'77 or '78 Hamer Sunburst

[Feynman]

Can I have your amp?

[a.bandini]

Congratulations, and thanks for sponsoring the restoration of a lovely guitar.

[GooCart]

haha, yeah, the baby hiwatt is a realy cool home rig. I actually can keep it in our living room, the wife think it looks gute:)

[GooCart]

Today was wiring day. We have a trainee at the office, he's one of these electronic wizards and I asked him to wire up the guitar for me. Much more fun for him than to serve us old farts coffee:)

Anyway, we didn't really know much about the wiring, I haven't found any schematics for the '78 so we guessed some but I think we got it right. It's wired out of phase, I think that's how they was done but correct me if I'm wrong. The switch doesn't look like any Hamer switch I've seen on photos on the Internet so it might be replaced but I don't know. The pots are Dimarzio, I think that's correct but I'd like to hear what you experts say, did we do something right here and does any parts look original?

Oh, i totally forgot. The guitar sounds amazing, with full throttle in middle position it's instant Peter Green, turn one of the volumes down and you have a completely new spectra. Both the neck and bridge pickup are amazing. I love those old Dimarzios and have a set on all my user guitars.

[RichRS6]

I knew this would be a good thread and it looks like I was right.

Congrats on bringing this guitar back to life.

I love 78 Bursts they totally rock ! The more you play it the more you'll love it.

If you like the way it sounds then why worry if it's "right" or not ?

[GooCart]

Hey Rich, thanks for that, I'm really glad to see this old guitar in it's former glory.

I wanted to bring this guitar back to it's original state as much as possible, that's why I'm concerned about the originality of the parts and the wiring specs. It's maybe not important for the sound but for the "heritage" if you know how I mean.

[RichRS6]

I'm sure there are wiring diagrams on here somewhere.......

Someone will know where to find them, did you try a search ?

[specialk]

Maybe:

http://www.hamerfanclub.com/wire/

[GooCart]

Yeah, I did a search but I just found a archtop sunburst. It's kind of similar to this but with single conductor pickup wires. What bothered me most was the switch, it looks quite different from the photos I found. No biggie, this switch works just fine but you know how it is. For me it's not worth doing if I'm not doing it right. Well at least within reasonable basis:)

[Disturber]

Yeah, I did a search but I just found a archtop sunburst. It's kind of similar to this but with single conductor pickup wires. What bothered me most was the switch, it looks quite different from the photos I found. No biggie, this switch works just fine but you know how it is. For me it's not worth doing if I'm not doing it right. Well at least within reasonable basis:)

My 79 has un touched solder joints. I'll shoot ya a pic. The pups are wired out of phase in the middle position. Other than that I think it's wired the standard Hamer way.

[RichRS6]

Heres my 78 if it helps.

Not sure if its untouched or not, I haven't touched the wiring but that's not to say a previous owner hasn't so I will be interested in peoples thoughts.

(Edited to say) Actually, it has been touched as one of the pots was replaced before I got it (I still have the original in the case).

Looking at it it seems both the black wires from my P/Us go to ground, does this mean the middle position is not wired for out of phase ?

[Brentrocks]

WOW!!!!!

[Mindseyes]

Awesome guitar!!!

Here is a couple shots of the control cavity from my old '78

hope they help

[GooCart]

Thanks for all your photos guys! I see clearly that my switch and input jack differ from yours. I wounder why anybody would have replaced them, but stranger things have happened. I looked in the control cavity of my '79 and it also have the same switch as you but it also have some kind of extra capacitors on the volume pots. The wire color looks kind of random. I've seen both red, yellow and blue. My '79 have the blue wires.

[GooCart]

So I did some comparison between this guitar and the '79. The neck angle on the '79 is 3.2° and the headstock angle is 15.5°. It weights 4.1 Kg. This guitar have a neck angle of 2.5°, a headstock angle at 14.5° and weights 3.4 kg. The neck meets the body exactly at the 21th fret on this guitar, it actually deforms the pickup ring some. On the '79 the neck meet the body 3-4 millimeters closer to the 22th fret.

So the specs differ quite much, both the angles and some of the electronics, I also have my doubt that the switch would be replaced since it have exact the same patina as the rest of the hardware. This makes me wonder, can this be a earlier model than '78 or is it common with these variations?

[GooCart]

This weekend we had a couple of gigs at a ski resort in the north of Sweden and it was premier for the Hamer. It sounded really sweet but I actually had a problem with the guitar. I'm so used to play the Les Paul now that I thought that the Hamer was to light at 3,4 kg's. The balance was not to my likening, it's to heavy on the headstock and I had to correct the angle constantly. I'm sure I can get used to it, I loved it back in the 80's but that was a long time ago.

edit:

I posted an embarrassing solution to fix the balance issue here but the idea sucked so bad that I edited the post so never mind if you read it.

[GooCart]

Haha, problem solved. A wider, padded, strap and now it's all balanced:)

[Disturber]

Good to hear. I've heard players who tied a conter weight to the back knob for better balance on some guitars. Personally I'm not that affected by the balance issue, or it's just that my guitars are all perfect - I don't know....