Archives
October 2007
February 2008
February 18, 2008
Jazzadega Update
Just a quick look inside the shop on a rainy Monday. Jamie's got his hands on the Talladega "Jazz" guitar and has it ready to go into the paint room. The neck fit went well, and you can see how tight the dovetail is. The trick here is to "under-rout" the socket, and then open it up by hand until it is a really snug fit. It's time consuming, but worth it. The neck joint is the entire width of the neck, so the primary gluing surface is about 40 percent larger than a tenon style joint. That means more transmission area for vibration. On top of that, because the joint is tapered the neck gets wedged into the body and actually clamps the sides of the joint while being glued. That's something that a tenon joint can't do. The downside is that if it's not perfect, you'll see the gap as opposed to a tenon joint which hides the actual seam. Don't worry, it's perfect. If you take a close look at the joint inside the pickup rout (this example is on a Studio model) you'll see that it extends all the way under the pickup and even butts up at the back side so closely that there's no gap there either. | |
At the other end of the room, Mark is putting the hardware on a Vector that's been pimped out with a flame maple top and full ivoroid binding treatment. Mark has taken this guitar from the drying rack, through buffing and assembly, and will wire it next. After he's done the electronics, he'll string it and set it up completely. One man, one guitar. Pretty cool, eh? Right now there are a bunch of really cool "pointy" guitars in our final assembly area, so I'll get some shots of more in the next couple days. If there's something in the process that you'd like to see more of, leave a comment and I'll get some photos. |
February 20, 2008
Talladega Giveaway
| Our congratulations to John Nicholson of Lexington, Indiana. John has joined the exclusive Hamer club in the best way possible. Courtesy of our friends at Premier Guitar Magazine he's got his hands on one of the very first Talladega models to leave our shop. The folks at Premier liked it so much that they didn't want to give it up. But a deal's a deal, so John is one kick-ass guitar better for it. Hey John, welcome aboard, and good luck trying to keep it down to just one Hamer now that you've had a taste! |
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February 25, 2008
Eye-Pokers A-Plenty: Pointy Guitar Monday
Another week begins in the workshop, and it's all about the pointy ones. An interesting pastime here is to watch the ebb and flow of the types of guitars that our clients order. Sometimes it goes in cycles, and we won't see anything angular for weeks. Right now you can't swing a cat around (as Dave says) without hitting something with a wing on it. Let's take a quick tour of the shop and try not to get our eyes poked out by something sharp. Here's Dave putting paste filler into the pores of a nifty-fifties inspired Vector built from African limba. He's brushed the filler on and worked it into the grain of the wood; then allowed it to flash off for a few minutes. The secret here is to wipe off the excess against the grain, at exactly the right moment. When you get it right, the filler stays in the pores, and the rest wipes off of the smooth parts in between (called the flake). | |
I've always loved this shape, and still miss my old '59. In fact, that guitar was the inspiration behind the very first Hamer instrument back in 1973—the black V-shaped bass that started it all for us. On the left is that original '59 V with the zebra and double cream PAFs in my rehearsal space back in the day. The brown Lifton case on the floor has a 1960 'Burst in it too.On the right, the first Hamer does duty onstage at Summerfest in Milwaukee. Two Acoustic 370s and a Marshall half-stack—think it was loud enough? | |
In the spray room, Gary has finished putting the extremely red base coat on a Standard model. He seems to have gotten a sunburn from the glow. After Gary preps the top, brushmeister Jeff takes it to a completely new level with a very American theme. | |
This motif has been done a zillion times, but we wanted to make sure ours was worthy. This one's going to a client whose spouse is in the military overseas so how could we say no? We wouldn't. | |
In the final leveling stage is a limba Standard model finished in our Korina color. Mark is wet-sanding it flat before taking it onto the buffing wheel. This is a job that Mark is really great at; he was a hot-rod and chopper fabricator before he came to our shop, so "show quality" custom paintwork is in his blood. | |
Here's another one that Mark took all the way through to set up— a chambered gold-top with an f-hole. Crazy! Nope, that's not a Monday-morning mistake from the woodshop, the customer wanted a P-90 and a humbucker on it. | |
In the set up booth, we cornered Dave and Todd cranking out some 70s and 80s riffs on a trio of Standards. Dave wields a quilt-topped custom in Indigo as Todd tries to poke out the camera lens with a bright white one. Resting on the set up bench is another lightning bolt shaped Hamer that is destined for the hands of Michael Sweet. | |
This all reminds me of the early days in the shop when all we made were these sort of guitars. Back then, nobody else did. I'll leave you with some shots of our first shop in Palatine, Illinois. Here's a three pickup Standard with a peaked ebony fingerboard and custom inlay on my meager setup bench around 1978. Two white boxes of USA made Grover tuners are stacked up and is that a Sprague "Orange Drop" cap I see there next to the CTS pots? The guitar has a couple of mini-switches installed, probably for phase reversal. Even the soldering station is handmade. I believe this guitar went to Holland. It has a woman's name in the 12th fret inlay—anybody know where it is today? | |
A drying room full of what are now collectible vintage Hamers. I think that white standard has a tummy bevel, but the mind and time can play tricks on you. I'll bet somebody has it in their collection... | |
