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HFC member custom Chaparral in my workshop for a re-fret [Video]...


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Guitar is all done, boxed up and ready to ship back to Dave (he will get it tomorrow). Video later (longest video I ever made, 3 hours 30 minutes)...

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1 hour ago, RobB said:

Cripes! Can you post a hilights-reel? 

LOL no. I just stick all the bits together and release it as one long video. No edits, all the crap left in. 47 clips on this one...

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On 8/2/2019 at 7:41 PM, FGJ said:

I'm sorry, I totally mis-typed what I meant. I meant to say that I thought most Hamers have a 14.5 fretboard radius, not scale length. In fact, my comment was so confusing looking back at it, I'm surprised anyone even attempted to respond. Who ever heard of 24.5 radius?

So to go back to what I meant to ask, don't most Hamers have a 14.5" radius, not 12"?

I though ya was bein’ funny :lol:

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Video: 

 

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7 hours ago, Dutchman said:

Didn’t the Chap’s come in both scales? Early ones short scale? 

I have been told (more than once) that they had a 24.75 inch scale length! I have also been told that they also had a 24.5 inch radius 🤣🤣🤣 This one has definitely a 24.5 inch scale length...

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Well either way I'm just glad it's repaired.  in 2013 I'd sent the guitar to a 'big name' UK guitar maker for re-fretting as soon as I received it.  I really like Hamer guitars except for the relatively skinny frets that got fitted as standard on every guitar of theirs I've seen.  As a side story I've owned a Floyd-equipped Sunburst Archtop Custom that I obtained brand new in 1991 and immediately had refretted with Dunlop 6105 wire, it became much nicer to play as far as I was concerned.  in 1993 I sold the Archtop :(and bought a 1987/88 Chaparral standard with a sanded & oil-finished bolt-on neck from a dealer's shop at Denmark Street in London.  Again, rather skinny frets so I had that re-fretted with  Dunlop 6105 wire and for me it transformed the guitar's playability.  When I bought my current chap in 2013 once again I thought the standard fretwire was somewhat skinny so I bought some Jescar EVO gold 57110 wire which is the tallest, widest fretwire Jescar make, equivalent to Dunlop's 6100 size fretwire.  I drove it to the 'big  name maker' in north-west England, along with the fretwire and asked him to re-fret the guitar, thinking it was in safe hands as this maker and his guitars generally had a good reputation in the UK, he had been around since the '70s after all.   When I got the guitar back I was just horrified, incredulous with what he had done to it.  The guitar was just about unplayable.  I felt devastated.  Everywhere on the neck I tried to play a note there was fret buzz, bad fret buzz, on every string and every fret. I could also see he had ground all the frets completely flat, reducing almost 50% of their height. The frets were thicker at their edges than in the middle. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. It was like he'd effectively put a flat radius on the neck by  ignoring the fingerboard radius and grinding the frets flat.  Some of the frets had gone in with the tangs bent.   Because he had so completely butchered it I was too angry and disappointed to even speak to this person and had decided I just wanted no further contact with this cowboy idiot as I felt nothing positive could come from it.   Some years passed and I had not felt much like playing, due various unpleasantnesses e.g. the very sudden death of my wife within 2 months of our silver wedding followed by suicidal depression and the guitar stayed in it's case, in a cupboard.   Jumping to present day, I decided for a lot of reasons it would be good to start playing again and Vic has taken on and succeeded with this repair, having spent WAY more time on it than he has billed me for, for which I'm immensely grateful. Some of it can be seen partly in the photos in this thread and the rest in Vic's video.  I don't see any point or anything to gain in arguing over a possible 1/4" discrepancy in the length of my guitar's neck.  As far as I'm concerned, the previous 'luthier' who laid hands on my lovely Hamer guitar trashed the fingerboard almost beyond saving and it has taken many, many  hours of Vic's conscientious and careful work to repair it.  I don't give a flying stuff whether the guitar has a 24.5" neck or a 24.75" neck, because I'm just going to enjoy playing it, which is all any of us really want from our guitars, is it not?  We've all bought Hamers because they are so well made.  Before my Sunburst I'd owned a Strat, 2 different ES 335s, a '70's LP Custom, an '80s Yamaha SG-2000, a Godin Artisan ST-1 and none of them had the quite same qualities and general superb-ness as a Hamer, maybe my late '80s ES335 'Cherry Dot' came very close.  Anyway I just want to say a huge thank-you to Vic for all his hard workand that I think there's no mileage in nit-picking over a quarter of an inch, life's too short. Thanks for everything Vic.

