FGJ Posted December 12, 2013 Posted December 12, 2013 I’ve been visiting this board occasionally for the last year and finally decided to chime in. So a little bit about myself… Back in the beginning of 1990, I took my import Kramer guitar into a small music shop where my buddy worked to ask what it would cost for a re-fret. He told me I ought to just buy a new guitar, and he brought out a new, seafoam green,1989 USA Hamer Californian. I think the shop was selling it for $1500+ or so, but being one of their top guys in the store, he gave it to me at their cost + $40, so I paid $740 for it (I still have the receipt). I never heard of Hamer back then, but I liked the color and it looked cool with 27 frets, plus it had a Floyd, so I was a happy camper. That was the only guitar I owned until just recently. So fast-forward to the present, and now I’m married with kids and a mortgage, blah, blah, blah, and I really have no time to play guitar. I had this guitar leaning in a corner in my studio at home, and I only picked it up to play Christmas songs with the kids (and I didn’t even play those very well after having essentially given up playing). And then about a year ago, like many people, my work slowed to a crawl and I needed to get some extra work. A friend who owns his own business hired me part-time, and our work took us all around Los Angeles and the Inland Empire in So Cal. My buddy makes lots of money and can afford lots of nice, high-end guitars, and he knows where every stinkin’ guitar store is, so he introduces me to a lot of cool guitar shops. Being that it’s his business, we spend a lot of time playing hooky and going to guitar shops, as well as playing at his house in the morning while the wife is away… Am I boring you? I apologize. I’ll continue… So now I’m interested in guitars again and I’ve started playing my only guitar. Because we’re now in the internet age, I decide to do some online research about Hamer and find out that I have a great hand-made in the USA guitar by an awesome company, and I realized at that point what a great deal my friend had given me all those years ago. So now, almost 25 years have taken its toll and I need new frets. One of the many cool shops my buddy introduced me to was Wild West Guitars in Riverside. I took my Cali in there August 5th, and I just got it back last Saturday, December 7. I was in withdrawals being without a guitar in the interim, so I finally broke down and got another guitar…but I’ll save that story for another post. Anyway, this thing plays faster than ever. First off, this is an EXTREMELY RARE maple-boarded Cali. It’s not extremely rare because it has a maple board. It’s rare because it has a maple board AND it’s NEVER been signed by Ted Nugent. (Okay, stupid inside joke). I don’t know if the shop special-ordered this or if a customer placed a special order and changed his mind and stuck the shop with it. I know the Cali Standard came with chrome hardware and a rosewood board, so someone obviously special-ordered this with the black hardware and maple board. I really don’t know the details of its origin besides the fact that I was fortunate enough to get this one new. Okay, I suspect people are going to hate me for modding this guitar, but I never plan on selling it, so here are a few specs: So I added a big, brass block to the Floyd (which I didn’t photograph). I also blocked the Floyd with a brass dingus which has a piece of Honduras rosewood attached to it. I didn’t want to permanently attach anything in there, but I wanted the block to rest against a substantial amount of wood. Maybe I’ll take a picture of it sometime. I’ve never seen it done the way I did it, but I’m sure someone else out there probably thought of the same thing and did it that way as well. Anyway, I blocked it because I also added a D-Tuna. I added some small pieced of the Honduras rosewood inside the humbucker cavity and hard-mounted the Dimarzio Slammer pickup to it. I added titanium screws to the nut for no reason other than I thought it looked cool and I’m stupid like that. I also got titanium intonation screws, which are a lot nicer than the stock screws. I ordered titanium saddles from Musician’s Friend, and they (and GC) have been back-ordered on those for the past year. No one seems to have the TiSonix version of those (and I’m not going to FuTone and pay $700+ for saddles), Fortunately, I happened to mention to the owner of KGC that I had some on backorder, and he said he happened to have a set and offered to sell them to me. So I snatched them up (and MF & GC still haven’t gotten any in stock. It seems impossible to get them, even though a guy over at TiSonix told me they’re selling them like crazy, though I have no idea who’s buying them because they’re not available on their website). And finally, I had this re-fretted with