Hamer Guitars: Amazing Custom Guitar Designs by Jol Dantzig. Handmade Guitars

Wednesday Workshop Custom 12 String Bass

As the mornings get darker and the air gets chillier, we find the guys engrossed in their work. Dave is putting the string nut blank on the twelve-string bass that we saw earlier.

We use a black material that we call Lubritrak. It's a tough, slippery material that allows the strings to glide smoothly through the slots. We pioneered the idea of a self-lubricating nut with the introduction of this material in the early 1980s. It works great for tremolo guitars too.

After he bonds it down, Dave will file the nut blank to the proper width, height and shape. The next step is to stamp the serial number into the back of the headstock with a press. Dave gets the next available number from the book and loads the press with the stamping dies.

As Dave pulls the lever down firmly, the dies press the number into the wood. In this case, it's a maple neck. The second line will be the letters U. S. A. because that's what we're all about. 

The bass is now well on its way, but some of you are probably wondering what this twelve-string bass business is all about.

Thirty Two years ago, bassist Tom Peterson threw in the towel trying to get his Hagstrom 8-string bass to function properly. Cheaply made, with only four bridge saddle for eight strings and a thin, flexible neck, it just wasn't cutting it for Tom. When he approached us, first to improve the Hagstrom, then to build a replacement—we thought it was a fine idea. When things escalated to twelve strings, we had our doubts. 

Tom's idea was to create an instrument based upon the ancient Tiple—a guitar-like instrument with four courses of three strings each. Each course, or group, would have a standard bass string as the root and two more strings tuned in unison one octave higher. Tom's band, Cheap Trick was basically a trio with a singer, and the big sound he anticipated would be perfect to fill things up and act as a de-facto rhythm guitar as well as a bass.

The Tiple made its way here from Spain by way of Columbia as early as the sixteenth century. Tiples were made by many builders in the US such as Martin (pictured above) and Regal, in the early part of the last century. To be honest, we thought that the force of twelve strings on a bass would compromise the neck. We negotiated Tom down to Ten strings for the first whack at it. The plan was to triple the top two courses and use the standard eight-string, double configuration for the lower two courses.

Thus, in 1977, the first Hamer multi-string bass was developed and built. It wasn't as easy as just going out and buying the parts—they had to be made. I designed a bridge and tailpiece based upon the Thunderbird hardware, but with eight individual saddles so that Tom could intonate the octave strings separately from the low ones. I found a guy with a small machine shop to help make it, and then drove it over to the chrome plater down the road. These are still the guys who make them today! The bridge was a major improvement over original eight string. Incidentally, we constructed an eight-string electric mandocello for Rick Nielsen at the same time, and here's a photo of the two instruments together at the time of completion.

Tom took that first ten-string on the road, and when it stood up to the rigors of touring, it was time to make the world's first twelve-string bass. But that wouldn't even be enough for Tom, but that's a story for another time.

Greg V Talladega Video Clip

One of the driving forces behind the development of the Talladega was friendship with and admiration of Greg V. The original concept (which became the Talladega Pro) got sidelined as I took the project into different territory to suit Greg's playing style. Here, he demonstrates a fraction of what that guitar is capable of.

Greg and I have talked about doing some additional clips to demo the Tally, let's hope we can get to that soon. In the meantime, enjoy the atmospherics!

Hamer Monaco Graces Keb' Mo' CD Cover

Regular readers of this blog will recall Keb' Mo's visit to the workshop. He'd already been a convert to Hamer, having comissioned a pair of Monacos after his first taste of a Korina Newport.

 

Originally outfitted with Lollar P90s, Keb found the noise level a little too much for his taste so he upgraded the guitar with a set of hum-cancelling Duncans. It didn't take long for "Big Red" to become his main stage and recording guitar.

To our delight we discovered that Keb' has a new CD out featuring some live tracks as well as new studio material. We're certainly flattered to see "Big Red" on the album cover too!

 

Thanks buddy, we're proud to be a part of your team. 

Nite Bob. The Legend Speaks

During the making of our workshop video, Mike Brady's video crew tracked down numerous industry folks to provide historical perspective to the story. In this clip, Nite Bob talks a little about the first days of Hamer from the view of a working pro engineer, producer and house sound mixer. His experience on the road, in the studio and as a salesman on 48th Street in New York also lend much to his perspective.
Be sure to pause the audio player in the right hand column first. Enjoy!

DuoTone on stage with Tom Dumont and Jol Dantzig

Hybrid guitars have been in the spotlight lately, with so many new versions from builders large and small. The simple truth is that our DuoTone, a workable electric-acoustic hybrid, has been available to serious performers since 1991. As usual, we were so ahead of the curve that most folks don't even realize we were there long ago. The DuoTone has been featured in the performances of Tommy Shaw, Dweezil Zappa, Ty Tabor, Chris Cornell, Jeff Tweedy, Stone Gossard, Elvis Costello, Freedy Johnston and dozens more.

In this episode, No Doubt guitarist Tom Dumont shows me how he's applied the discreet stereo outputs to the No Doubt stage show on this year's big tour.

