Rich_S
HomeGrownToneBrewologist
New Guitar (Finally Completed) Day! I found this little cutie in my local store back in May and was immediately smitten. It's a Hamer Slammer Series, made in Korea in the early '90s and thought to be one of the best import Hamers. Fortunately for me, many people confuse the different import lines, which ends up depressing the prices for all of them. With a couple of big (but barely visible) dings on the top, I gave this one a good home.
I could tell right away it was a good one. It has a nice unplugged voice, and is made out of a couple really nice pieces of mahogany. The top looks like a solid 1/4" thick maple cap, but with all that flame, I have a hard time believing that it's not a veneer. Hard to tell for sure, though.
It took me only seven months to fix it up the way I wanted. I replaced the wonky output jack with a new Switchcraft. Same for the pickup selector: the cheap rectangular Asian one has now been replaced with a Switchcraft SG-style switch. I put in a push/pull tone pot that I got from someone in the Good Karma thread. New creme pickup rings in place of the original and very unHamerish black. Fret level & dress and a setup from my friend KokoTele from the TDPRI.
The original pickups were a Duncan Designed set; JB/59 equivalents. Good pickups, but I'm not a JB kinda guy, and I had a "vision" for this guitar. In the neck I put a 59N that I bought from Lucid a while back. For the bridge, I bought a lightly-used zebra Custom/59 hybrid from somebody in the Trading Post. I wired it up with two volume pots, a spin-a-slit for the bridge pickup, and a phase switch on the push/pull. Lots of sounds out of three pots and a 3-way.
Here's the before and after:
While I'm at it, here's a really cool poster I found on eBay, a 17' x 24" reproduction of an old Hamer ad. I need to sweet-talk my retired artist father-in-law into framing it for me, then put it up in the family room where the guitar gear lives.
I could tell right away it was a good one. It has a nice unplugged voice, and is made out of a couple really nice pieces of mahogany. The top looks like a solid 1/4" thick maple cap, but with all that flame, I have a hard time believing that it's not a veneer. Hard to tell for sure, though.
It took me only seven months to fix it up the way I wanted. I replaced the wonky output jack with a new Switchcraft. Same for the pickup selector: the cheap rectangular Asian one has now been replaced with a Switchcraft SG-style switch. I put in a push/pull tone pot that I got from someone in the Good Karma thread. New creme pickup rings in place of the original and very unHamerish black. Fret level & dress and a setup from my friend KokoTele from the TDPRI.
The original pickups were a Duncan Designed set; JB/59 equivalents. Good pickups, but I'm not a JB kinda guy, and I had a "vision" for this guitar. In the neck I put a 59N that I bought from Lucid a while back. For the bridge, I bought a lightly-used zebra Custom/59 hybrid from somebody in the Trading Post. I wired it up with two volume pots, a spin-a-slit for the bridge pickup, and a phase switch on the push/pull. Lots of sounds out of three pots and a 3-way.
Here's the before and after:
While I'm at it, here's a really cool poster I found on eBay, a 17' x 24" reproduction of an old Hamer ad. I need to sweet-talk my retired artist father-in-law into framing it for me, then put it up in the family room where the guitar gear lives.
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