Offshore Hamer Standard Mods

[gtone]

I acknowledge that some folks may feel that modding an import is time/money poorly spent (the term "polishing a turd" comes to mind), but in this case, there could be an exception. I have a Korina bodied XT Standard that is a great player (low action, decent intonation, stays in tune, well balanced), but the sound quality just doesn't quite meet that of my Hamer USA guitar. There's plenty of promise with what's there - Korina body (not one piece, mind), Duncan 59/JB pickups and a bone nut, but it just falls a bit short tone-wise (note clarity and "richness" slightly lacking).

FWIW, I tend to hold onto guitars for years (last guit I parted with was a blonde Tele I had for 24 yrs), so it's unlikely I'll be worried about mods that I have to get my money back on. As it is now, I'll probably keep this as a backup as it is a great playing guitar (a little better than my USA Hamer, actually...), notwithstanding any mods I may consider.

I suspect the controls and internals as perhaps being the weak tonal links in this case. Is it worthwhile upgrading these items (ie. will there be any noticeable tonal improvements)? Anyone have any experience with worthwhile mods for imports? Should I give up hoping that this axe will ever sound better than it does now or am I just dreaming in color?

[gorch]

Well, I changed mine to what it is now - a Standard-Strat!

The Korina comes more quality equipped stock compared to the flame top. I had replaced the Duncan Designed pickups shortly after I bought the guitar. Swapped pickups over the years to achieve different sounds. A true improvement was the replacement of the pots to CTMs. There had been cheap asian made pots in there before that did not work well.

Eventually, the guitar became my playground for technical replacements. Finally, I found the right configuration for it. In favor for the alder body I turned towards true vintage style handwound single coils put under a P90 hat. Pots are now 250k, adjusting to the single coils including one original 60s capacitor at the tone control. It now truly sounds like a Strat. The tone control is just amazing. I never had any idea for what the tone control should ever be used for. Now it truly makes sense.

The rest of it is my taste. So it is with the Schaller LP tremolo, the 5-way rotary switch and the Sperzel locking tuners you can't see in the picture. The stock tuners were great. The guitar perfectly stayed in tune before the change. Since it is no shred axe anymore, I am considering a fret replacement towards higher frets to support chords other than just power chords.

In the past and now, I never had the impression it was a bad guitar at all. According to its base wood (alder body and maple neck), I ever thought it would need some adjustment to support the wood selection. The craftsmanship is great considering its low price.

For me, the changes were worth it. I play it equally to the Custom.

[gtone]

Gorch - thanks for sharing that. Looks interesting and bet it sounds a whole lot different as well. Think I'd like to stick with HB's tho' - just my personal tonal preference. I picked the XT Standard Korina for the korina body and the JB/59 pu combination as I'm pretty much a Seymour Duncan fan (good tone at a modest price).

Just keep thinking there must be some way to get a little better tone out of what's there. Stock wiring, pots, jack and toggle switch on the import all look kinda sketchy. Don't know if I'm loony (I am Canadian, after all...), but thinking of upgrading the wiring and installing CTS 500k pots, a decent tone cap, Switchcraft jack, etc. Suggestions/comments??

[mathman]

I put new pups on my black and creme xt standard. It also plays nice and sounds much better. I am thinking up upgrading it's wiring and pots and using the old stuff for a cheap project V I have.

The XT series is worth doing some work too imo but not so much that you could pick up a usa version for the same or nearly same amount of cash.

[gtone]

Kirk - have to agree with you on your comments on the XT Standard. The Hamer imports, while not quite up to the standards of materials and workmanship of the USA models, are still very good. Think I heard that it was Hamer's plan to discontinue the import lines, which is a bit unfortunate, actually.

Just wondering - what pu's did you go with on your XT? Some folks believe that the stock Duncan designed import pu's are just OK, but I have no opinion there as I've never heard one before.

[marcnorth]

My cousin has one of the Korina imports. The guitar plays good but didn't sound very good. I gave him a set of Gibson pups that I took out of a 93 Special after I got it and the guitar sounds great now. I don't know what model the pups were or why someone put them in the Special but he really likes them.

[mathman]

I put a kent armstrong vintage n (59) bridge and I can't remember what's in the neck. Bought them both from a poster here a few years ago. (thanks again Craig)

Wanted crunchy but not too hot. Gives me lots of sounds options and cleans up really good.

