Jim85IROC

awesome! I'll have to watch this after work. I've been really wanting to try this.

This is pretty typical for Fed Ex. My old Fed Ex guy was great, so obviously they had to get rid of him. My new guy barely speaks english and gives absolutely zero fucks. A while back I came home to find my brand new LS7 clutch & flywheel assmbly box completely destroyed with a 40lb box of litter literally on top of it. I confronted the driver a few days later and he denied all of it until I showed him the pictures, then his story changed real quick and he went into full apology mode, probably because he thought I'd send the pics to his boss. Fortunately his deliveries have been substantially better since.

bump. Not finding any at this price!

Let me look at my list here. This was technically in 2024, but it was in December, right before Christmas, so close enough 😁 The price was too cheap not to get it. I bought it to flip it, but once I gave it a very badly needed setup, it ended up becoming one of my most played guitars. It just plays so wonderfully. Next up was my Hamer Studio Custom goldtop. I happened to pop onto reverb and found a 4 minute old listing, once again at a price I couldn't refuse. I swapped the Duncans out of this for the Lollars that were in my Special. I sold off the Special and held on to this. I still have the goldtop, though I've been waffling back and forth about whether or not to move it on. Next up somewhere around the April/May timeframe was this Studio. A guy had it listed on FB Marketplace forever with a couple lousy pictures. I was in his area for work related travel, threw him an offer, and once again came home with a guitar priced too cheap to pass up. This was another guitar I bought to flip that I haven't flipped yet because I'm enjoying it too much. In the right light this guitar actually has a beautiful top hiding under all that blue Next up was a 1 or 2 year only Schecter Tempest P90 goldtop. Usual story... listed cheap on Marketplace. I was coming home from vacation and got it along the way. This one came with the stock Schecter noiseless pickup in the neck and a Dimarzio P90-sized Super Distortion in the bridge. I swapped in a set of Guitar Madness P90s that absolutely crank. The neck sounds identical to my Gibson P90s and the bridge is hotter. Killer sounding combo. As much as I like this one, I think this is going to get moved along shortly. Next I believe was an Epoch Les Paul off of marketplace. This was a local kid selling it for $50. It was unplayable with 10/64" action and the bridge was binding so it wouldn't go any lower. I had to plug & redrill the holes to prevent binding when lowering the bridge. Now after that and a complete setup it plays great. I'll be featuring this in an upcoming youtube video for a dirt-cheap budget upgrade, then I'll sell it off. Next was a Leo Jaymz LP copy with the american flag on the front. Why? Because Murica! It was dirt cheap, had free shipping, and included a hard case and a set of Grover tuners. I put on a different set of tuners and currently have it for sale. I'll save the Grovers for a future project. Let's see... next is an Epiphone Les Paul Special P90. Yet another deal that was too good to pass up. This is a 2022 but was virtually unplayed. The seller bought it new from Sweetwater in 2022 and it arrived with a cracked neck. They gave him a full or partial refund, and eventually he parted with it. This showed up cheap on Marketplace and I immediately pounced. I made a video documenting the neck repair, and I intend to do another video or 2 with it (one will compare it to my Gibson LP Special) and then I'll move it along. I've been enjoying playing it in the meantime though! After that, what do you know... another deal! A Daisy Rock Rock Candy Classic popped up cheap. I gave it a setup and a good cleaning, and managed to sell it within a couple days of listing it on Reverb. And lastly (so far... I have my eye on a couple more that I hope to grab while I'm at my inlaws for Christmas 😁) is this Firefly doubleneck. They did a drop recently, and after watching last year's drop of doublenecks take a while to sell, I decided to wait while I watched the inventory. Sure enough, they dropped the price $40 so I pounced. Because the Firefly doublenecks include the hard case, this was a tremendous opportunity. Since my kid will probably use this on some songs (he thinks he'll be playing Hotel California next semester) the hard case was a necessity. I've been having a ton of fun playing this, and I'll end up doing an upgrade video on it too.

I've really had a lot of interest in them lately, but I'm in the same boat. Out of my range. I've been considering building one of my own. Torrefied pine body blanks aren't all that expensive, and neither are roasted maple necks. Fender style construction is really simple because you don't have to deal with any neck angles when you route the neck pocket. It might make a decent project for next summer. Mine may not have the same level of cosmetic perfection that I'd get from a Novo, but I should be able to retain the same basic ingredients, so I should be able to get the sonic benefits. I've been wanting to try out some of the P90 sized dynasonic style pickups and this would be the perfect guitar for that.

I don't hate them...

