Harmony Bobcat Question..

[PaulS]

I was wondering if anybody has had anything to do with one of these guitars.
A friend of mine has given me the body and neck of one of these and my question is about the scaling of the guitar. What would be the measurement from the nut to the bridge saddle? He wants to keep the pickups but has also offered the pickguard when he gets them off. Any answers here would be graetly appreciated as this is to become my next project guitar. HB at the bridge and a tele neck pickup that i have lying around. The original bridge is gone so I am going to use a nashville style tunematic with stoptail. The six inline tuners are on the neck. Some routing a paintjob and see what happens.

:thanks5qx:

[Lowtones]

I don't know what the scale of that guitar but if you use this calculator and punch in the various scales you should be able to determine the scale by your fret spacing.

Good luck http://www.manchesterguitartech.co.uk/fret_calculator.php

[PaulS]

Hey lowtone thanks for the great link, I think this should help me figure out the spacing on this guitar.

:thanks5qx:

[PaulS]

Found an easy way to calculate string scale. You measure from the nut to the 12th fret and double it. As for the case of this guitar it was 24". I see a few resemblences to the jaguar in the body shape of this guitar and a jag is also 24" scale. I have routed it out for a tele neck pickup and I have a GFS Retron Nashville HB to put in the bridge. I used a Gotoh ABR Tune O Matic bridge set up and followed the original controls with the exception of a coil tap switch on the HB. This use to have the DeArmond foil type pickups but my buddy removed them as that was all he was interested in. I will post some pics later as I finish up. Cool looking little guitar.

[Lowtones]

Paul, Just a little warning if you haven't already installed the bridge. A tune O matic bridge requires a neck angle of between 2.5 & 3 degrees for it to work properly. If your guitar has a bolt on neck it should be fairly easy to accomodate with a shim but if it's a set neck I wouldn't drill any holes for the bridge and tail stop before you ensure that you have enough neck angle so that your strings are not a half inch off the neck at it's lowest setting. If it had a tune o matic bridge to begin with then you will be fine. Good luck

ps. If you find that your tune o matic won't work for you, pm or email me and I will give you what you paid for it as I can always use it in the future.

[PaulS]

Thanks for the heads up Lowtones but it all worked out for me. I need to get a new nut cut because the LP replacement I picked up is a slight bit to narrow. Still it plays ok, I like the GFS pickup, I actually ordered another and some new pickguard material. I am going to take out the tele neck pickup and throw in another GFS Retrotron. I am also going to change the V/T setup.
Haven't got much invested here but it has been fun putting it all together. I have posted some pics to show you the first run, after I do the next mods I'll post again.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i183/sarg_2006/bobcat1.jpg

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i183/sarg_2006/bobcat2.jpg

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i183/sarg_2006/bobcat3.jpg

[Lowtones]

Looks pretty cool. Definitly has that Fender Jaguar look.

[PaulS]

Yea it resembles it in a way, gonna change the pickguard slightly, might even give it more of the look. Don't know what type of wood they used back then but it sure is light. I'm going to get a buddy to check the neck relief, it plays with no buzzes but he is going to do a bone nut for it so I'll get it checked while there. .... Cheap guitars can be very entertaining...

[PaulS]

OK so now it is in phase two, removed tele neck pickup and installed another GFS retrotron HB. Cut new pickguard and changed control layout to two volumes, two coil splitter switches and pickup selector switch.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i183/sarg_2006/2005_1214batty0094small.jpg


http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i183/sarg_2006/2005_1214batty0095small.jpg