Masterbuilders

Throughout the years we have been graced with a pheonomenal assortment of highly skilled luthiers, spanning Hamer’s various eras and guitar styles.  This didn’t happen by chance.  We sought out the best and most talented individuals and then began a relentless undertaking of cultivating them with Hamer’s spirit and luthiery techniques.

The result is that over our 30+ year history we have been able to instill an unsurpassed commitment to quality in our team to build the Ultimate guitars.  These are the people who create our guitars; these are our Masterbuilders.  Execution at this level of luthiery is no easy task. Very few can do it.

Many question which era of Hamers were the best.  Much hinges on the style of guitar you are drawn to.  Regarding build quality, we feel that we are at our pinnacle.  However, we would have said the same thing in the past and probably will do so in the future.  That’s because we are never satisfied; we always want to improve.  At any point in time our guitars are generally the best that they have ever been.

This Watson may be from another era but it was definitely created today. The neck cavitiy is chiseled open for a seamless neck joint.  Add a blended heel to the equation and you have unsurpassed access at the highest frets.

Speaking of frets, we’ve reviewed sanding of  both our woods and finishes, we’d like now to review how we sand, or level, our frets.  The process is not unlike sanding wood or a finish in that we use progressively finer grits.

The first step in a Hamer fret job is to straighten the neck. We then take a custom built aluminum honing block with 220 grit cloth and just touch the frets to determine whether they are all level.  Then, starting at the nut, we lightly sand the frets with the 220 cloth on the honing block so that each fret is ever so slightly lower than the fret before it.

Using a diamond 320 crowning file we then remove any flat spots on the crown of the bead.

We then go over the frets with a jitterbug sander using 240MX paper.

 Next, we hand sand with 800 grit paper.

This is followed by another hand sanding, this time with 1000 grit sandpaper, a very fine grit with which to sand metal.

Finally, we polish the frets with 0000 steel wool.

There’s a very high skill level required to effect this process.  The trick is to take off only the bare minimum of fret material with each progressive sanding.  This is how our luthiers create the silky feel that is a Hamer fret job.  

Finally the neck and the body are bonded together.  

This is luthiery.

This is masterbuilding.

Black Beauty

Our earlier post on this guitar detailed the woodworking that went into this beauty.  Jason Dumont is now taking this Standard through its final stages of sanding, buffing, assembly, wiring and set up.

We use random orbital sanders to sand, or level, the top and back.

We hand block the sides

and the peghead face.

Black is one of the most difficult colors to buff.  Every scratch shows with black so attaining a high gloss finish is vital. Having a hard rock maple top on this Standard provides a solid base for the finish and results in a flatter finish that will sink less over time.  With the hard rock maple top and lack of a sound chamber this guitar has some heft.

Like many at Hamer, Jason has a keen interest in guitars.  We welcome our luthiers building their own guitars as well.  There aren’t many jobs out there where you want to do the same thing at home that you do at work.  Such immersion is testament to the passion that our people have for guitar.

In Jason’s case, his  interest led him in a bit of a different direction, building lap steel guitars.  What started out as a project has become a top lap steel guitar line, Lap King.  Check out Jason’s website to see more: www.lapking.com

As always, the electronics cavity is shielded and hand wired.

Jason installs the gold covered Jason Lollar Standard Imperial pickups called for on this guitar.

By tightening the machine head bushings by hand we are sure never to overtighten, which can cause finish imperfections.

The four ply .020″ binding, such as we use on the Improv, sets off the peghead.

This Standard is fitted with a black pickguard and lots of gold hardware.

The four ply binding extends around the fingerboard as well.  The genuine mother of pearl crown inlays look right on this Standard, providing a vivid contrast with the jet black ebony fingerboard.

Here Jason is hand cutting the nut for the string slots.

While we do measure for the string action, we also extensively play test every guitar.

This guitar actually sounds…

better than it looks.

That says alot

about this Black Beauty.

Standard of a Different Color

We have a procedure that we like to follow with custom colors.  It’s somewhat cumbersome but keeps us aligned with what the customer is looking for.  We send out color samples sprayed on 4″ x 6″ blocks of wood – using the actual material that the guitar will be built from (for instance, a mahogany back and a figured maple top or a solid block of Korina).  In this manner the customer sees what the finish will look like in a way that a photo cannot depict.

