# Harmony Jupiter Stratotone



## tonydawe (Feb 25, 2009)

i'm about to pick this guitar up from a pawn shop here in charlottetown. i used to work there but now i just pick up their guitars that need cleaning or new strings. i went in a few days ago to see if there was anything for me and there was a Harmony Jupiter Stratotone sitting there. very light guitar. looks solid but it's not - it just doesnt have f holes.

i plugged it right in and it was very noisy. how do i go about cleaning that up? i'm asking for myself on this one because for what it'll cost me i'd be stupid not to get it. plus, the way the neck is bolted on is identical the way my Kay Speed Demon neck is bolted on. they're family, how can i split them up??


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Noisy what, when you roll the volume & tone pots and move the pup selector you get crackle?

Ah, nice score, lucky you to have good connections and get cool stuff cheap.


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## tonydawe (Feb 25, 2009)

pots are scratchy, i can handle that. i'm thinking that pickups may need grounding or something like that. i dunno. i hoped someone a little more familiar with these guitars may have some input.

edit - and just to add, this thing has a big beefy neck. i like big beefy necks!


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## garretrevels (Mar 9, 2007)

Cool guitar!! It's not a Jupiter, it's a Mars!

Also you speed demon and this are not related, not brothers from another mother. Kay and Harmony were two completely separate manufacturers.

the simple fix to ground the strings, is to take a single thread of a wire, from a old a/v cord or what not..........

I'd take up the pickguard loop it around the metal underside of pickup selector a few times .........and from there bring it out from under the pickguard under & around to the back of the bridge and loop the wire around the high e string a couple times and kinda tuck it into/up against the bridge.............or just from the underside of the bridge pickup with a piece of tape and back under the bridge etc....yeah that'd be easier I suppose.

know what I'm saying? It's a quick fix anyway, nothing fancy, if you want to get into soldering or something more permanent you could probably gear something similar inside the guitar (being hollow) and fix a ground.

Many Harmony guitars don't have string grounds, so this is common.


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## jimihendrix (Jun 27, 2009)

she's shown here...you've got a '58-'59

H46 - Stratotone Mars (1958-1965) - Electric hollowbody - Sunburst
2 pickups - Early models (58-59) had the "long tail Y" on the headstock logo. Later (from 1962), were added black line and atomic logo on the pickguard.

http://harmony.demont.net/guitars/H46/133.htm


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