So what's the story with 50s Kay archtops?

[Krinky]

Thanks, that's a neat piece of info. I'll have to keep an eye (ear?) out for those. Do you know how they were primarily sold - mail order catalog, department stores, music shops?

Tubby or not, they must be a few steps up from a gut-strung wash tub & mop handle.. =)

I have told you all that I know about them. My son is a pro bass player and we have met plenty of other pros over the years. And every once in a while someone would be playing a Kay for "that sound".

I'm not sure if this is typical, but the double bass players I know seem to be very open minded about instruments. If they go into a shop with forty bases and the Chinese base is producing the sound they like, they buy the Chinese bass.

Also, nothing wrong with "gut strung". That's another sound that some prefer.

[WimWalther]

(...) the Chinese base is producing the sound they like, they buy the Chinese bass.

The Chinese have their own bass, too? I thought that was just the Chileans.

Also, nothing wrong with "gut strung". That's another sound that some prefer.

I was just trying to conjure up that back country 'jug band' aesthetic. The washtub should have been a giveaway. ;-)

[Litterick]

Harmony guitars in the 1961 Aldens catalogue. Not Aldens guitars; Holiday guitars were also shown in the catalogue: text at the lower half of the first page.

[Litterick]

So here's a bit I found interesting. Based on some brief research, it seems that the Harmony guitars which were sold into the UK were marked with the Aldens name.

Can anyone confirm this? I was looking at Harmony models on ebay (they want $$ for that stuff). All of the pieces for sale by UK sellers were marked Aldens, while none of the US examples were.

Have you found any historical evidence that Aldens guitars were sold in Britain? I have not seen anything. I have never seen an Aldens guitar in Britain, but plenty of Harmony guitars. The Kinks played Harmony in their early days, as did Peter Green.

[WimWalther]

Have you found any historical evidence that Aldens guitars were sold in Britain? I have not seen anything. I have never seen an Aldens guitar in Britain, but plenty of Harmony guitars. The Kinks played Harmony in their early days, as did Peter Green.

All I can offer is to search ebay for "Aldens guitar", both current & sold. All of the Aldens-marked instruments are for sale in UK, though I found none in the US.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

The Chinese have their own bass, too?

I don’t know if you’re joking or serious. Eastman has been making excellent upright basses for years.

[sgosnell]

The bass in Wim's post is pronounced with a short a. We have the grand and petit bouche varieties here.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

The bass in Wim's post is pronounced with a short a. We have the grand and petit bouche varieties here.

There’s something fishy about that.

[WimWalther]

I don’t know if you’re joking or serious. Eastman has been making excellent upright basses for years.

Apologies, it was just a really weak attempt at humor.. "Chilean sea bass".

So yes, "This was only a test. If this had been an actual joke, the words you heard would have been followed by laughter".

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Apologies, it was just a really weak attempt at humor.. "Chilean sea bass". So yes, "This was only a test. If this had been an actual joke, the words you heard would have been followed by laughter".

To be honest, I couldn't tell if you were making a pun or a serious point. Thus...

There’s something fishy about that.

I should have known you weren't floundering.

[Doctor Jeff]

I have told you all that I know about them. My son is a pro bass player and we have met plenty of other pros over the years. And every once in a while someone would be playing a Kay for "that sound".

I'm not sure if this is typical, but the double bass players I know seem to be very open minded about instruments. If they go into a shop with forty bases and the Chinese base is producing the sound they like, they buy the Chinese bass.

Also, nothing wrong with "gut strung". That's another sound that some prefer.

I've seen a lot of pro tourers playing a Kay or Harmony bass. Saw Lucinda Williams a few years ago--probably was David Sutton on bass, not sure--who was playing one. (The guitarist for that tour was the incredible Blake Mills.) I believe John Stiratt with Wilco has played one as well.

They seem to get that airy thunk almost like an upright bass better than most electric basses.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I've seen a lot of pro tourers playing a Kay or Harmony bass. Saw Lucinda Williams a few years ago--probably was David Sutton on bass, not sure--who was playing one. (The guitarist for that tour was the incredible Blake Mills.) I believe John Stiratt with Wilco has played one as well.

They seem to get that airy thunk almost like an upright bass better than most electric basses.

I had an upright Kay for many years. It’s an ideal instrument for gigging - laminated for toughness, good looking, and better sounding. They were inexpensive compared to carved uprights.