[3of5]

Polishing a turd is fine by me. Just know in advance why you are doing it and don't set your expectations too high. I bought a 1999 or so Korean Hamer Sunburst SATF for dirt cheap with the idea of hacking it up to suit my purposes... just because. I carved a strat-like belly cut and forearm relief into it and then shaved the neck to the most comfortable shape for my hand. It is now the most comfortable guitar I have ever played. It is fit specifically to me. However, I am likely going to give it away because I cannot deal with the tone. The original Duncan Designed humbuckers were abysmal. Wooly, muddy, inarticulate. I replaced the pickups with a Phatcat in the neck and a George Lynch Screamin' Demon in the bridge. Big, big improvement, but, the quality of the wood just limits what this guitar can ever be. Still kind of muddy and woofy in the lower registers and in general just lacks harmonic excitement. Played acoustically it just does not measure up to my USA Hamers or my CBS era Strat or even my son's chinese Epi Les Paul. I was going to refinish the thing myself but I just lost interest. Here it is so far.

I am not unhappy, I learned a lot doing the project and had fun while I was doing it.

[gtone]

3of5 - think we're on the same page. Although we've got decent pu's on our respective imports, there's still a discernable shortfall in the tone dept. You've described it as a lack of harmonic excitement and articulation; me as a lack of note clarity and richness - pretty much in the same ballpark. You may be completely correct in your assumption that it's the materials used, but I can't help but wonder if upgrading in one/both of the following areas would be worthwhile: 1) tone transfer (upgraded bridge, stopbar, nut) or 2) internals (wiring, jack, controls, etc.). Kinda why I posted this one here on the "Ask the HFC Experts" page - was hoping for some feedback from the vets, luthiers, or others with tech background/experience on such matters.

[gorch]

The experiences I made with my project are that the overall sound is a combination of the wood (body & neck), pickups, pots, cabs and wiring. Any of these factors contribute to the sound. The XT Standard Korina stock comes with original SD pickups. I would say this is fine and would not need a change.

Let's start at the beginning. According to the Hamer homepage the body consists of MAPLE that's topped with Korina. The neck is made of MAPLE too. OK, this guitar is neither pure Korina nor comparably hard Mahogany! I'd start to learn about the tone properties of MAPLE first in order to identify the general tone directions/capabilities of your guitar. I would have an excellent German speaking article about tone wood descriptions to recommend, but apparently cannot recommend one English speaking. One might contribute here. Maple might be a cheaper tone wood, but not necessarily worse than Mahogany or Korina. Consider that Strats are either build from Maple or Alder.

Pickups should be fine from stock perspective. According to the wood selection of the guitar they might become subject for a change too.

Pots would be candidates for change if they would be of lower quality. CTS or military grade would definitely improve. Generally, 500k type pots go for humbucker style pickups, 250k for single coils, and 500k for P90s in humbucker format (Phat Cats and the like). Brian May uses 220k on his Red Special.

The cap for the tone pot should be well selected with regards to pot type and pickup wirings. Higher wound pickups behave different than lower wound pickups. It's all about physics or electrics. Personally, I was very happy with http://www.singlecoil.com. The guy that runs the site is very responsive and helpful. There is plenty to read to make up your mind before contacting him.

The most recommended wire for guitar electrics is cloth-wire, especially for single coils. To my extent, I would not expect to much tonal influences on the wiring. It's more of signal noise than real tonal differences.

I would say your guitar rather is a Korina blend than pure Korina. You've got to deal with typical Maple sound and see this as your starting point for improvements.

In a quick search, I found this in the web: Guitar Woods Guide.

According to the guide maple has a bright and crisp tone.

Set your parameters well and you will receive a great tone from your guitar. It doesn't need to be expensive though.

[gtone]

Danke, Gorch!

[gtone]

Let the turd polishing begin! Ordered a control upgrade kit ($36) from Hoagland Guitars that includes CTS 500k volume/tone pots, cloth wiring, SwitchCraft jack, toggle switch, solder and Orange Drop poly .022 tone cap. Also ordered a Sprague Vitamin Q .010 paper in oil ($3.50), so can experiment a bit with the cap selection. Since I paid $400 for the guitar, I'm limiting myself to a budget of $100 for tone mods. If that doesn't do much, then so be it. Don't want to waste too much time/money - after all, I coulda bought Zorrow's USA Vector for not much more than that kind of total outlay a few weeks back (I may kick my own ass yet for not doing exactly that!).