stainless-steel frets. Like I said, it plays faster than ever. Mark Dickerson, the tech at Wild West Guitars is just THE best (which is why he is so busy that it took awhile to get these done). These frets feel terrific. The body has quite a few paint-chips and so forth, but I don’t care. I’m more interested in how it feels and plays. It’s too bad I can’t play as fast as the neck will allow. So anyway, I'm only posting one pic and giving links to pics on Photobucket. Hopefully this works. This pic is of the guitar about a year ago, before I made any mods: http://s1374.photobucket.com/user/Flooglemop/media/guitar_zps406dffeb.jpg.html?sort=6&o=0 All the following pics are post-modifications: http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag420/Flooglemop/01_zps0fffd3a4.png http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag420/Flooglemop/02_zpsab32e368.png http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag420/Flooglemop/06_zpsbb1eda04.png http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag420/Flooglemop/03_zps06ef39aa.png http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag420/Flooglemop/05_zps46c475ce.png http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag420/Flooglemop/07_zps476313be.png http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag420/Flooglemop/10_zps2ee9b6c8.png http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag420/Flooglemop/08_zps5c143f00.png http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag420/Flooglemop/09_zpscec6103e.png http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag420/Flooglemop/04_zps37648ab6.png http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag420/Flooglemop/11_zpsa1e4f456.png
DBraz Posted December 12, 2013 Posted December 12, 2013 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!
carfish7 Posted December 12, 2013 Posted December 12, 2013 Wow, that's a GREAT looking guitar and a fine recounting of your experience leading to your joining us here in our little virtual treehouse.A warm welcome and a hearty congrats. You have fine taste in guitars and a fine way with words as well. Thanks for joining the conversation!
veatch Posted December 12, 2013 Posted December 12, 2013 Welcome to the funny farm. Be careful in the for sale forum... Hamers have a way of multiplying fast. *Great* looking Cali!
diablo175 Posted December 12, 2013 Posted December 12, 2013 If you're ballsy enough to just say "F- it!" and mod the Holy Grail Cali, then you're okay in my book. I know a little about modding Cali's. Welcome! I agree, the aesthetics of the maple board with the seafoam body are striking! Sweet looking ax. 4 of the 6 Cali's in the pic are modded moderately (different p'ups, big brass block) to extensively (new paint, SS frets, p'ups, Floyd, block, switches).
Bobby Marshall Posted December 12, 2013 Posted December 12, 2013 I almost lost my stuff when I saw that. Maple neck awesomeness!!!! I was hoping this was in the FS section.
Bennyboy-UK Posted December 12, 2013 Posted December 12, 2013 I saw this on your blog a while ago. I did see and did covet
FGJ Posted December 12, 2013 Author Posted December 12, 2013 Thanks for the warm welcome. guys. I posted a pic of my guitar on my blog before I did any mods. I should have posted that here for the before-and-after comparison. Funny thing is, I was over at the Seymour Duncan forum and was scrolling through a thread and saw my guitar. I was surprised anyone had found it at my blog and reposted the pic. I guess this stuff gets around once you put it out there.Incidentally. I've looked around for other maple-necked Calis, and so far the only one I've come across online is the black one signed by Ted Nugent. Does ANYONE out there have another one or know of another one? How many were ordered like this? I'm sure plenty of people may have ordered one like this, but I can't seem to find them. I've often wondered how I would replace this neck if I had to, because there doesn't seem to be more out there. It's too bad Hamer is gone. I wish there were a way to contact them and get some info on this guitar.
Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame Posted December 12, 2013 Posted December 12, 2013 I know I may be inconsistent on this topic, but to me it seems easier to accept a modification that has already been done rather than one that is still under discussion for the future.It looks nice, and you did a great job.Until we hear differently, it looks like it is just you and me w/ maple-boarded Californians.
WRHB Posted December 12, 2013 Posted December 12, 2013 Great guitar and thanks for all the pics. I can see why you went ahead and did the refret. Really cool axe.
HSB0531 Posted December 12, 2013 Posted December 12, 2013 Holy Hamer, Batman!That's not something you see every day.Great Cali.Welcome to the club!
