NGD: MIJ Kramer Focus 3000 [83-85]

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

Just snagged a MIJ Kramer Focus 3000 for 140 English Pounds [£140]. That's around $175 of your US $'s. Comes with original (early) Floyd Rose + added Custom Shop SD Invader (by MJ). Good condition with only a couple of dings. All original pots / wiring / coil-split toggle etc. I have no Floyded guitar at the moment and have been looking at a few mid-ranged Ibanez RG's but at the price I haggled this down to (the guy wanted £175 + shipping), I couldn't say no! It's going to be better than an RG surely! Price includes insured shipping;

 

[RobB]

Nice one, Vic. The MIJ Kramers are quality instruments, and you have one of the original, "whale-tail" Floyds. Steal of a deal, too.

Ah, the Reagan/Thatcher era...it was a market-share melee for the "SooperStrat" companies. More often than not their Asian, "down-market" guitars were out-performing their USA namesakes. Rock dat plank!

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

Did I mention it was a dumpster find? Along with a bass and a working amp. The guy cleaned it up, strung it and tweaked the truss rod. I had an in-depth conversation with him before I took the plunge. I'm sure we are both winners in this

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

More pics; 

 

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

More pics; 

 

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

More pics; 

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

I can certainly live with the dings and I'll dust/glue fill the fret board and sand it back to smooth. Frets look fine but if need be, I'll re-level / crown or even replace. I may replace the Floyd posts if the flat-screwdriver type are too shabby. This this will be a keeper as I need a Floyded guitar anyways...

[diablo175]

3 hours ago, Vic Croll (Concrete Sox) said:

 This this will be a keeper as I need a Floyded guitar anyways...

Everyone needs at least one Floyded guitar.

Great find! Congrats!

 

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

45 minutes ago, diablo175 said:

Everyone needs at least one Floyded guitar.

Great find! Congrats!

 

I didn't find it. I bought it from a guy that found it and cleaned it up. That's why I imagine I got it at a good price. I'm happy with what I paid and he is happy at what he got. Win/win

[diablo175]

You found the guy who found the guitar. Either way, congrats.

[Jeff R]

HUGE score!  Those were ghost-built by ESP for Kramer (look at the "Made in Japan" font on the headstock and compare it to ESP 400 series strat and tele copies from that era) and the original Focus line are steals as players and/or parts donors on the used market. Yours is definitely the first generation of ESP-built Focus because of the more traditional headstock shape. The second generation of Focus was the shift to pointy heads for the entire line.

The Focus 3000 was the Kramer Pacer clone. The 1000 was the Baretta (1HB rearloaded) clone. The 2000 was the Pacer Imperial clone (two HBs rear-loaded). The 4000 was the Vanguard (Rhoads clone). The 5000 was the Voyager clone (Rhoads/Star hybrid, 3HB). The 6000 was the second Pacer generation, an oversized strat body that we know much better now as the platform for George Lynch's Kamikaze guitars. Lynch was a Kramer endorsee briefly before he jumped ship to ESP. The story is Lynch found out ESP was ghost-building his Kramer pieces around the time Dokken was departing for their first-ever Japan tour stint. While there, George went directly to the source and he's been there about 30 years now haha.

The saying "they don't make them like they used to" definitely applies to 80s Floyds compared to current production. One of the prime components my "Dorothy's Slippers" strat was built around was a practically NOS black Floyd and its wood screw studs circa '86.

[Dave Scepter]

Great score at an awesome price!.. very underrated guitars~ they remind me of the MIJ Charvels back in the day.. 

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

Thanks for the extra info (Jeff). I read most of it anyway but it's great to get the info confirmed. Very happy with this purchase

[Biz Prof]

3 hours ago, Jeff R said:

HUGE score!

Ditto. Reminds me a lot of Reb Beach's original Kramer Pacer. 

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

More pics (missed these earlier). This is definitely it;

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

So, the guitar arrived yesterday! Of course I stripped it, cleaned it then re-strung it and set it up. Very impressive. Before I get on to the positives, I'll get the minor negatives out of the way; the nut clamping blocks are not original. I will replace them... in fact I will replace the nut as well with a Schaller R3 one as this R2 is a tad narrow. There is no string retainer (OFR one ordered). There are a couple of narrow furrows/divots on the fret-board. These can hardly be seen with the strings on and don't interfere with play but I will fix them as I am going to re-fret with slightly bigger wire. I'll rough up along the grain and fill with rosewood dust and superglue then will sand flat (you won't even know). In fact I'll re-radius the whole board removing hardly anything. The scratch-plate is slightly marked due to having stickers on at some point. I will attack it with wire-wool and 'matte' it all up (it's 'matte' anyway). There are a few dings and small chips (I can steam the dings out without damaging the finish). That's it...

Now to the positives; the guitar is in better shape than the earlier pictures suggest. The electrics all work fine. Now I've stripped and cleaned the Floyd, it's amazing. It just feels SO stable and plays superbly returning to pitch every time. I was a bit of a bind tuning it properly due to having no string retainer bar as the strings didn't sit flush on the nut so I had to guesstimate when tuning before clamping down but I got there. The guitar plays great all over the neck with a 12th fret action of 1.2mm on the high e and 1.4mm on the low E. Guitar is tuned to D standard (down a semi-tone) with 10-46 strings. Though not my favourite pick-up, the SD Invader (a custom shop one) is pretty good and gives me the sounds I like. I might actually prefer to install my new hand-made custom wound Purgatory zebra-bobbined Alnico 2 humbucker (made by Ben Fletcher of Fletcher Pickups UK) as it just rawks but that will depend on whether I'm keeping this guitar or not. It's having a re-fret regardless...