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9 hours ago, cynic said:

Just for fun I'm going to take a few more whacks at the scale length horse.

Roundabouts 3:27:00 you say it's 24.5" but then promptly contradict yourself saying it's 628mm, otherwise known as standard Gibson scale, or 24.75".

I measured it at anything between 620mm and 628mm. For one last freaking time, this guitars scale length is 24.5 inches. How do I know that for certain? The 24.75 inch notched straight edge I have been using for 6 years does not fit the neck. The 24.5 inch notched straight edge I have owned for 6 years DOES fit the neck! What more do you want? Amazed that me, the guy who had had the guitar in my workshop this past month does not know how to measure a scale length on a guitar! I do this for a living. Further more, we all know it can sometimes be difficult to measure a correct scale length on a Floyd equipped guitar due to the saddle on the low E being set much further away than the other saddles (to get the intonation right). FFS...

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1 hour ago, Mr. Dave said:

Well either way I'm just glad it's repaired.  in 2013 I'd sent the guitar to a 'big name' UK guitar maker for re-fretting as soon as I received it.  I really like Hamer guitars except for the relatively skinny frets that got fitted as standard on every guitar of theirs I've seen.  As a side story I've owned a Floyd-equipped Sunburst Archtop Custom that I obtained brand new in 1991 and immediately had refretted with Dunlop 6105 wire, it became much nicer to play as far as I was concerned.  in 1993 I sold the Archtop :(and bought a 1987/88 Chaparral standard with a sanded & oil-finished bolt-on neck from a dealer's shop at Denmark Street in London.  Again, rather skinny frets so I had that re-fretted with  Dunlop 6105 wire and for me it transformed the guitar's playability.  When I bought my current chap in 2013 once again I thought the standard fretwire was somewhat skinny so I bought some Jescar EVO gold 57110 wire which is the tallest, widest fretwire Jescar make, equivalent to Dunlop's 6100 size fretwire.  I drove it to the 'big  name maker' in north-west England, along with the fretwire and asked him to re-fret the guitar, thinking it was in safe hands as this maker and his guitars generally had a good reputation in the UK, he had been around since the '70s after all.   When I got the guitar back I was just horrified, incredulous with what he had done to it.  The guitar was just about unplayable.  I felt devastated.  Everywhere on the neck I tried to play a note there was fret buzz, bad fret buzz, on every string and every fret. I could also see he had ground all the frets completely flat, reducing almost 50% of their height. The frets were thicker at their edges than in the middle. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. It was like he'd effectively put a flat radius on the neck by  ignoring the fingerboard radius and grinding the frets flat.  Some of the frets had gone in with the tangs bent.   Because he had so completely butchered it I was too angry and disappointed to even speak to this person and had decided I just wanted no further contact with this cowboy idiot as I felt nothing positive could come from it.   Some years passed and I had not felt much like playing, due various unpleasantnesses e.g. the very sudden death of my wife within 2 months of our silver wedding followed by suicidal depression and the guitar stayed in it's case, in a cupboard.   Jumping to present day, I decided for a lot of reasons it would be good to start playing again and Vic has taken on and succeeded with this repair, having spent WAY more time on it than he has billed me for, for which I'm immensely grateful. Some of it can be seen partly in the photos in this thread and the rest in Vic's video.  I don't see any point or anything to gain in arguing over a possible 1/4" discrepancy in the length of my guitar's neck.  As far as I'm concerned, the previous 'luthier' who laid hands on my lovely Hamer guitar trashed the fingerboard almost beyond saving and it has taken many, many  hours of Vic's conscientious and careful work to repair it.  I don't give a flying stuff whether the guitar has a 24.5" neck or a 24.75" neck, because I'm just going to enjoy playing it, which is all any of us really want from our guitars, is it not?  We've all bought Hamers because they are so well made.  Before my Sunburst I'd owned a Strat, 2 different ES 335s, a '70's LP Custom, an '80s Yamaha SG-2000, a Godin Artisan ST-1 and none of them had the quite same qualities and general superb-ness as a Hamer, maybe my late '80s ES335 'Cherry Dot' came very close.  Anyway I just want to say a huge thank-you to Vic for all his hard workand that I think there's no mileage in nit-picking over a quarter of an inch, life's too short. Thanks for everything Vic.

