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Topic: mystery guitar |
Joe Babb
From:
Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
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Posted 12 Dec 2009 12:00 pm |
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Can anyone help us identify the guitar in the picture? Nameplate on front is missing. Stamped into a metal part is "Harlin Bros" "Indpls Ind"
with a patent #.
It had 6 strings and two pedals. Anybody know how it was strung? It is not obvious.
Thanks,
Joe |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 12 Dec 2009 12:23 pm
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It's a Harlin MultKord. I'm in the process of restoring a similar one, though the one I'm restoring has eight strings and five pedals. (Oops, you can see how messy my workshop is. It doubles as a workshop, a recording studio and a model railway room.)
This is the state of progress so far.
This is the state it was in when I got it, showing that it originated the same colour as yours. The wood was too far gone to restore as finished wood, so I decided to respray it green.
I have five MultiKords, so I'm not going to restore this one as original. My plan is to put regular pedals on it, using pulleys and chords as on Fenders, to avoid the awkwardness of the seating position with the original pedals.
They're great guitars to play around with, as you can change the copedant in minutes without having to climb under the instrument. They came in all sorts of bright colors, and owners often embelleshed them with further decoration.
They left the factory with covers over the mechanism and tuners, but most of them have gone brittle with age an disintegrated, so you hardly ever see them nowadays.
I expect Danny James to jump in on this one. He used to work with the Harlin Brothers. He's a mine of information on Multi-Kords and still plays them with great enthusiasm.  |
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Joe Babb
From:
Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
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Posted 12 Dec 2009 1:50 pm
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wow, Alan, many thanks for the identification. The changer on this one seems frozen. But never having seen one before I'm not sure. The pedals pull down two bars on the very end. It looks like there are levers between the string hooks and those bars that ought to move but they don't. I can send close ups if that will help. I'm thinking I need to disassemble the thing and give it a good cleaning to discover how it functions.
Joe |
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Danny James
From:
Summerfield Florida USA
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Posted 12 Dec 2009 2:38 pm
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I may be of some help here especially if you send close up Pictures of the changer. I really think this one has been at least a four pedal Multi-Kord at one time.
If you take the changer out,-- pictures before and after dis-assembly would be helpful.
First be careful to not lose the nut / bridge rollers as they are just sitting there on the pins in the slots when the strings are off.
Take the cross bars off underneath the changer that the pedal cables are attached to, then there should be a square steel plate with four screws to take out and then the changer should come right out.
You asked how it is strung. The original Harlin Bros. tunings are as follows for a four pedal Multi-Kord.
High to Low--Low Bass
A tuning (open no pedals) E, C#, A, E, A, E
4 Pedals starting with farthest from the player side
C#mi.7th tuning----E, C#, G#, E, B, E
E tuning----E, B, G#, E, B, E
D7th with added 9th tuning---E, C, A, F#, A, D
A6th tuning--- E, C#, A, F#, A, E
Last edited by Danny James on 12 Dec 2009 3:01 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Harold Liles Jr
From:
Denton, Texas USA
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Posted 12 Dec 2009 2:52 pm
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[quote="Alan Brookes"]
(Oops, you can see how messy my workshop is. It doubles as a workshop, a recording studio and a model railway room.)
Now I don't feel so bad about my shop Alan!! lol
_________________
Harold Liles |
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Bill Ford
From:
Graniteville SC Aiken
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Posted 13 Dec 2009 12:55 pm
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messy workshop??? What messy work shop? If you clean it, and organize everything, you couldn't find anything.
_________________
Bill Ford S12 CLR, S12 Lamar keyless, Misc amps&toys Sharp Covers
Steeling for Jesus now!!! |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 13 Dec 2009 5:46 pm
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Harold and Bill: You're too kind. A messy workshop is usually the sign of an enthusiastic amateur who has far too many projects being worked on simultaneously.   When I visit professional luthiers their shops are always immaculate ...but then, they have customers to impress.  |
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Charles Davidson
From:
Phenix City Alabama, USA
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Posted 13 Dec 2009 8:41 pm
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Alan, that's not quite true about the messey workshop. A friend of mine [Mac McCormick] he died a couple of years ago.Anyway he was THE luthier in this area,he was the authorized Martin and Gipson repairman in this area.He made the finest guitars,mandolins,and reso's money could buy. He was an old hip guy from the 60's and real eccentric He always wore overalls and rolled his own cig's [no not wackey bacca] The floor of his shop had NEVER seen a broom,about two inches of sawdust and wood chips covered his floor,he snuffed his cigs out on his wooden workbench[I always wondered why that place did'nt go up in flames] One time I was in his shop and was smoking. Did'nt see an ashtray so asked him where one was,he looked around real slow and said Charlie there was one around here a year or so ago just stomp it out on the floor. There was a door that went to another part of his shop it was opened toward the wall,he dropped a tool and it rolled behind the door.he pulled the door back and there was a beautiful mandolin about halfway finished,He just said damn I WONDERED what happened to that thing. If a stranger had walked into his shop they would have run,not knowing there was a genius sitting at that workbench.The moral of this is DON'T judge a man by his workshop. YOU BETCHA,DYK?BC.
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Hard headed, opinionated old geezer. BAMA CHARLIE. GOD BLESS AMERICA. ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST. SUPPORT LIVE MUSIC ! |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 14 Dec 2009 7:38 am
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Thanks for the encouragement, Charlie. I guess I'm in good company. The fun part is when you drop a vital component of an instrument on the floor and it completely disappears, so you spend half an hour on the floor parting the wood shavings.  Sometimes I spend as much time looking for a tool as using it.
...sorry for diverting the discussion. |
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