I paid just shy of £145.00 [GBP] for this delivered and that my friends is a stupidly low price for something this rare/collectible and in this condition. I'd imagine I'd get my money back for the Floyd system alone. I'd like to keep this a while tbh but with me, you never know! I have no need for a squillion guitars and can limit myself to 3 (one Floyded) and with 3 (plus an acoustic), I can cover all bases. Anyway, here are some pics pro-setup... 

[FrettyMcgee]

Outstanding deal....on the verge of robbery! That's a throw back price to the mid-90s when Kramers where a amazing pawnshop prize. The early 80s Floyd alone is worth more than what you paid. I really agree with the only real issues on that model being a narrow string spacing and fairly small frets, cuz I'm a Charvel sucker. Easily solved. Other than that, those overseas Kramers were/are a huge bang for the buck.

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

49 minutes ago, FrettyMcgee said:

Outstanding deal....on the verge of robbery! That's a throw back price to the mid-90s when Kramers where a amazing pawnshop prize. The early 80s Floyd alone is worth more than what you paid. I really agree with the only real issues on that model being a narrow string spacing and fairly small frets, cuz I'm a Charvel sucker. Easily solved. Other than that, those overseas Kramers were/are a huge bang for the buck.

Yes I did very well! The frets are 2.7mm wide but under 1mm high with a little wear so I'm re-fretting. I'm going to choose some jumbo high for the re-fret. I used to use Jescar but I changed over to Luthitec (Japan) wire now. It cost's me around $12.50 (delivered) for enough for a whole (24 fret) neck. This stuff is 2.9mm wide x 1.3mm high with a 1.7mm tang (0.6mm wide). I used it on a Fender Jaguar refret recently and it's superb...

[Jeff R]

Before you go pulling that Invader entirely, you may want to just do a quick (and cheap) ceramic to alnico magnet conversion. I pulled my MIK Mockingbird's Duncan (Designed) Distortion clones' bleh ceramics and converted them to an A5 in the bridge and A2 in the neck initially to save money, but my excuse shifted honestly to "it's simply better" when I heard the end result. Shockingly, more more much better and ridiculously affordable.

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

40 minutes ago, Jeff R said:

Before you go pulling that Invader entirely, you may want to just do a quick (and cheap) ceramic to alnico magnet conversion. I pulled my MIK Mockingbird's Duncan (Designed) Distortion clones' bleh ceramics and converted them to an A5 in the bridge and A2 in the neck initially to save money, but my excuse shifted honestly to "it's simply better" when I heard the end result. Shockingly, more more much better and ridiculously affordable.

I could do that! I could also sell the Invader for £60 and put a brand new custom wound pick-up I already have that's hot as a furnace in it's place! I have no guitar for the Purgatory + I'm a sucker for Zebra bobbins. I'll certainly explore changing the magnet in the Invader though, cheers ;)

[Hamer_SS_guy]

I have two of those. One I bought in 1985. It was my 2nd guitar, quite fat neck, my first experience with a Floyd Rose. I dreamed of a Hamer then, as the shop where I bought that Kramer also had a Steve Stevens and a FB II hanging on the wall, both in creme white. They also had a creme white Pacer Deluxe with black hardware and hockeystick headstock. The MIJ Kramers were the only affordable FR guitars for me. Most brands at that time did have their own kind od locking trem but came nowhere near the original double locking concept. That first Focus (I bought the 3000 because it reminded me of a Strat) was quite heavy. I had one of those 80's "No. 1" stretch straps on it which was worn out very fast because of the weight. Once I had my first Hamer (a 1988 Steve Stevens, bought in 1988) the Focus stayed in the case (it came without case, I kept it in an old worn 70's  Fender SKB case). The other Focus 3000 I have I bought in around 2002/03, also for about the same prize as yours. It was my kind of "trash" guitar that I took to open stage sessions (mostly without a case or bag). That one is the newer version with the pointy head. Nowadays, when not playing a Hamer I usually use Fender Strats. I don't use the trem a lot anymore. I still like the Floyd, but would prefer the old non-finetuner version without the locking nut. I still have one of those units (pulled from an 80's Kramer Striker) in the drawer for 20 years, but since I mostly played bass guitar for a long time I haven't thought about it. The Kramer Focus series are nice guitars. I think they're as good as, maybe even better than Gibson-era Kramers. I don't know what kind of wood they used for the bodies on those models.

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

The Focus bodies were generally made of Alder...

[Dave Scepter]

Curse you Vic!.. Now you've got me looking at 80's Kramers again... doubt I'll buy one but nice to reminisce... I had an old Baretta back in the day... really miss that guitar but traded it for a non Floyd Charvel Strathead... 

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

I wasn't even looking for a guitar! I just saw it on one of the Facebook gear pages and I noticed the price. After about 4 milliseconds of google searching, I offered the guy £35 less than he was asking and also got him to throw in free postage!

[Montelovesco]

Looks like the Kramers are pretty en vogue among us... 😂