1963 Silvertone 165 Guitar Repair

Started taking the strings off
before I took the picture

Note painted on fret markers

I like these old Silvertones. Don't got me wrong, however. If you've got a 50's era Gibson  J-45, or an old vintage Martin laying around and want to send it to me, I'd happily take it in exchange for this Silvertone, swapping straight across. Or, if you want to swap me the Taylor 210e, (sunburst, of course) that I play every time I'm in Guitar Center, that'd be good.

But until that time comes, this old Silvertone is a good player. 

I think I bought this one last summer. It's a Harmony-made guitar, the H615, which is a full size folk guitar, and it was made in 1963, a year that holds a special place to me. It sounded okay, but the tuning machines were hard to turn, and the frets were rough on the sides of the neck. The neck is straight, and not quite as thick as many of the Harmonys from that era, but with the sharp frets, it was uncomfortable to play.

We have something in common

I bought some files from Harbor Freight, and an emory board from the 99 Cent Store, and figured that I'd tape it off and file the frets down. I also bought a set of tuning machines from StewMac in January, which I was going to use to replace the originals. All of these things I purchased over the last year, thinking that I'd get to the guitar in short order, but never did. I had some Martin Strings that I bought from a music store that went out of business a decade ago. The only thing I didn't have was a couple of hours to devote to this project.

Today, I had some time. No one needed to be driven anywhere, and the only important project I had planned was replacing a headlight on my car, which turned out to be incredibly easy. I had a couple of hours to spare, so while preparing and then slowly barbecuing tri-tip, I brought the guitar back into playing condition.

I took off the old strings, which came with the guitar. The guitar itself came in an old chipboard case, and appeared to be reasonably well cared for. It wasn't particularly dusty, implying that it's spent most of the last 50 years in a case. The frets were the issue. Reading up on old guitars, many articles stated that sometimes the fret board will shrink with age, causing the frets to protrude beyond the edges of the neck. This seemed to be the case, and it was enough to cause pain after about 20 minutes of playing.

The new and the old

The Finished Frets

I taped off the fret board, as all the YouTube videos advised, and used Harbor Freight files to dress my frets, and buffed out everything with the foot-shaped emory board in the picture. I spent about 20 minutes filing and shaping, until I got it all reasonably smooth. I also used some fine sandpaper for a stubborn section.

I went back and forth on changing the tuning machines. They were stiff, but they worked. Still, I had a StewMac set, and finally just decided to change them. It took just a few minutes, and the holes, for the most part, lined up, so it wasn't difficult.

After that, I used my Martin Guitar Polish and Cleaner on the body and neck, and then used some Old English Furniture polish on the fret board. I thought about painting it like I did my other Silvertone but remembered it was the painting that caused me to break the neck, so I decided not to. It still might get my initials at some point in the future, though, and it might be fun to change the color of the painted on fret markers.

I pulled out the new old stock Martin strings, and strung her up. It tuned up nicely, and held the tuning-I made the video a day later, and it only needed a touch of fine tuning.

Here you go!

June 6, 2017

I've taken the guitar out of the case a few times in the last week, and the tuning is holding up nicely, the frets work, and I'm thinking about adding an acoustic guitar pick-up so I can go electric. It really does have a nice ringing tone when I play.