We didn’t follow our own procedure on this guitar.

It’s hard to admit, but as a result we got the finish wrong.  Luckily, the customer saw the earlier post on this guitar and asked if we could change the color to be a green to yellow sunburst, not green to green as it had been sprayed.  Naturally we obliged.  It delayed completion of the guitar but we’ll have a much happier customer.

The end result speaks for itself.

The Brazilian rosewood peghead face looks great once it’s buffed out and has its machine heads installed.

Hand wiring the electronics.

Our shielded electronics cavity.

So that we can effect a proper ground, we sand off the anodization on a corner of the backplate.

Once the anodization is removed, the metal backplate will make contact with the lip of the shielding paint that is sprayed just over the electronics cavity.

Todd’s shirt says it all.

Some shots of this completed Standard… 

finished in a different color.

We aim to please.

Our aim is true.

Satisfaction Guaranteed

We’re back from vacation and the finish on this lefty has cured sufficiently.  We let all of our guitars air dry for a minimum of two weeks prior to sanding and buffing them.

Here’s a backstage tour of Todd Gencarella completing the guitar.  Enjoy!

Earlier posts showed off the woodworking and finishing involved with this lefty.  The customization continues with the component parts and electronics fitted to this guitar.

The machine heads are locking Sperzel. 

The pickups are a Duncan ’59 at the neck and a Duncan Custom at the bridge.

It comes together nicely.

There was some back and forth on settling the electronics.  This Studio Custom is fitted with a master volume, three way toggle switch and master tone control.

We moved the master volume control closer to the lead pickup for ease of volume swells. The location of the selector switch necessitated the use of of a short Lev-R switch like on a Talladega rather than the larger one normally found on a Studio.

Both the volume and tone controls have push/pull potentiometers.  This set up allows for three distinct settings:

1)  Both pots pushed down: Normal humbucking mode with 3-way switch activating either or both pickups.

2) Volume pot up, tone pot down with the 3-way in the neck position: Neck coil of the rhythm pickup only.

3) Volume pot down, tone pot up 3-way in the middle position: Inside coils of both pickups

We tape off parts of the guitar during the assembly and stringing process to minimize the possibilty of scratches to the instrument.

We even tape the peghead.

There’s a southpaw out there who is going to get some satisfaction from this guitar.

That’s guaranteed.

Anticipation…

Here’s the bretheren spirit of the Artist Custom Tiger Eye that we just posted.  This lefty Studio Custom has been sprayed and leveled twice.  It now will dry, get its third level, go through buffing, be assembled and finally be set up.

We’ll start the third level after we return from our vacation shutdown on August 6th.

We hope that these shots will stabilize the future owner until we can complete this gem.

Tiger Eye Beauty

We thought that you would like to see this Artist as it makes its way to life.  Like with all Hamers, we hand sand the finish.  It often surprises people how often we level, or sand, our finishes. 

To achieve the depth of a Hamer finish, we level our guitars three times during the finishing process.  We start by leveling the guitar after the first four coats of clear lacquer have been sprayed.  We use 320 grit sandpaper for this leveling.  We then spray three more coats of clear and level a second time, using 400 grit sandpaper. After the last three coats of finish have been sprayed there is a final leveling.  On the final level we start with 800 grit paper and then progress through 1200, 1500 and 1800 grit. In sanding with progressively finer paper, we retain an extremely flat finish and only have to perform a minimum amount of buffing to bring out the luster in the guitar. 

We think that the results speak for themselves.  After leveling and buffing, the guitar is ready to be fitted with its component parts.

Keeping our workbenches clean and well organized enhances accuracy and minimizes the chance that a guitar will be damaged during assembly.

We still hand wire all Hamers.

The proper tools are at the ready. 

Another beauty is born. 

Watsons Are Forever

Hamer started working with Jeff Watson in 1984.  Jeff’s first Hamers were Vectors.  Collaborating with Jeff, we soon thereafter introduced the Watson V,  a sleek instrument with beveled wings coming to sharp points.  The Watson Vs featured the 24 3/4″ (medium) scale length found on most Hamers at the time.

We built a a number of variations on the theme, including Watson V Doublenecks.  We inlaid the fingerboards with Boomerangs.  We installed LED lights in the fingerboards.  We built in Nady wireless systems. It was the ’80s. Night Ranger was touring the globe, treating us to their big power ballad sound.

