Extracts from Tom Dumont's Guitar Blog Navigation Return to Hamer Index Return to the Jol Dantzig Blog Index Return to the Jol Dantzig Blog April 2009

Dumont's Guitars My name is Tom Dumont. I'm the guitarist of No Doubt, since 1988. I love guitars and music gear. So here is the place where I post photos of my stuff. Dig it. Friday, February 20, 2009 Hamer "Special Jr." w Humbuckers Here we go, first post! This modified Hamer Special Jr. was built in 2003 of African Limba wood, also known as "Korina". This hot rod originally came from the shop with a single Duncan P90 pickup. For a change of character I had the Duncan Antiquity humbuckers put in. (I have another Korina Special Jr, almost identical, but built in 2004 with two P90's.) Two pickups just makes for a more versatile, usable guitar for me. Playing No Doubt music, I spend a lot of time in the middle pickup selector position. Note the volume and tone knobs stolen from one of my old MXR stompbox pedals! Friday, February 20, 2009 Two Guitars, week one: The folks at Hamer are building me two new guitars for the upcoming No Doubt tour. One is a "Vector" (sometimes referred to as a flying v). The other is a Special Korina. Both will share the same paint scheme of a transparent Acrtic white, where the grain of the Korina can be readily seen beneath the finish. This color will tie in to the design of the stage-set we're building for the tour. Both guitars will have transparent white headstocks as well, and the Vector will be fully bound. (You'll get a chance to see how that looks in a few weeks.) The Vector will be outfitted with two Duncan Fatcat pickups, and the Special with to Duncan '59's. Above here you see the body of the Vector being cut out by hand. And below, both necks are shown in the process of being hand carved. Notice how the wood grain is angled and glued into a "chevron" pattern on both halves of the Vector body. This way the grain runs parallel to the outer edges of the V's body. Sweet! Click on the photos to "blow them up"! Tuesday, March 10, 2009 Week Two Above you see the Vector headstock being sanded. Click on the photos for big ones. This is the body of the Special cut out, routed and showing off its fine Korina grain. Looking very nice indeed. And here above you see a Hamer craftsman gluing the two halves of the Vector body together. I know the order of these posts are mixed up somewhat, that should work itself out in the coming weeks. Monday, March 23, Hamer Monaco Elite "TV" 2005 This is a custom guitar that the Hamer folks built for me in 2005. It has a nice heavy solid Mahogany body, with a "matte" TV finish. One volume knob, and one tone to keep it simple. Also there is a 5 position rotary-style pickup selector. You'll notice 3 TV Jones pickups to add a vintage Gretch-like tone and continue the TV theme. And furthurmore I play this guitar on No Doubt's upcoming TV appearance on the Gossip Girl spinoff, airing on May 11th on the CW television network. For that performance I also customized the look of this guitar with stripes fashioned from black electrical tape. Click on photos to enlarge. Friday, April 3, 2009 Week three, binding the "V"... Above, the Vector receives a fine sanding by hand. Please consider the binding which has been hand-cut and laid into place. For these instruments the binding is actually done in 3 layers; the main ply is Tortoise Shell (cellulose and NOT from a real turtle) and Black and White between the tortoise & fingerboard. The individual plys arrive in sheets, which Hamer luthiers fuse together then cuts into strips. Next they rout - by hand - the channels where the binding will lay. For these guitars, this includes the headstock, fingerboard, and body. The binding is then hand bent around the headstock and body, using a heat gun. This can get tricky...move too fast and you can kink the binding. Move too slow and you'll melt it. After the correct shape is achieved the binding is glued to the channel and cures for at least a day. All binding then gets sanded flat with the wood surfaces, plus the fingerboard binding is scraped along it's edge and around the fret ends. Click on the photos to enlarge. Above Dave applies an exacto knife to scrape the edges of the fingerboard binding. The detail work is simply inspiring to me. Can't wait to make music on that thing! Wednesday, April 8, 2009 More sanding! Click on photos to giant-size them Wednesday, April 8, 2009 Guitar Guru Jol Dantzig is the main man at Hamer, he's an artist in more ways than one, and this is his blog. Kind of the inspiration for mine here, actually. I just love things that are well designed, well made, and by hand. And that's what Jol and the Hamer folks do, so check it out. Best, Tom. Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Paint Here we take a look at the Vector all masked up and taking a fine coat of Arctic White paint via airbrush. Click on the photos to supersize them. Monday, April 20, 2009 Finishing Above photo we see the Vector in the assembly stage. And then the headstocks after finishing. Getting close... Friday, April 24, 2009 The Special is finished! This is the "Special", made of African Mahogany or Limba Wood, in Arctic transparent white. It has Duncan Fat Cat pickups and Hamer's own Original Sustain Block Bridge, which I especially love becuase it does actually provide more sustain than all my other guitars. Go figure. This one sounds and plays insanely nice. Like butter. I think it's going to be the main guitar for this tour. Fat Cats are my new fav pickup as well. My new /13 Amps love the Fat Cats. I think it's going to be a humbuckerless tour for me. This Special realy fits like a glove. Thanks everyone at Hamer it's super sweet!!! Click to supersize the photos. Thursday, April 30, 2009 Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing Arctic White Korina Vector! Check it out! Tortoise shell pickguard and binding, Duncan Fat Cat pickups, Transparent Arctic White over African Limba wood ( also known as Korina). Hot from the factory and ready for the road. See me play it tomorrow morning May 1, 2009 on the Today show, hear it live on tour with No Doubt all summer. -Tom Monday, May 18, 2009 Guitar in action This a photo from Saturday nights show at Tiger Jam in Las Vegas. I found it on the internet and thought it offered a good depiction of my new guitar in action. My bandmate, No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal, is pictured to my right. It's good to be rocking and on the road again! (click on photo to supersize it) Tom Tuesday, June 16, 2009 Duotone, refinished Hello everyone! The tour has been going well. Great audiences, great shows. It is exhausting from time to time, but I can't complain. I play this Hamer Duotone for a number of songs every night. I got it from Hamer maybe 8 years ago, and now this year they refinished it for me in Transparent Arctic White to match our stage set and the look of the show. Anyway, the key thing about the Duotone is that it is both an electric guitar and acoustic guitar at the same time. As you can see from the pictures, there are two plugs, one for the electric pickups, which goes to my amp, and one for the acoustic pickup, which goes to a DI and then into the house PA system. The two tones sound quite lush when mixed together, and sound great on "Don't Speak", "Simple Kind of Life", "Running" and "It's My Life". If you're coming to a show, listen for it. Click on any photo to supersize. Friday, July 3, 2009 Korina Standard! Here's an old favorite that I've been working out for two encore songs the past week or so out here. My Hamer Korina Standard, circa 1997 I think. New pickups for this year, Duncan 59's with gold covers, to make a more vintage look. This guitar feels so well balanced and comfortable. I just love it like a comfy old pair of sneakers. Thanks to my long-time tech and friend, Donnie Spada, for convincing me not to leave it at home :) Click on the photos to super-size. -Tom Friday, July 3, 2009 Jol Dantzig Jol and some of the good Hamer folks came out to our recent show in Connecticut. We filmed a video interview that will appear at www.hamerguitars.com soon, and Jol and I traded some licks on stage at soundcheck as well. Good times. Tom Wednesday, July 22, 2009 Flying V Trick I do this almost every night at the end of the show. It works with either of my two Hamer Vectors that are out here on tour with me. I am always amazed that they have such incredible balance. I wonder if Ted McCarty knew about this when he came up with the shape back in the 1950's? FYI the strap is a normal nylon one from Seymour Duncan. No structure in it at all. The guitar is balancing only on it's two points. Tuesday, August 17, 2010 Guitar Wall Photo via iPhone. I have a mini guitar wall in my studio. When I was 11 years old my Dad brought me to Guitar Center in Santa Ana, CA and I gazed in wonder at the massive guitar wall. I got lucky with my music space and have a fair amount of vertical wall, so I went for it. Top, left to right: Green Hamer Standard with "Sea of Cortez" text, from Rock Steady tour. Mieke did the typography art on this one. "Mexican Sun" Hamer Vector, 1999. 1978 Korina Ibanez Flying V. Word is that Ibanez was sued by Gibson for making this model... "Arctic White" Special from 2009 tour. Bottom row, left to right: Hamer Monaco Elite "TV" finish with TV Jones pickups. 40's Mahogany Martin 0-15, thanks to my cousin Carol for selling this to me.:-) Hamer Newport with Fat Cat pickups. Hamer bass, played on Matt Costa/Jack Johnson tour 2005.

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