Other mods under consideration - bridge, tailpiece and/or locking studs, maybe top wrapping strings? These last are secondary considerations as I suspect they may do more for improving sustain and string bends than what I'm gunning for (improved richness of tone and articulation of notes). Will do my best to provide a tone report via this thread once the mods are complete for reference purposes.

One bright side - shouldn't have to worry about diligently saving the original parts or otherwise buggering resale value when modding an import as one would with a Hamer USA...

[mathman]

I just got my first usa 6 string guitar this friday. One thing I noticed right away is how much better the fretboard and frets feel on this guitar. It's an 84 and I don't think it had a refret. Doesn't look like it was played that much. But the quality of the neck is obvious compared to my XT. I like the neck of my XT and it has great feel and action, but the Proto is just much better.

[gorch]

I just got my first usa 6 string guitar this friday. One thing I noticed right away is how much better the fretboard and frets feel on this guitar. It's an 84 and I don't think it had a refret. Doesn't look like it was played that much. But the quality of the neck is obvious compared to my XT. I like the neck of my XT and it has great feel and action, but the Proto is just much better.

This is a comparison between apples and oranges. Replace the parts of the Standard to the same quality level of the Proto, play and then compare. They are still different guitars though (wood and shape), but the Standard should sound much better on improved hardware than stock.

This experience I made not only with my Korean Standard, but also with the Epiphone LP Custom from my son's band mate. I changed the pickups to vintage dimarzios once and the guitar began to shine.

Hence, we are not talking about a Hamer import syndrome here.

[gtone]

Coulda swore the import had a korina body until Gorch pointed out otherwise. Opened up the control cavities and sure enough, if you look closely, you can see there's actually just two veneers of korina about 1/8'' top/back sandwiching a maple core. Remember my luthier telling me about some of the tricks that manufacturers have used over the years to disguise the fact that their cheaper models didn't have solid bodies - opaque toner/stain/paint on the sides of the bodies, binding, etc. That's exactly the case with this import - generous use of both top binding and faux finish on the sides of the body to hide the veneering. Mucho craptastic, huh?!

As to the pups, can't say as I've played/heard a totally crappy one from SD yet. There're some I like better than others (Pearly Gates are my personal fave), but it comes down to personal taste. Plenty of folks at the SD site seem to dislike the JB, but this model also its fans. As to how it sounds with korina, guess you'd have to ask someone like Zorrow that actually has a korina-bodied guitar. In my guitar, it just sounds a little inarticulate (then again, so does the '59).

When I opened the control cavities of the import, I did the same with my Special FM also just to compare the quality of the wiring harness to a USA model. No comparison on most of it - the pots, wiring and tone cap were all of far better quality on the US model (no surprise). Only the jack and the toggle switch looked to be of fairly decent quality on the import, though I suspect these may have little/any tonal contribution. Anyhoo, gonna find out if a wiring harness upgrade is money well spent/pissed against the wall pretty soon!

[mathman]

I just got my first usa 6 string guitar this friday. One thing I noticed right away is how much better the fretboard and frets feel on this guitar. It's an 84 and I don't think it had a refret. Doesn't look like it was played that much. But the quality of the neck is obvious compared to my XT. I like the neck of my XT and it has great feel and action, but the Proto is just much better.

This is a comparison between apples and oranges. Replace the parts of the Standard to the same quality level of the Proto, play and then compare. They are still different guitars though (wood and shape), but the Standard should sound much better on improved hardware than stock.

This experience I made not only with my Korean Standard, but also with the Epiphone LP Custom from my son's band mate. I changed the pickups to vintage dimarzios once and the guitar began to shine.

Hence, we are not talking about a Hamer import syndrome here.

I guess I wasn't clear. My point is that now I understand better how the quality of the USA and imports are different. I wasn't talking about tone, rather fit and finish which improves playability. I like the sound of my import after switching pickups. I now know that changing the wiring and pots will help the tone. But there is a point where you have to decide where to stop. That point is different for everyone. I think that pups and pots will be the extent of what I do to my xt now. A small investment that will make big dividends to the sound. The playability is good enough and the value for return of improvement with replacing anything else is not really there for me. YMMV.

Tuners maybe, but the tuners are decent on my XT as it came.

[gorch]

Actually, the construction of the guitar is publicly documented on the Hamer homepage here.