Ii wasn’t until 1988 that Jeff asked for an adaptation of our Sunburst Carved Top guitar (later re-named the Studio Custom).  The changes to the Carved Top were numerous.  The scale length drove many of these changes. Jeff asked for a 25 1/2″ scale but he also wanted 27 frets. The extended fingerboard created the need for a deepened treble cutaway.  Jeff’s guitars generally featured crown inlays and a blended heel at the neck joint.  PJ Marx were his pickups of choice at the time.

The ’80s have come and gone.  Though we have not catalogued it for years, the Jeff Watson model just doesn’t go away.  We recently received an order for a Watson model.  We welcomed the order; they’re awesome guitars.

We started by sending the customer photos of a seven different flame maple billets to choose from.

He chose billet “F”.  Here’s Tom Maule bookmatching the chosen figured maple top. 

Tom then bonds the bookmatched top to a one piece Honduran mahogany back.  The body is shaped and mounted to a second piece of mahogany that serves as a template.  The template sits on a pin that extends from the underside of the router bed.  This allows us to locate and execute the various routes.

Now the routing process starts.

We route out the neck pocket, the single coil pickup and the humbucker from the face of the guitar.

We then route out the cavity for the rear mounted electronics.

This Watson is being bound with a single ply of Ivoroid binding.

We use a heat gun to render the celluloid binding more pliable.

This pliability is especially important when binding the tight radiuses in the cutaways.

The binding is bonded into the channel using a 3M adhesive  specially developed to adhere to both wood and the celluloid material. 

Once the body is bound, we begin carving the top.  Like the Artist Ultimate, the Watson too is hand carved.  We start with a hand held grinder and move on to scrapers and sandpaper.

Here’s another view of the rough carving process.  You can see how we first sketch out the rough shape of the carve in pencil.

It’s time to change gears and do some work on that beautiful piece of jet black African ebony that will become the long scale 27 fret fingerboard.  The customer asked for dots rather than crowns on this guitar so the ebony will really be featured.

We had completed the basic neck some days earlier.

The ebony fingerboard is matched to an ebony peghead overlay.  The Hamer logo is inlaid into the ebony overlay.

Inlaying the mother of pearl Hamer logo, letter by letter, is always fun.

We’ve made some real progress on this Watson.  We’ll be sure to update you as it moves further along.

Come Together…The Two Ultimate Parts Become One

We last brought you through the completion of the neck for Artist Ultimate #66 but still had much work to do on the body.  As with the neck, we use a nylon filler strip when binding the body.  We later remove the nylon strip, leaving a channel in which we set the mother of pearl purfling.

We use precision dentistry tools when inlaying the pearl.

Each piece of pearl is snugly fit against another.

We have six different sizes of pearl, each cut to a specific radius for different parts of the body.  We then custom cut those pieces to adjust for each individual body.  Fitting the pearl around the horns is a painstaking procedure.  

We are careful to retain the top “dish” when hand sanding the pearl to the figured maple top.

We hand sand to accentuate the peaks on the horns.

The sides too are hand sanded to be flush with body binding. 

The figure on this top is dramatic. 

We can’t overemphasize the amount of detail work that goes into an Artist Ultimate.

Most builders utilize plastic side position markers.  Hamer side dots are made from black mother of pearl.

The fossilized ivory nut is fit in anticipation of the neck being bonded to the body.

The matched pair is ready to be bonded together.

Our massive neck tenon supports the entire fingerboard while insuring unparalleled sound transmission between the body and the neck.

After the neck is set, we route the tenon to the floor of the neck pickup route.

The neck and the body are now one and ready for spray.

Each step we take brings the guitar closer to life.

What’s in a Name: Artist Ultimate

Be it a custom instrument or a catalogued model, Hamer only builds guitars to order. Often, Hamer orders are custom in nature but just as often they are not. The Artist Ultimate falls somewhere in between.  It is at once a stock model while at the same time one of the most difficult and complex Hamer guitars to build.

Shortly after relocating to New Hartford, Connecticut we decided to pull out all of the stops and introduce the Artist Ultimate. The first Ultimate was completed on September 16, 1997 and was finished in Cherry Transparent.  The second was completed three days later and sprayed in Cognac, which has become the signature color for the Artist Ultimate. The third prototype of this model, again in a Cognac finish, was completed on January 23, 1998.