You shouldn't thank me for anything until you have it back!

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9 hours ago, Dutchman said:

Didn’t the Chap’s come in both scales? Early ones short scale? 

AFAIK the earlier set-neck models haver shorter scales and the later bolt-on neck models are 25.5"

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

I measured it at anything between 620mm and 628mm. For one last freaking time, this guitars scale length is 24.5 inches. How do I know that for certain? The 24.75 inch notched straight edge I have been using for 6 years does not fit the neck. The 24.5 inch notched straight edge I have owned for 6 years DOES fit the neck! What more do you want? Amazed that me, the guy who had had the guitar in my workshop this past month does not know how to measure a scale length on a guitar! I do this for a living. Further more, we all know it can sometimes be difficult to measure a correct scale length on a Floyd equipped guitar due to the saddle on the low E being set much further away than the other saddles (to get the intonation right). FFS...

OK, lemme get this straight: So, you’re saying that it’s NOT 24-3/4” scale?  Don’t the Brits measure in metric inches?

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The UK pre-metric weights & measures were called 'Imperial' full name British Imperial Measurements e.g. Yards, Feet, Inches, Gallons, Quarts, Pints, Gills (1/2 pints) etc. and the liquid measurements are different, i.e, an American Gallon is a different volume of liquid to an Imperial gallon. There are 562ml in an inperial pint, I should know I've certainly drank enough of them. More  at the link below if you really give a FF. The measurements of distance are just the same

https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/articles/units/us-gallons-imperial-gallons.php

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27 minutes ago, RobB said:

Thanks, Mr. Dave. Fully aware of metric vs.  imperial, even though being a victim of the American public school system. 

Guess i shoulda put a winky face after my last post for emphasis. 

No bother, I wasn't taking the hump, (that's brit for being a bit annoyed btw has nothing to do with taking anything else anywhere else) I actually find it mildly interesting that our miles, yards feet & inches are just the same but our gallons quarts etc. aren't.  Just wondering why someone thought our inches etc. were good enough but our gallons weren't.  And if you went to 'Public School' in the UK you'd be going to places like Eton, Harrow, Hogwarts etc and rubbing shoulders with the upper classes, or the 'Hoi Polloi' as they're sometimes called, the toffs, the elite, the stinking bloody rich! all the future politicians, perverts, etc.  Here, our schools for the ordinary plebs such as thee and me are called 'State Schools'  fascinating isn't it? ;O) we have 3 different kinds of twilight before night-time too, there's Civil, then Nautical (or Maritime) and Astronomical. Only then does Her Majesty allow it to be 'dark' 

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7 hours ago, DBraz said:

I’m glad that awesome 24.75” scale length Chaparral I sold years ago met an owner that cares.  I’m very sorry to hear of the horrible few years you’ve had Dave and hope the guitar, in some way, provides some solace.

Thanks. It's why I decided to get the damage done by 'the nameless nob'  repaired properly and get back to playing again.  I might even be the first ever person to have a re-refret done!

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22 hours ago, DBraz said:

I’m glad that awesome 24.75” scale length Chaparral I sold years ago met an owner that cares.  I’m very sorry to hear of the horrible few years you’ve had Dave and hope the guitar, in some way, provides some solace.

Hard to tell whether you are joking, serious or just taking the piss!

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