Hi Folks, I'm restoring a vintage Harmony HG-165 mahogany guitar and I've run into an issue I wanted to run by the forum before I tackle it. I just did a neck set which looked perfect before and after glueing it in, but when I put on strings, the neck bowed up about 1/8 " at the 12th fret making the action uncomfortable.
Now Harmony's of this era (late 50's early 60's?) have steel re-enforced necks and the amount of bow was a surprise. I'm using light gauge strings (12-53) and the steel re-enforcement should have kept the bowing from happening. That being said, I've heard some bad comments about harmony and the steel re-enforcements (someone referred to it as a used hack saw blade). The bow was significantly more pronounced on the bass side of the neck.
I'm considering several possible approaches to deal with this. My initial though was to simply re-set the neck again at a steeper angle. That's a possibility, but there will still be too much bow in the neck for the guitar to play well. I also could shave down the bridge, but again, that doesn't solve the underlying problem and isn't what I'd prefer to do.
My current thinking is to remove the fret board and see what's going on with the re-enforcement bar. Perhaps I can re-seat it or maybe replace it with a carbon fibre rod or similar stiffener.
Does anyone have any experience dealing with this issue? I'd love to get some thoughts on the best way to deal with this and any insights into what I'm heading into.
Thanks very much!
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