On April 7, 1998, we instituted a consecutive serial numbering system for the Artist Ultimates. The guitar that we are featuring today is #66 in the Artist Ultimate numbering system.

All Artist Ultimates feature an Ultimate, or AAAA, figured maple top.  The customer for this guitar requested quilted maple.  The first step is to select an Ultimate grade billet, bookmatch it and lay a template over it to insure that there will be high quality figure throughout the top.

We carve the underside of the guitar top to the same arch as we will later carve the top of the guitar itself.  This results in a constant f-hole thickness dimension.

The f-hole is now ready for binding.

The f-hole is hand bound prior to bonding the figured maple top to the mahogany back.

After it’s bound, we hand sand the undercarve, removing any mill marks and bringing the binding flush to the underside of the guitar top.

Because we inlay mother of pearl purfling around the fingerboard, we have to hand route fret slots through the pearl itself.

This is what the pearl purfling looks like prior to fretting.

After fretting the fingerboard we will fit the celluloid binding to the neck.  By following this process we do not need to notch the frets, which results in a better mechanical grip.  What this translates into for the player is uniformly seated frets with very little crowning, or filing, to the frets.

We match the miter joints of the pearl with those of the celluloid binding.

In the peghead area we inlay a small ebony truss rod spline to match the ebony peghead overlay, just one more of the many details that we care about at Hamer.

The neck is going to sit and stabilize while we continue work on the body. On an Artist Ultimate we hand carve the entire top.  We’ll show you some of those steps in a future post.

Kal David: The Blue Guitar

This week our good friend and blues guitarist extraordinaire Kal David was playing a sold out show at Infinity Hall in Norfolk, Connecticut.  Infinity is owned by a close friend of ours and is the premier area venue.

A few days later Kal paid a visit to the shop. Like Hamer Guitars, Kal originally hails from Chicago, though he’s from the South Side, home of Chicago blues.  Kal grew up playing the blues and hasn’t turned back.

General Manager Frank Untermyer, another Chicago native, greets Kal.

Kal graciously agreed to play a set for the crew.  Our own Kim Keller and Allen Richardson accompanied Kal, backing him up on classics like Thrill is Gone and Johnny B Goode.

In addition to his long solo career, among many other gigs Kal played with the Illinois Speed Press.  He later joined John Mayall and the Blues Breakers, picking up where Mick Taylor left off.

Many Hamer afficianados know Kim Keller, if not face to face then over the phone or through e-mail.  Kim has been the Hamer Customer Service Manager since 1996, ushering through repairs large and small and giving our customers the time and respect that they deserve. Kim has also been integral to the various open houses that we have sponsored.  Kim continues to play his laser pearl CruiseBass.

Perhaps less known to Hamer players is Allen Richardson, who started in 2000, working in our mill area. Allen even surprised some of our own team with his drumming skills. He’s been playing since 1974, with his first kit being a 1960 Gretsch 4-piece in black pearl. We thought that he’d feel right at home behind this newer piano black Gretsch U.S.A. custom set.

Al has studied with jazz drum greats such as Thierry Arpino (Jean Luc Ponty, Daniel Mille and many others).  Locally, he played with Apricot Brandy and Whisky River.

Seeking a more inspiring environment, and no doubt tiring of Chicago winters, Kal relocated to Palm Springs California, where he continues to reside with his long time partner Lauri Bono.  You can check out Lauri’s bluesy voice on songs like Another Blue Monday and Shadow Across The Land, which she co-wrote with Kal.

A surprise guest was Bill Kaman, former president of Kaman Music Corp. It was under Bill’s leadership that Hamer Guitars was acquired by KMC in 1988. Here, Bill is standing in with an Adamas guitar.

Kal is a long time Firebird fan. In 1996, when we set out to build Kal his first Hamer, he was looking for a T-51.  He asked us if we could add a Duncan Firebird pickup in the neck position. Naturally, we obliged.

Here’s a closer look.

This T-51 has a gorgeous, and well played, bird’s-eye maple neck.

Kal’s a soulful individual who brings joy to those who he touches. We know that our crew experienced that joy when he touched them with his music.  It’s performances like these that keep us in touch with our musical roots.