Harmony Strat Copy

This axe was found used at a pawn shop in horrible condition but intact and almost free. I had to spend a day sanding the old finishes off of the body to discover what I had. Krylon is tough to sand! It is the basic far east strat copy. The beast has 3 single coils, volume and tone knob, covered tuners that are loose but work. The electronics are passive. Make- generic. It has a pretty good shaped strat body made of numerous pieces of wood, but not a true "plywood". The neck is maple and a fairly thick U shape. Good for big hands. It was originally biege. The 5-way selector is of the cheap enclosed plastic variety, but it worked with some lubricant sprayed into it. It has a floating bridge with 6 saddles that will probably hurt strings without some filing.

The sounds of the pickups are pretty decent for what they are, generic. The bridge pickup is not nearly hot enough, but the middle and neck pickups actually sound pretty good through my silver faced Champ. The tone roll-off is non-existent. Hopefully a re-wire will fix this. An inexpensive bridge pickup such as an EMG or Carvin will make this guitar sound pretty decent.

Since I did a complete rebuild, it is now much better than the stock harmony models I have seen. The neck was over-lacquered, but the frets were pretty good although small. They either wear well, or someone was more interested in bad paint jobs than playing the thing. The nut was broken, so I used a graphite nut. The action was really good after adjusting the truss rod and the bridge saddles, much better than I expected. It will now take a medium low to high setting with no string buzz (009-042 strings).

The strap buttons had pulled out, so they apparantly were weak. The pickup switch needs to be replaced with a quality unit, just like any other cheap strat copy. The output jack was bad when I got it. With going over with some decent replacement parts, it will be a very dependable guitar. I would play it live in a gig where I was afraid my better guitars might get stolen or damaged, such as a frat party.

They still have a factory?

I have been playing for a few years and have owned many other strat, les paul, and tele copies. This one is below the quality of the cheap Peaveys and Electras, especially, I assume, as set up from the factory. With a good going over and between 50 and 100 US dollars in pickup and electronics improvements, it is as good as any other copy if you like a large neck and are used to playing with some force. If someone stole it, I would find another cheapo and overhaul it since that is a hobby of mine, but I would not seek out this particular model as I would a Peavey Predator or Reactor.