BCR Greg

Nancy is hotter than the sun.

The face had some gnarly,gnarly, GNARLY black enamel all over it except where the logo was. The cracks were horrible. I routed the nasty bits away and inlaid fresh wood, now there is no original wood holding the headstock on. Removing the paint was a horrid experience, but I saved the headstock logo.... All of the replacement wood overlaps and nothing ends at the same place, adding strength. Later.......

Two chunks of mahogany? To get to the serial number, I sat with several pieces of 400 grit sandpaper and a water bottle. It takes a while, but even thick, nasty enamel can be removed if you are patient enough.

Well, a few days later, here's the headstock being carved for the new wood inserts. Since it was basically buggered, I made the decision to replace ALL THE WOOD between the headstock and neck. The previous buggery had taken away any sort of solid clamping area, so the idea is to mill away the existing scrap and put in fresh(in this case, 1950's Gibson mahogany from my stash) Honduran mahogany. So here's the way I decided to do it.... A generous scoop is carved out of the area, and the plug is shaped to fit exactly, with the grain oriented to be strong and solid. Both sides done, and the area rough carved.... More to come...

Here you can clearly see the previous punishment that this guitar has suffered from.... So it goes on one of Uncle Greg's fancy schmantzy headstock jigs. I ran screws into the wood to keep it from sliding under clamping pressure, this wood will eventually be sawdust so the holes are not an issue. Yes, it will work. The madness continues....

Test fitting shows that there is very little wood to wood contact. Yes, I like challenges.

Spoiler....... It's done.

Young Tim(Hamerhead) can give the backstory on this one. When it arrived at the shop, this is what I found in the case..... Yes, that is a truss rod channel full of bondo, a THICK layer of brushed on paint and a severely broken headstock. Looking closer at the back of the neck, we find.... Why, the neck's nothing BUT bondo! A couple of hours later....... Good God, this thing is worse than I though! If I hadn't found this.... ...I would have trashed it. BUT....it's the 89th Hamer Sunburst made, from 1977. After a long phone conversation with our owner, the decision is made to move forward. Full armor on, kids, this one will be a battle.

Mike still builds Hamers.

Didn't take it, but it would have been fun. For what the gig pays and what I'd have to do physically(my little dose of arthritis makes it hard to lift SVT and Marshall cabs), it wasn't worth it. Considering that Ace was one of my first real heroes it was a thrill to get the call. Rocco's doing it, so tell him I said "Hello" if you go to a show. Before anyone accuses me of bragging... OF COURSE I'M BRAGGING!!! You would, too.

Life.

I went in to clear some snow at the shop today and plugged this into an AC30. My ears are still ringing two hours later, and I have a stupid grin on my face. Jess likes it, too....

The guys building the guitars would NEVER let quality drop. Fact.

I just got off the phone wit Dennis Udice at KMC Music(the parent company of Hamer and a division of Fender). According to Dennis, Hamer continues and Custom Orders will still be taken. This is not the end of Hamer guitars.

let em shut it down!!!!!!!!!!!!! we can start a new one called the vintage hamer fan club, sorry but fender can bite me , last i knew we lived in america................... You are on private property, sir.

Can we please stop with the anti-Fender vitriol? They, as owners of Hamer, allow this site to use the Hamer trademarks and images. If they see a lot of this sort of immature ranting, they would be within their rights to shut this place down. Until the FACTS are known, let's sit back and see how things play out. Punch your own walls, not the community's wall.

Maybe he'll use site this to communicate.... http://www.dantzig.com/

Well.....that's interesting.

There's been a good bit of information filtered out - some fact, some loosely based on fact - but some people have decided that they know the final deal. As I mentioned above, when you hear it from Jol or see it on the Hamer site/Jol's blog/Facebook page, then you can believe it. Nice. It's FACT. Call them and ask them.

Guess they were wrong.

Guilds.

I just got off the phone with the factory. Custom orders are still being accepted, and a few stock instruments have just been completed that have been in the system. I doubt that any more stock guitars will be started, but customs will still happen.

Dealer here. Ain't so. But I agree that anyone that CAN order one SHOULD order one to keep the interest up. It's a damn shame that it's come to this.

Guild guitars are currently fantastic guitars. "Ruined" is a far cry from Guild.