Kramer Striker a Bargain... Plus Questions

[WhoFan]

Went to a music stores grand opening today..... L&M in Markham Ontario Canada.... Day long concert, free BBQ..... Canada's rock legend Kim Mitchell did a great set!

anyways when i walked into the store with a friend i noticed a late 80's black Baretta shaped single humbucker Kramer in the distance. i knew it was not an American one but was hopeing it was at least a Focus series. Nope it was a Striker 100st. I had a Striker 300st in highschool in the late 80's i know these things are generaly cr*py plywood junk. The concert was starting and my friend and i took off to see the show. a little while later i was passing the Kramer again and noticed it had been modded....

1-it had the neck kind of baddly scalloped.. not the best job, but i've seen worse. i'll live with it

2-it had a brand new F-spaced Dimarzio in it

3-the Floyd had been changed to an almost new Ibanez style Low Pro copy bridge... the body was routed out for up bending...

besides the mods the guitar's finnish and general shape was like new. I took it to the cash to see what the price was as i wanted the parts that were on it and it was only $99 Canadian... the Dimarzio pick up alone is worth more then that new... They gave me a free Crybaby Baseball Hat for buying it..

Plus i got 10 packs of store brand strings for $20... $120 Canadian for all that stuff and free lunch and a free Concert

Not a bad afternoon....

I plugged it in and it does not sound too bad afterall for plywood...

Now for some questions... I have been wanting to pick up one of these cheap Kramers to make a router Template for making my own homemade Kramer style bodies. Any Kramer fans out there know if this body shape is the same or simular to any American Kramers? The body shapes curves are not the best machined lines on this cheap plywood body but it will get me close enough for a template

It's really hard to find any good used American Kramers around here... i see the odd Striker like this one and thats about it. I bought it mostly for the aftermarket parts on it but the router template idea was part of the reason.

also does anyone sell the Kramer style Jacks that were on some Baretta's... Ed's 5150 had the same jack.... anyone know were to get those jacks? This Striker has that style of jack and i like it!

GW

 

[ErikH]

Re: Kramer Striker a Bargain... Plus Questions

Hey Chris, cool score. I can tell ya, the Striker body is different from any of the American Kramers. There's a page on vintagekramer.com that has an animated .gif cycling through the bodies, a Baretta, Focus, Striker and Pacer, to show the line differences. The closest that it resembles is the Pacer bodies like EVH's 5150 Kramer has.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Kramer Striker a Bargain... Plus Questions

Hey Chris, cool score. I can tell ya, the Striker body is different from any of the American Kramers. There's a page on vintagekramer.com that has an animated .gif cycling through the bodies, a Baretta, Focus, Striker and Pacer, to show the line differences. The closest that it resembles is the Pacer bodies like EVH's 5150 Kramer has.

Cool... i like the shape... It reminds me of the guitar i had in highschool.. Which is cool and sad in a way... My Striker was a great source of pain and joy.. worked all those hours in cr*py jobs to buy a plywood strat that fell apart. mine i ended up smashing the hell out of it.... oddly it never really broke.. that plywood is strong. the neck would leave the body.. plug the holes and redo the neck bolts and it would play again... the wood around the Floyd Posts on mine gave and that was that... firewood...

i'm going to have to block the trem off to go down only.... never liked floating floyds... can't get used to them. This floyd copy seems pretty good.

i may add some fret markers to the 12th and 15 frets that were completely removed when the past owner scalloped the neck.... for some reason he went extra deep at the 12th fret. On a few frets he was removing some of the fret edges not just the wood.

Oneday I may also just take the good Dimarzio pickup out and swap a cheapie humbucker in there and sell the thing for whatever i could get...

I wonder why they used Plywood in these... you would think making up Plywood is costly, then sealing the plywood for finnish must of been costly too.. I wonder what type of wood was used to make the plywood in these....?

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Kramer Striker a Bargain... Plus Questions

hey Eric.... i was looking at that vintagekramer site last night... i saw the body shapes animation you were talking about... I was reading up on some history things too... i guess Kramer is famous for One Offs, and constent body and headstock design changes over their 10 year Super Strat hey days....

AS i've said before the Barretta style strat i always liked the most was the White one with a Rosewood Board in the the No Bozo ad... the one from 1984 where EVH is holding the White Custom Barretta... i read in another thread-(musicyo 1985 Kramer thread) that that guitar was a one off and is closer in body shape to the 5150 Pacer style body.... I would have to guess that this Striker body shape i have is close to that White EVH ad guitar.... at least i'd hope.

I liked reading the stories and seeing the photos of the early trips EVH did to design his own guitar at the factory. They said they made him a nice shinny strat and he hated it... so he took a body and neck and made his own guitar in the factory

 

[ErikH]

Re: Kramer Striker a Bargain... Plus Questions

I had a HSS Striker in the early 90's, black, rosewood board. The neck was really nice on it but the body was just a massive POS. No Floyd on it. Not sure what type of bridge but it was two pieces; a bar went across it and then the rest of the trem sat in the bar from the back. I've seen those on a few other guitars but can't remember which ones. I didn't keep it that long. Originally I was going to use it as a project but then I gave up on it after building my frankenstrat. It was heavy too, which plywood is by nature anyway.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Kramer Striker a Bargain... Plus Questions

I had a HSS Striker in the early 90's, black, rosewood board. The neck was really nice on it but the body was just a massive POS. No Floyd on it. Not sure what type of bridge but it was two pieces; a bar went across it and then the rest of the trem sat in the bar from the back. I've seen those on a few other guitars but can't remember which ones. I didn't keep it that long. Originally I was going to use it as a project but then I gave up on it after building my frankenstrat. It was heavy too, which plywood is by nature anyway.

My 1980's highschool era Striker 300st was HSS... Horrid guitar body for sure... The bridge was god awful on those things... this Striker series came with a floyd copy that you didn't cut the ball off the string... No bridge clamp.. the string went thru the saddles back to the fine tuner tail on the Saddle. So when you used the bar the strings moved inside the saddles a fair bit... caused some tuning issues.

I found my original sales slip from 1987 for my Striker 300st and it was over $500 with tax at that time.... major rip off for a plywood guitar

The necks always did feel good on these Strikers... a nice shape.. I have been playing it a bit today... I'm tempted to make a real wood body for this thing.. It does have a nice Dimarzio pick up, an aftermarket Ibanez Edge style trem, and a good feeling neck with lots of fret left... Saddly the Scalloping job was done by a hack, so it looks kind of messed up... I should complete the scallop on the rest of the frets so the whole neck is scalloped. And add a few fret markers the last guy messed up. But then i start thinking that's a lot of work for an old Striker neck.... sometimes it is best just to use as is and junk it...