The Unique Guitar Blog: Baxendale 'Harmony Guitar' Conversions

Buddy and Julie Miller

One of my favorite songwriting teams are Buddy and Julie Miller of Nashville. This married couple write amazing songs and they put on a great performance.

Buddy Miller and Robert Plant

Buddy is an amazing guitar player, a recording engineer and producer, and a 'gun for hire’ in the Nashville music community. When Alison Kraus teamed up with Robert Plant, they asked Buddy Miller to join The Band of Joy as the lead guitar player.

Buddy Miller is also a guitar and amplifier collector and is best known for his use of vintage Wandre’ guitars combined with vintage Vox AC-30 amplifiers.

Buddy MIller's Home Studio

A few weeks ago I watched a video interview with Buddy which featured a tour of the downstairs portion of his home, He and Julie make the upstairs of this old home their living space. Julie has elegantly restored the parlor of this house, but Buddy has turned the rest of the space into a store house for his equipment and a recording studio.

Scott Baxendale

Out of all of his amazing collection the guitars and amplifiers, the ones that caught my attention were a couple of vintage Harmony guitars that had undergone a “conversion” by luthier Scott Baxendale. I just had to learn more about this process.

When I was a kid I wanted to take a guitar to summer camp. Our school had ‘band camp’ for a week each summer. I did not want to take a nice guitar with me, so I went to a few music stores with $20 bill burning a hole in my pocket, in search of a cheap instrument. Yep, in 1968 you could still buy a cheap guitar for twenty bucks. Of course the salesmen were keen to sell me a Martin or a Guild until I explained exactly what I was looking for. The salesman said, “Oh, you want a beater.” I never heard that expression, but yes, that is what I was looking for.

Harmony Stella Guitar H929

So the sales guy brought out a used Harmony guitar, with a Birch body. It had ladder bracing, a stamped aluminum trapeze tailpiece, a bridge/saddle that set on top of the body, and a non-descript head stock with topped with cheap open back tuners. I bought that guitar on the spot and I still have it.

I imagine some of you reading this may have or started out on a similar Harmony guitar. Check out eBay or Reverb sometime. They are asking $450 to $600 for those today.

Scott Baxendale Guitars

This brings us to luthier Scott Baxendale. In 1974 he moved to Winfield Kansas to go to work for guitar builder Stuart Mossman who was building guitars under his own name; Mossman Guitars. These were excellent guitars right on par and in the style of Martin guitars.

By 1978 Baxendale left Mossman and decided to move to Nashville, Tennessee and go to work for Gruhn Guitars to do repair and restoration work on Gruhn’s collection of high-end instruments.

As mentioned, Mossman Guitars were great instruments, but the company ran into all sorts of problems. A fire occurred in 1975 forcing Mr. Mossman to take out a large loan from The Small Business Administration to keep his business going.

S.L. Mossman -
Mossman Guitars

A few years later Stuart Mossman entered into a distribution agreement with the C.G. Conn Musical Instrument Company. By 1977 Conn had amassed a collection of around 1200 Mossman guitars and warehoused all of them in a poorly constructed storage facility. All of these wonderful hand made solid wood guitars were destroyed due to lack of climate control. A lawsuit ensued and was eventually settled out of court, but Mr. Mossman never regained his goal of his business of selling high quality guitars.

In 1985 former employee Scott Baxendale heard that Stuart Mossman was thinking about closing down his business, so Baxendale agreed to buy the company. The deal was inked. Baxendale relocated Mossman Guitars to Garland Texas. He and his staff were building around 250 guitars a month. Mossman Guitars regained a good reputation and were played by many well-known artists. Some of the Baxendale produced instruments are simply stunning.

S.L. Mossman Guitars

Then in 1989 Baxendale sold Mossman Guitars to employees John Kinsey and Bob Casey. The new owners moved Mossman to Sulphur Springs, Texas where the company remains today.

That same year Scott took on a job with The Hard Rock Cafe' in Dallas, Texas. He built two guitar-shaped bars that resembled a Stratocaster and a Les Paul, and afterwards took on the responsibility for repair and restoration of the Hard Rock's incredible guitar collection.

Warner Brother's Guitar
by Scott Baxendale

In 1988 Baxendale was commissioned by Warner Brothers to build a one-of-a-kind guitar for Travis Tritt’s video “Country Club”. This instrument is an amazing work of art.

Ten years later, in 1998, Scott moved to Denver, Colorado and opened The Colfax Guitar Shop where he built amazing guitars and did restoration work on existing instruments. He ran that business until 2010 when it was sold.

Baxendale then moved to Athens, Georgia where he opened The Baxendale Guitar Shop. He continues to work there today.

Baxendale with converted
Harmony guitar

One of Baxendale’s specialties is Harmony Guitar Conversion. He does this by retaining the outer look of the guitar, but internally he uses his own proprietary bracing system. This can be done on old Harmony, Silvertone, or Kay guitars. And these guitars sound awesome!

Neck Removal

He begins by removing the neck, then removing the existing ladder bracing. He then installs Spruce braces similar to those used on pre-war Martin and vintage Gibson guitars.

Ladder Bracing replaced
with X bracing

The back bracing is also replaced and tuned. Only Adirondack or Engelman Spruce is used. All cracks are repaired. The old binding is removed and replaced with new material.

Fret Removal And Replacement

The old frets are removed and the fret board planed straight. The neck is sanded to achieve a 12” or 14” radius. The neck is reset to fit the dovetail joint and given a proper angle for play-ability A new bridge is made with a bone saddle and tuned with a strobe tuner.

The tuning gears are replaced with Gotoh open back tuners and a new hardshell case is provided after the repair.

Harmony H162
Conversion by Baxendale

When Scott Baxendale gets finished with these old Harmony guitars, they really sing and they still retain their original patina. This man does amazing work.

Click on the links under the pictures for sources. Click on the links in the text for further information.