Harmony Rocket Project

[cheepaxes]

A friend/co-worker gave me an old Harmony Rocket to fix up. This is a 2-pickup, double cutaway, whammybar tailpiece model, which I think means it's from the early '70s. It was his first guitar and it's been in storage for years. It's missing:

- the DeArmond Mustache pickup at the neck
- the pickguard
- all but one knob
- three of the "grommets"(?) that go in the hole where the tuning pegs go through the headstock

There are a bunch of holes drilled from a previous attempt to move the neck pickup.

The diamond-shaped plate holding the pickup switch is broken.

After searching for a newer, inexpensive surface-mount pickup that would fit under the strings where the relatively shallow DeArmond neck pup had been, I determined that there really wasn't such a thing. The closest I could find is a GFS NYII from Guitar Fetish. This is a little too tall to fit unnder the strings so I've experimented with spacers and shims in the neck pocket to get a little more height to the strings.

I've decided to get another GFS NYII for the bridge position. See:

http://store.guitarfetish.com/gfsnyodestsu.html

I'll either sell the original DeArmond, or keep it and put it on another guitar.

By the time I'm finished with this thing it's not going to look that much like a stock Rocket so I think I'm going to go in another direction with it. I'm planning on using a Les Paul pickguard rather than a repro Rocket pickguard. The NYII pickups and Radio Shack knobs I've put on it are balck and chrome so I'm planning on using black and chrome parts as much as possible to replace the missing bits.

To make it playable I needed to:

-Reverse the wires to the output jack to solve a hum problem.
-File (sand) the 6th fret down because it was high.
-Adjust the Truss Rod.

I've made a plastic replacement for the broken pickup switch plate. I'll either paint it black or make another one in black plastic.

I bought some Vituoso guitar cleaner and polish for vintage guitars. It did a *very* nice job on this guitar.

It's not finished but here's a couple pictures of it a lttle way into the project.

http://www.scottmcknight.com/ROCKETCU.JPG

http://www.scottmcknight.com/ROCKTWIN.JPG

More to come.

-Scott McKnight

[cheepaxes]

[VintAxe]

Nice work Scott, it appears you made a very sensitive restoration of the Rocket. I think it turned out great!!

What was the issue with the tuner holes. I assume the new tuners had larger diameter shafts so you were trying to widen the existing holes. What did you try and what went wrong? sb

[cheepaxes]

"Nice work Scott, it appears you made a very sensitive restoration of the Rocket. I think it turned out great!!"

I think it's pretty cool. It's very different than a stock Rocket in a lot of ways, so "restoration" may not be a very accurate description. "made work again" might be closer. :)

"What was the issue with the tuner holes. I assume the new tuners had larger diameter shafts so you were trying to widen the existing holes. What did you try and what went wrong?"

The first time I ever tried drilling holes out larger, with a junk neck I had a few years ago, I found that the drill bit would remove chips of wood from each face of the wood as it was entering and exiting. I subsequently had some success with using a smaller drill bit and going around the small hole at angles, to create a tapered entrance and exit that was about the same size as I wanted the final hole to be. That way I was putting the larger bit a little ways into the hole before it started drilling, so it was less likely to knock chips off either face of the wood. This time I tried the same thing but it didn't work very well. I ended up knocking a few chips out and making the tapered outer holes too big on some of the holes - in some cases big enough that you can see them even with the new tuners installed. I had to disguise this stuff by coloring the chips/holws with the same furniture marker I used to hide other scrapes/holes. I'm not sure why it didn't work as well this time. Maybe I was just not careful enough.

-Scott

[simonm]

Hi Scott

I dug up this old thread to see what you make of the GFS NY IIs.... I have a 50s Supro with no electrics, and I think the GFS is the only surface mount pickup I can find that will fit in the space I have, but aside from my reluctance to stick 4 screws into the pearloid top, my only other experience with GFS is their P90 which I found too harsh...

So - what's your take on the NY II? Decent vintage sound?

Simon

[simonm]

oh well
talking to myself again

I got a vintage Dearmond for $4 more than the GFS in the end - the flat 'Goldtone' ones that you see on Stratotones, this type



Should get the job done.

[Michael Ambrose]

Just a heads up... Robbie's Music City in North Jersey has been selling a lot of NOS DeArmond Mustache pickups lately, for anyone who's looking.

[johnnyb]

hey, i was wondering how those pickups sounded too. i used to have a rocket back in the '80s with those mustache pups and it howled like a bassett hound. i couldnt use it, even clean.

[Michael Ambrose]

They're nice once you get used to them.

You can't play them full force. You've got to roll off a little of the tone. They're VERY responsive to higher frequencies... EXTREMELY responsive... so if you've got your tone on 10 it'll squeal like there's no tomorrow.

[cheepaxes]

Sorry I've been away.

Re: the GFS NYIIs, I didn't really play them enough to get a really good idea of what they're about, though I can't say that I'm blown away by them. On the guitar I put them on I was not that concerned with drilling hoes to mount them, nor puttiing in a hole for the cable to pass through into the body. If the guitar had been more valuable maybe I wouldn't have taken that approach.

Re: Mustache pups, I have another Rocket with Mustache pickups and have been fairly impressed with the sound. Used vintage Mustache's were way more than the GFS's, so I went with the latter.

-Scott