DBraz

AMP. FX. AMP. Oh Sh1t, I don't know... I use an Axe FX 2 and I can get anything I like!

That is a lovely guitar. I have been looking for a nice Cali Custom for a while now.

DBraz- I am interested in hearing more about your RAN. A few years ago, whilst struck with a particularly virulent case of GAS for a custom spec-ed guitar that no big name builder would touch (because of legalities over the headstock shape) I was apprised of RAN and liked what I saw, heard. Ultimately, I abandoned that quest but would consider them again having heard your praise of the neck. Sorry for the late response matey I must have missed this... I was given my RAN at a VERY good price through circumstances that presented themselves and was not in the market for one when I got it. It has been a really pleasant surprise. The neck build is excellent as is the fretwork and inlay quality. It is also a shredders neck and super fast. I had it painted "Mr Rusty" as the only failing of the whole guitar (shape aside - RR shape is not my thing) was the paint which chipped off rather easily. I have heard that RAN have, at times, had a chequered history with variable quality in some years. The RAN I have is an early one (on their first gallery page) and I cannot praise it enough.

Interesting discussion this. I concur with what has been said on the importance of a neck. Some of my guitars have great necks and I use them all regularly. Others are, how can I put it, a little bit iffy. Consequently I rarely even pick them up. For what it's worth my Cali is my favourite shredder but it has a beefy neck (for a super strat). My RAN custom has the best playing neck of any I own (to date). It is sublime and incredibly fast.

I concur in that for me a Jackson Soloist is the quintessential superstrat. But the Hamer Californian was always the superstrat holy grail as far as I was concerned,

Wow! I am a Cali lover and that is an awesome guitar. I have never seen a maple Cali neck and it does look rather nice! Great colour too. Enjoy and Rock on!

And you said I was showing off with my Hamer Miller... Man oh man it looks like you had fun!

It sounds great. Better than my old Mesa Thiele with the Celestion speaker. I have not added the fibreglass yet. This is supposed to change the sound characteristics, as is adding a covering to the centre port. I will experiment further and report back.

More pictures: The Evm12l looks pretty old inside the new cabinet. Rear jack plug secured by two black scratch plate screws. The completed article. Complete with grill, leather corners and rubber feet. Close up of the leather corners. These were originally flat triangle shaped pieces of hard black leather and came with the fixing nails. First thing to do is soak the leather pieces in water for an hour to soften them up and make them expand slightly. Then, nail them into place. Once fixed they then shrink as the water dries out to leave a perfect flush fitting leather corner looking like it was made to perfection.

I love this thread. It's everything that I expect from a Hamer dream.

Wonderful. What a beauty!

My number 1 My number 2 I have 4 Hamers and the other 3 are closely following the number 1.

The little amp I got my Evm12l speaker from was pretty pants. Great speaker. Horrible little solid state amp with no character at all. It would win the sterile award. It sounded thin as hell without any quality to the thin-ness ( )

It's times like this that I realise that NOTHING can touch a Hamer. Now THAT is craftsmanship. Also perhaps the nicest bit of flamed maple I have seen in a LONG time.

Well, it's now finished. Speaker mounted (the Ev does look old ), feet fitted (I used small rubber feet from evil bay), and leather mesa corners added (secured by black rivet pins), wiring sorted and speaker grill secured. One problem I encountered when fixing the speaker grill was that the speaker mounts prevented the grill from being seated correctly. Out it came, a bit of routing with a dremel mini-routing piece, and back it went perfectly. Also, when adding the Mesa leather corners (which were rock hard) I soaked them in water for an hour. This made them easy to manipulate and secure. When they dried they shrunk slightly to fit the corners of the cabinet perfectly as if they were made to order. Happy days I have plugged it into my rig and it sounds brilliant. The only thing I haven't done, which was suggested in the Ev build instructions, was to add some fibreglass insulation (without blocking the port). I have some tucked away somewhere which I will add tonight but was in such a hurry to see how it sounded when it was built that I thought I'd save that job until the following day. Pictures to follow, hopefully tomorrow.

Excellent guitar playing. Very economical and fluid. I too have watched it twice and he makes very difficult techniques and timing signatures look EASY!

You are very kind. It should look pretty good when it's all done.but my second one will be even better. You always learn lessons and all that...

Honestly this is not hard to build. The hardest thing to date has been the speaker baffle. I did it with a router but next time I would probably do a few cuts and use a jigsaw. I have also started building my own guitar and details of that will also follow in another thread once I have made more meaningful progress... From what I have learned, and the few mistakes I have made along the way, to secret to any build is to be patient and not rush. Sometimes you are in the mood. And sometimes you aren't. When I am I do something.

Wow, this thread is turning into an English lesson - or perhaps a German one

I was corrected once in a guitar shop. Never forgot. The dude could have been wrong though...

I haven't weighed it yet. I haven't even added the speaker/wired it up! The cab is already pretty heavy. I have heard of people using pine inn cabs but they resonate differently and pine is not as hard wearing. A little bang can equal a big dent... When it's finished I'll weigh it although lightness wasn't my priority. Size was.

To be continued...

Not a perfect circle, but the speaker baffle will cover it... And it is my first!

After having bought countless guitar cabs over the years from 1x12's to 4x12's as a Rock guitarist I have come to the following conclusions:- 4x12's sound best live. They really do. Nothing quite beats the punch that they deliver, but a well built 4x12 - especially in the case of my Carvin 412t- weigh a LOT. However, as far as a mic is concerned, there is very little difference in sound between a Thiele 1x12 and a 4x12. The Thiele (Tee-lee) was designed by ElectroVoice to replicate the mic'd sound of a good 4x12, with porting, and was designed around the legendary EV12L speaker. Consequently it is perfect for this speaker and produces amazing results. Mesa Boogie used to sell this design but have since modified the dimensions of the cabinet to suit Celestion speakers they have and, in my opinion, never sounded as good since. A modern Mesa Thiele cab sounds boomy and mushy in comparison to big with clarity like the old ones. Recently I thought "what the hell, I can build this myself. In fact I'll build 2 so I can run my AXE 2 set-up in W-D-W." So off I went to the local DIY place, bought an 8' x 4'' sheet of fine 13ply marine birch Plywood and then got my trusty friend to cut the pieces millimetre perfect according to the cabinet build instructions (freely available on a Google search). I kept an eye out on ebay for the speakers. The older the better providing condition was good as these speakers are 200w and take a bit of breaking in. Until they are broken in they can sound a bit harsh. Luckily I bought 2, one for £60 and another £50 in an old amp. I sold the remainder of the amp for £30 (it had a reverb unit in it). In the UK a second hand good condition Celestion Mesa Thiele is about £260. I planned to build 2 of these myself, with EVM12l's, and love, for £200. The wood cost me £40, Glue I already had, ditto screws. Cabinet feet £5.50, wiring £13, tolex £40 (I have enough for re-tolexing my 4x12 as well), Mesa leather cabinet corners £18 (a luxury), leather mesa cabinet handles with fixing £17.50, Salt & Pepper grill cloth & gold piping £27. Grand total:- £241. Over budget but I have plenty of leftover tolex and grill cloth/piping for other cabinets- at least 1 4x12 or 2 more Thiele's... What follows is a picture journey of what I have done. Unlike others I have used screws to make a solid join when gluing the pieces of wood together, and filled the tops flush afterwards. Whilst it looks a bit like overkill I can assure you that it was helpful. I also used clamps but on harder to access areas screws really helped when making sure everything lined up as intended - especially the ported design pieces.

Oh my word. That is absolutely amazing. (Edited because my fingers had a freeze up and started hitting the wrong buttons after seeing these images)