FGJ Posted December 13, 2013 Author Posted December 13, 2013 @Diablo175,How difficult was it to acquire an entire stable of Calis with reverse headstocks? @Nathan,It seems likely that someone else would have put in an order for a maple board, though people seem to love the ebony with boomers so much, maybe very few were made with maple. Incidentally, i was just kidding about the Ted Nugent thing. I grew up listening to a lot of Nugent, so I think it's cool that you got that. Honestly, I don't think maple would be all that desirable if they were common, because I suspect most people would still prefer the ebony. Myself, I prefer maple.And while there are people still looking to buy a Cali, these are not so collectible that modding them really destroys the value much. All of the mods I made are pretty much reversible, and I still have any original parts that were replaced, so I could always provide them to a buyer ... but that'll never happen because I'll never sell this.
Hbom Posted January 1, 2014 Posted January 1, 2014 Maple boarded Cali. Another mistake the old fart made. Someday I'll learn.
diablo175 Posted January 1, 2014 Posted January 1, 2014 @Diablo175, How difficult was it to acquire an entire stable of Calis with reverse headstocks? And while there are people still looking to buy a Cali, these are not so collectible that modding them really destroys the value much. All of the mods I made are pretty much reversible, and I still have any original parts that were replaced, so I could always provide them to a buyer ... but that'll never happen because I'll never sell this. FGJ- It's just time, money and opportunity, my friend. Any "difficulty" encountered is in being vigilant and patient enough to catch these when they do appear. It's also a no-brainer that being part of the HFC helps considerably, as 5 of those 6 Cali's came from members hereon. The custom checked Cali was ordered thru, and with the help of a long-standing member (bcrgreg) and a lot of the mods on the others were effected by uber-talented folks on the board- bcrgreg, Murkat, and Stike. On the issue of modding- I had someone "call me" on the actual meaning of modding. In his opinion, modding entailed making significant changes to the form or function of the guitar to the extent that it would be difficult or impossible to reverse the changes. I think there are degrees of modding but that's probably just semantics In the end, value is how YOU define it. If a guitar is more valuable in a state/condition that is best suited to your playing style or aesthetic preferences, (as opposed to monetary value from an investment standpoint) then that becomes your defining standard. Modding a guitar to play/sound/look better according to your desires will enhance the value to you. In the end, as a guitar player, I find that to be more valuable than it's resale or "original" status.
FGJ Posted January 12, 2014 Author Posted January 12, 2014 With the exception of string changes, it seems like most any change would constitute a modification. In fact, if strings are swapped for the purpose of changing the original, factory specified gauge, then even that might constitute a modification, since string gauge could change the sound or playability of the guitar. I realize most people would consider a string gauge change so minimal that it doesn't constitute a mod, but I guess the term depends entirely on subjective criteria.Incidentally, would I be out of place to ask how much your most inexpensive Cali cost verses which was your most expensive? And did you purchase any of them new?
diablo175 Posted January 12, 2014 Posted January 12, 2014 Incidentally, would I be out of place to ask how much your most inexpensive Cali cost verses which was your most expensive? And did you purchase any of them new? Are you directing that to me? If so, the most inexpensive one is probably my most recent acquisition- the PopsiCali- named for the frozen, popsicle-like state it arrived in, last Tuesday, amidst the Polar Vortex. It's an '89 Cali LE very similar to the purple one pictured in the photo. With shipping it ran me $1600.00.
diablo175 Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 LOL- All yours, Steve. I'm a reverse head stock and boomers-only type. That and with a few exceptions, I'm not much of a maple neck/board person. However, my guess is that FGJ isn't going to be giving that up any time soon.
anotherfreak Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 Nice entrance!KICKASS GUITAR! it's yours, the mods make it EVEN MORE YOURS!welcome!
diablo175 Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 FGJ- you'll like my next project Cali. Gonna be fun!
cmatthes Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 FGJ- you'll like my next project Cali. Gonna be fun! Still probably only half as fun as mine!
diablo175 Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 Still probably only half as fun as mine! Wha--???
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