard fare for those days - quite desirable now). The pickup is riveted to the pick guard, so theres no adjusting that. My biggest dislike is the poor balance this guitar has. The hollow chambered body does not offset the weight of the chunky neck so the head stock divebombs to the floor when you let it go.

This guitar is over 40 years old and it still going strong. When I got the guitar the wood had separated on the upper side along it's wood grain. I just wood glued and clamped it and it's fine. I guess where the jack plugs in could be a weak point, but I haven't had any trouble.

Um...

I've been playing for about 25 years and I've owned just about everything at one time or another. I like the simplicity of this guitar. It's really simple, has a great neck, and a joy to listen to.