Greetings from Central PA USA

Hey all. Nice forum you got here. I decided to join because I have a technical question on an old Ukulele that I found in a junk shop for 10 bucks yesterday. I

Welcome D Allen!

Welcome to UU, D Allen!

Your first post got cut off. That tends to happen when you include special keys, though normal punctuation tends to be fine. If you type a long entry, then it's best to copy it, so that you can quicly edit it if part disappears.

Good luck with the fixer upper, if it indeed is in bad shape.

Hey all. Nice forum you got here. I decided to join because I have a technical question on an old Ukulele that I found in a junk shop for 10 bucks yesterday. I will post that later but I didn’t want to just horn in so here’s my introduction. I’ve found, fixed and flipped instruments for many years –and I’m retiring in less than a month so I may have more time for this endeavor. I’ve done mostly guitars and banjos and a couple of mandolins and I’ll probably be even more focused on folk instruments and roots music. Old, cheaper USA instruments such as Harmony, Orpheum and Kay always did pretty well for me and I know some history for those brands so I recognized the Harmony Aero Bridge right away when I saw it on this Johnny Marvin Professional. There are no loose joints and nothing is really broken so other than cleaning and dealing with sharp fret ends and changing strings, this Ukulele is only one more step away from being a player. There is no play wear and it does sound good and loud on the three strings that work. The issue is the E tuner. It’s like the wood on back of the peg hole is too compressed to allow for friction to happen. Thanks and Cheers, Daryl

Nice deal on an oldJohnny Marvin tenor (although they are more the size of a concert uke). Those have a good reputation as well made instruments. With some nice quality mahogany. One thing you can try with the old friction tuners is to take them apart and clean and lube them. If they don't compress enough when you tighten the adjustment screw, one option is to file off a little length from the screw. I am looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

I have been in many junk shops and never find anything like that! In force, I recently said to my wife that over the years I have never found any musical instruments. I must be going to the wrong shops, LOL

Welcome to UU D Allen and hello from Chicago, USA. Nice find on the Johnny Marvin with an even better price tag.

Hi D Allen, Welcome to the UU Forum.

Very cool find. Very nice that you are restoring older instruments.

If you haven't discovered it already, you may find the luthiers board in the Forum helpful.