I didn't go over the cosmetics with a fine tooth comb, but the only thing I noticed was a small bump on one neck which I assume was a drop of paint. Setup was pretty good. Low action out of the box on both necks, especially on the 12. Neck relief was good. Intonation seems good, but I didn't check it with a tuner yet. Tuners feel super smooth. Fret ends are the typical great feeling ball end variety. The guitar weighs just under 13lbs, which I think is pretty reasonable, all things considered. As for negatives, the 12 string nut is poorly cut, especially the low D. It's almost impossible to tune it. It'll stall, then ping a mile sharp. I broke the high G tuning it. I don't like how the pickups sound. They're ceramic and ice-pickish. Frets are gritty. The fretboard is dry and kind of rough. My plans are to give it a full setup, polish frets & fretboards, raise the action on the 12 a bit, either replace the pickup magnets with alnico or replace the pickups entirely, and rewire it to a stereo output jack so I can send the 2 necks through separate signal paths. I also want to make a new pickguard for the upper half that mimics the Gibson doubleneck pickguard. I ordered some A5 magnets for the 12 string pickups and some A2s for the 6 string pickups. I'll swap the covered to the 12 string side and uncovered to the 6 string side to match Felder's guitar. I've got to see if I still have any black pickugard material, otherwise I'll order some to make the new middle pickguard. I'll probably make a new 6 string pickguard too, since this one isn't the same shape as on the real one. There will be no Xanadu, but there will be a lot of very poorly played Hotel California riffs.

So my newest firefly came yesterday too!

Tailpieces can have a minor impact on tone. I feel that bridges, and especially saddle material have more impact, and even those tend to be somewhat subtle.

Bump for the imported Standard loving crowd.

Man that thing is a beauty! It's like the Artist cousin of my Studio Custom.

Sold on Reverb. Very nice Indonesian Hamer Standard XT. All original except that I made a new bone nut because the original nut had straight string slots that don't work well with the wild string angles on this headstock. Includes original Hamer gig bag and even the original hang tag. Minor marks here and there but absolutely no chips or gouges. There is a minor mark in the back of the neck (pictured) but I don't notice it at all when playing. It does not go through the paint. Plastics have aged to a nice parchment color like seen in the first pic.

I'll say that in general, my imported Hamers are better guitars than my Fireflies, but when you take the insane pricing of imported Standards into account, the Fireflies make a lot of sense. That's exactly why I bought the Firefly "explorer" that I showed above. I've since bought an Indonesian Standard, and although it's a perfectly good guitar, I prefer the fat neck and the flame top on the Firefly. The Hamer is going to get moved along.

I've had a lot of Firefly guitars. I still have an explorer, an EVH and an LP that I'm going to turn into a Greeny. Aside from the shit wiring & electronics, they're solid guitars, and make excellent mod platforms. The double necks are back in stock and I'm jonesing hard for a white one so I can play Hotel California on it. Check out the necks!

Seems to be standard procedure for Gary Moore 😆

My 95 Studio Custom has a thin-ish neck. It's kind of right between the thin neck my 93 Special had and the medium neck on my '11 Studio Custom. Here are the respective measurements: Hamer Studio Custom 1st 21.9 (.86) 12th 23.6 (.93) Hamer Special 1st 20.6 (.81) 12th 20.9 (.82) Hamer Studio P90 1st 21.5 (.85) 12th 22.7 (.89)

Watch beato's video on it. The only chart it's on is downloads, and at a buck each, that translates into $3k. In other words, the creator "bought" the #1 spot on a BS list and is sitting back loving all the free publicity their $3k got.

beautiful guitar. Really similar to the Scattervarius from Scatter Lee.

I'm not disputing the quality of this guitar or the US Heritage guitars. Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to try out either, but I hope to. My comment was strictly on whether this price point positions it well in the market. Sure there's a stigma against Epi, but I suspect that those who hold that opinion probably don't think much more highly of other guitars in that same price range either. Love Epi or hate them, they're a juggernaut in the budget market, and Heritage is coming in as a relatively unknown brand (at least in that segment) and they're putting out a guitar line that at least on paper appears to be identical to the Epis, for the same money as the epi, with no real reputation to back it up. This price range is a crowded market and on paper it doesn't look like Heritage is bringing anything above and beyond what other brands already bring. Higher quality is obviously a big plus, but it will take time for the market to identify that. I guess I'm just skeptical because I don't want to see the Heritage import line end up with the same fate as the Hamer line.

That's a sweet guitar. At $500 it competes directly with the Epi LP Special (which is on sale at GC for $400 currently). It's going to be tough for Heritage to compete with that, even if their guitar is better.

That was a great interview. I never heard of Hinds until last year when I started hearing his cover of I Keep Forgettin on Watercolors. I learned the song on guitar, which I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell he never put that song on his newest album.

I do, very much so. The Monaco has stayed while a few of my US models have come and gone. We'll see if the Korina one fares as well, but early indications are good.

I'm leaning pretty strongly on getting this. I have a Spark amp that I bring with me when I travel and this seems like a better option. This also seems like a great option for practicing at home. Whenever my wife is here I have to practice so quietly that I usually don't bother. For those that are familiar with ToneX world, how much access do you have to IRs? Do a lot of people share theirs or is it mostly all pay to play? Are the IRs able to be used in other DAWs or am I limited to the software that comes with ToneX?

Sometimes the good deals disappear fast! I got my p90 gold top 4 minutes after it was listed.

Indonesia. This is my 2nd one. I've also got a Monaco that I picked up a few years ago that's similarly good. That guitar rings like a bell and is similarly well made. Both of them blow the Korean Hamers that I've had out of the water. The veneer on this one is spectacular. It moves like crazy in person Check out how nice the rosewood board is