[AllanAllen]

I've seen a lot of pro tourers playing a Kay or Harmony bass. Saw Lucinda Williams a few years ago--probably was David Sutton on bass, not sure--who was playing one. (The guitarist for that tour was the incredible Blake Mills.) I believe John Stiratt with Wilco has played one as well.

They seem to get that airy thunk almost like an upright bass better than most electric basses.

The pros have them rebuilt. Ryan Adams plays the Buck Owens acoustics has had them rebuilt by Stew Mac there's a video. On a podcast Jimmy James' of the Devon Lamarr Trio talks about finding and repariting his Silvertone. David Bowie had the Supro from his "A Reality Tour" rebuilt.... These are more custom instruments than the department store axes they started life as.

Just food for thought... The ones pros use aren't the same ones you buy for $500.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I've seen a lot of pro tourers playing a Kay or Harmony bass. Saw Lucinda Williams a few years ago--probably was David Sutton on bass, not sure--who was playing one.

Sutton plays both a Kay electric and a Kay upright.

The pros have them rebuilt....Just food for thought... The ones pros use aren't the same ones you buy for $500.

They're the same instruments - most are only modified or "upgraded" for precision (e.g. consistency, tuning, and intonation), reliability and ease of maintenance. They generally sound like what they are, except for changes in pickup, nut & saddle material etc.

[WimWalther]

Pardon the segue, but does nut material really affect the tone to a meaningful degree?

I've read that bone is a go-to material, camel bone in particular. Bone from sheep & goats tends to be smooth and very hard, are these ever used? How are synthetics like Delrin or TFE?

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Pardon the segue, but does nut material really affect the tone to a meaningful degree?

I've read that bone is a go-to material, camel bone in particular. Bone from sheep & goats tends to be smooth and very hard, are these ever used? How are synthetics like Delrin or TFE?

Some think so. It’s not a major factor for me, but I use Tusc nuts on my solid bodies because I hear a very faint plink with harder ones. But more important to tone is that the slots be cut well, shaped right, and as snug as possible with no restriction of the string’s sliding through it. Even a few thou of looseness can cause buzzing, intonation problems, and ghost tones. Again, Tusq seems easier to slot snugly without binding than other materials I’ve used. But the main reason to include a perfectly fashioned nut in a setup is that it can make a guitar play and sound better.

This is just one example of the many ways to upgrade a basic guitar for gigging and road-ready reliability. I set up a cheap Epiphone Les Paul I bought in about 1995 with Grover tuners, Tusc nut, new pickups / wiring / pots / switch / jack, plus a good fret level / crown / dress / polish. I’ve used it on hundreds of blues gigs since I got it without failure of any kind. I have less than $400 in it including purchase price. That’s not too shabby!

[WimWalther]

So is Tusq a (tm) of GraphTech, or something else? From what I read it's some kind of synthetic polymer, but no real info beyond that.

Then there's a bit of salestalk about how ivory and bone are bad because.. well, ivory trade is pretty much banned in the West. But they lump-in bone with ivory, which is silly as bone - even camel bone - is very readily available for pennies. They eat those beasts all throughout the mid-east, south Asia etc. Very common source of meat over there.

Anyway, $15-20 for a little stick of plastic. Sounds like a heck of a racket!

[Banksia]

If it's just the retro look that people want there is always Eastwood guitars. They make reissues, or copies or tributes - not sure what the best word is - of many Kay, Harmony, Supro and Teisco models. I bought one of their Harmony H59s, which they call an Airline H59. Seems they own the Airline name and maybe the Harmony designs but not the name. Same story with Supro and Teisco.

Airline
– Eastwood Guitars

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

So is Tusq a (tm) of GraphTech, or something else? From what I read it's some kind of synthetic polymer, but no real info beyond that.

Then there's a bit of salestalk about how ivory and bone are bad because.. well, ivory trade is pretty much banned in the West. But they lump-in bone with ivory, which is silly as bone - even camel bone - is very readily available for pennies. They eat those beasts all throughout the mid-east, south Asia etc. Very common source of meat over there.

Anyway, $15-20 for a little stick of plastic. Sounds like a heck of a racket!

They are a bit vague about it but it seems to be their patent ("a proprietary material"). (Probably you got that far already yourself.)

Just a moment...

TUSQ Nuts | Graph Tech Guitar Labs

[Litterick]

They are a bit vague about it but it seems to be their patent ("a proprietary material"). (Probably you got that far already yourself.)