Compare the four models and understand the price differences in the Hamer retail price list.

It looks like they don't produce the Korina model anymore. That seems to be replaced by the Quilt-EMG model that's equally in price than I remember the Korina model was.

[gtone]

Gorch - Don't recall Hamer having this spec sheet up on their website when I bought the Korina XT 5 yrs ago. FYI...

Kirk - the tuners on my import are just fine also. In fact, they do just almost as good a job as the Schallers on my Special FM, FWIW, although they do have a slightly higher ratio.

[gorch]

You are right. On the other hand I doubt they had changed the production largely over time. Mine is from 2002 and still proofs against the list.

But, lets see what the replacement brings.

[gorch]

gtone, how about the changes to the electronics? Did the control kit do any good to your guitar?

[gtone]

Gorch - Haven't got my parts yet, as they're all coming out of the US. Shipping doesn't take too long, but the customs dept. here in Canada takes a long time (extra week or two) to inspect/clear international shipments. Will keep you posted however...

[diablo175]

I just got my first usa 6 string guitar this friday. One thing I noticed right away is how much better the fretboard and frets feel on this guitar. It's an 84 and I don't think it had a refret. Doesn't look like it was played that much. But the quality of the neck is obvious compared to my XT. I like the neck of my XT and it has great feel and action, but the Proto is just much better.

This is a comparison between apples and oranges. Replace the parts of the Standard to the same quality level of the Proto, play and then compare. They are still different guitars though (wood and shape), but the Standard should sound much better on improved hardware than stock.

This experience I made not only with my Korean Standard, but also with the Epiphone LP Custom from my son's band mate. I changed the pickups to vintage dimarzios once and the guitar began to shine.

Hence, we are not talking about a Hamer import syndrome here.

+1. if you have an offshore guitar that feels right, run with it!!! I have a MIK Cali that clearly doesn't stand up to the workmanship and aesthetics of my USA Elite but sounds and plays every bit as good because the gear has been upgraded- Seymour Duncan p'ups, Original Floyd Rose and prolly better pots. I use it all the time as my practicing guitar. I wouldn't hesitate to use it as a gigging ax either.

[gtone]

Parts all in (finally!) and off she goes to my friend who's a wizard with the soldering iron (me, not so much...). Should have a tone report by early next week providing said friend can get working on my git this weekend.

One little disappointment - wiring harness kit from Hoagland Brothers was supposed to include vintage style cloth-covered wire, but actually came with ordinary plastic covered wire, albeit larger guage than what's already in there.

[mathman]

Parts all in (finally!) and off she goes to my friend who's a wizard with the soldering iron (me, not so much...). Should have a tone report by early next week providing said friend can get working on my git this weekend.

One little disappointment - wiring harness kit from Hoagland Brothers was supposed to include vintage style cloth-covered wire, but actually came with ordinary plastic covered wire, albeit larger guage than what's already in there.

Cool did you record the guitar before you started working on it? if so post some before and after clips.

I'm wondering about fret dressing. I've never done it or had it done. Is this something anyone can do or does it require some special tools/materials? I've either got to google or ask the HFC experts!

[gorch]

...

One little disappointment - wiring harness kit from Hoagland Brothers was supposed to include vintage style cloth-covered wire, but actually came with ordinary plastic covered wire, albeit larger guage than what's already in there.

Cloth wire or not. It shouldn't make any difference.

[gtone]

Cool did you record the guitar before you started working on it? if so post some before and after clips.

I'm wondering about fret dressing. I've never done it or had it done. Is this something anyone can do or does it require some special tools/materials? I've either got to google or ask the HFC experts!

I'm so old school, my recording is still done via an ancient Yamaha 4-track cassette recorder. While I do have a few tracks recorded with that guitar before the mods, I didn't them in such a manner so as to A/B them to the post-modded version (sorry!).

While the frets are superb on my import, I couldn't tell you how difficult a job a fret dressing would be. I've had my luthier do it on two of my guitars over the years and it did improve playability. I think he only charged like $40-$50 and also did a complete setup as well including truss rod adjustment, new strings, clean the fretboard, check action, set intonation, etc.

And Gorch - you're right, there should be no sonic difference between cloth-covered and plastic-covered wire; it is only in appearance and that's pretty minor considering hardly anybody's going to be peering into my control cavity. When you're polishing a turd, it shouldn't really matter, huh?