TUSQ is a trademark, not a patent. Graph Tech reached a settlement last year with the Danish manufacturer Steel Series, which used the name TUSQ for its gaming headphones, but will cease and desist.

[WimWalther]

The marketing-speak is dense..

"TUSQ is a proprietary material which is precision engineered under high pressure and heat. It is specifically formulated to deliver the right frequencies with the optimum transfer rate to the top of your guitar every time. Because of the way TUSQ is made, it is a consistent material that is rich in tone and harmonic content."

precision engineered under high pressure and heat

So it's injection molded. So are most plastic items.

specifically formulated to deliver the right frequencies with the optimum transfer rate to the top of your guitar every time (...) it is a consistent material that is rich in tone and harmonic content."

This is just silly marketing talk, a bunch of buzzwords.

Something tells me this material is a close cousin to POM, aka Delrin, Acetal, etc.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

This is just silly marketing talk, a bunch of buzzwords. Something tells me this material is a close cousin to POM, aka Delrin, Acetal, etc.

Hype aside, I like Tusq nuts. They’re easy to slot, slick as goose grease so strings don’t stick if they have even 1 or 2 thou of clearance, and very well made. As for price, the material may be worth pennies - I don’t know and I don’t care. I probably haven’t even bought a dozen nuts in 68 years of playing, and I couldn’t fashion a blank into one as good as a Tusc. So the few bucks I paid for the workmanship are well worth it to me.

Right now, I have them on my Raines, my ESP, and my Epi LP (all inexpensive 7 string solid bodies that ranged in cost to me from $200 to $700 new). Along with better tuners, bridges and electronics, these are great working guitars all of which have played 100s of gigs each.

[John A.]

If you google “what is tusq made of” phenolic resin pops up. Graphtech claims it’s a proprietary variant (reading between the lines) because of the way it’s molded.

From what I understand, it’s chemically the same as micarta, but perhaps denser because of GT’s high-pressure molding process. It’s a good material for nuts, bridge saddles, bridge pins. But obviously, as with nearly everything in guitarland, there's a lot of marketing BS. I assume people see through that, and I usually don’t get worked up about that.

As far as nut material in general goes, I’ve only ever swapped nuts once - at a luthier’s advice I had the original plastic nut on my Strat switched to bone, rather than doing the baking soda and glue trick on the worn down saddles. He insisted it would make a big difference, and it was cheap amid the other work being done.

It sounded noticeably better, but that was in the context of replacing a worn out nut, having the frets leveled and re-crowned and a full set-up, so I don’t know how much to attribute to the change in nut material. My guess is not much.

I’ve had micarta, plastic, Tusq, and bone nuts stock on various guitars. It worked fine on all of them. None except the strat ever had a problem that required the nut to be replaced.

I used to have a Gibson flattop with an adjustable wood saddle. I switched that and the plastic bridge pins for Tusq. The guitar got louder and brighter. Louder and brighter than it would have with bone? Shrug.

[sgosnell]

Tusq, from my experience using it, is in the neighborhood of bone hardness, but I don't have any actual numbers. I like it for the reasons enumerated above, and I can't tell any difference in tone between it and bone. The only issue I have with bone is that it's variable, which is unsurprising since it's a natural material. I've never used camel bone, but cattle bone is widely available in the US and the most common nut material. Hundreds of millions of cattle are slaughtered annually for meat, and I have no moral issues with using their bones for whatever use. I've never heard anyone complain about using bone for stringed instrument nuts, nor for anything else, other than the general complaint of the PETA crowd, who want to stop killing all animals for all reasons. That will not happen.

One other advantage of Tusq is that it also is available in black, and that's a nice touch on some instruments. A black Tusq nut and bridge combination can look good, depending on one's taste and the other aesthetics of the guitar. I will say that I'm not a huge fan of their picks. The feel and sound just aren't what I prefer. The nuts, though, are IMHO superior to bone, mostly because they don't bind strings when they make big angle bends at the headstock, and don't seem to develop ridges in the slots, as bone can sometimes do.

[John A.]

If it's just the retro look that people want there is always Eastwood guitars. They make reissues, or copies or tributes - not sure what the best word is - of many Kay, Harmony, Supro and Teisco models. I bought one of their Harmony H59s, which they call an Airline H59. Seems they own the Airline name and maybe the Harmony designs but not the name. Same story with Supro and Teisco.

Airline
– Eastwood Guitars

The Supro name is owned by D'Angelico (at least for Supro amps).