Jan Akkerman Guitar Trivia for Friday

I got an email from my friend Hank, directing me to a YouTube clip of a live performance of Focus doing their "signature" tune  "Hocus Pocus". This brought back some strong memories, for the guitar Jan played in the clip had passed through our shop back in the day. 

Jan brought it to us as a Les Paul "Professional" model with the walnut stain finish and big ugly low impedance pickups. Our job was to put a maple top on it and rout it for standard humbuckings and a four control set up; which we did. The woodwork and finishing was performed by John Montgomery in our basement workshop, and I finished it up with the assembly and wiring. I had almost forgotten about Jan and his famous hybrid guitar, but remembered something else when prodded by Hank's email today.

Here's  my photo of Jan, Backstage at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom, sampling one of our first guitars—a maple-topped sunburst-color flying V. This had to be around 1973-74. I wonder where that guitar is today? 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Transparent White DuoTone Custom Guitar

If you've been following Tom Dumont's blog, you know that we've built two new guitars for the No Doubt tour that is underway now. The third guitar is a refinish job on one of Tom's DuoTones. Because the tint is translucent, it was a little tricky to get the white to balance out between the spruce top (which is quite bright) and the mahogany back (which is dark) but Gary got it just right.

The DuoTone was originally conceived in 1991, which makes it one of the first workable "hybrid" guitars. The idea came to me in a dream... sort of. Styx/Damn Yankees guitarist Tommy Shaw had asked me to design and build a doubleneck that was half acoustic and half electric. It was the age of the "power ballad" and Tommy wanted to begin a song with an acoustic and then switch to electric part way through. 

I was working on an altogether different project for Ovation at the time—a solidbody acoustic guitar code-named Viper. I'd had really good success with a kynar sensor imbedded in a spruce topped and chambered body prototype. Rob Turner at EMG and I had developed the electronics and eq needed to produce a really great flat-top sound, but didn't make the connection as I worked on both projects.

Then it hit me in the middle of the night! I literally sat up in bed and realized that if I put a discrete magnetic pickup system on the Viper, Tommy could just flip a switch instead of having two necks. That day I called Tommy and asked him if he liked the idea, and he agreed. I set about adapting the concept (which included my "cantilever bridge" idea) to a Hamer double cutaway. We built the first prototype immediately, and sent it out to Tommy. The rest is history—the DuoTone was born, and adapted by a whole bunch of artists including Ty Tabor, Stone Gossard, Chris Cornell, Mike Keneally, Dwezil Zappa, Jeff Tweedy, Elvis Costello and of course, Tom Dumont.

Thanks to my good friend Tommy Shaw for allowing me to dream big, and good luck on tour to Tom Dumont.

1980s Flashback Invades Workshop

Sometimes you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. Ok, so maybe that's not exactly what this story is about, but it's a lesson learned just the same. 

Recently, Kim, our customer service manager walked up to my desk holding a new prized possession—in the shape of a beer label. It was a 1980s vintage Hamer "Miller" guitar. When I saw it I started to laugh, but not for the reason you might suspect.

The Ragin' Cajun, Darren Wallace, throws down some T-Bone on the "High Life"

Back in the crazy 1980s Hamer supplied Miller Brewing with a series of special Miller-branded guitars. These instruments were intended for use by bands in the brewer's national live-music promotional campaign. To tell the truth, I thought it degraded the image of our shop, but when it came time to design the guitars I did my damnedest to make them as cool as I could. I took the classic beer bottle label and logo and distorted it into a usable guitar shape—a sort of Gumbyesque double cutaway. The figured maple top was tinted a deep cherry red to emulate the brand's logo without giving up some of the Hamer mojo that a solid color would obscure. The Miller logo was big and bold and I liked the phrase "high life" so we kept that on as well. Finally, the rest of the guitar was bathed in a metallic gold color, which was not only replicated the look of the beer can, but was a traditional electric guitar color too. The rest of the axe was pretty much stock Hamer fare, with two of our original Peter Green/Gary Moore spec. humbucker pickups and the classic Hamer sustain block bridge. Given the parameters of the exercise, I felt I'd done a good job. We made a couple dozen of them, and then it was over. Good riddance, I thought. Still, over the years people always asked about them, and reluctantly we acknowledged their existence. How embarrassing.

I'd pretty much forgotten about the whole deal by the late 1990s when I came face to face with irony in its most glorious and humbling incarnation. My friend Jon Tiven invited me to tag along to a sound-check at a Manhattan club one Friday afternoon, but I had no idea what I was stepping into at the time. Jon knew that I was a huge Fleetwood Mac fan, and an even bigger Peter Green fan, so as we ducked into the darkened club my eyes barely had time to adjust before Jon was introducing to Mr. Tone himself. We were at one of the few American appearances of "Peter Green's Splinter Group." As Jon made the introductions, Green seemed gracious but somewhat distracted, as though he'd rather be tuning up. That was, until, he heard the word Hamer. 

"Nigel!" Green shouted emphatically towards the stage where his band-mate Nigel Watson was standing. Now I thought he was ignoring me completely. 

"Nigel" he shouted again, The Miller Guitar! He's the man who made the Miller guitar," Now, the man was beaming and pointing at me. Suddenly I had everyone's attention, and handshakes were had all the way around. Yes, it's true, Peter Green had, and loved a Hamer Miller Guitar—I could hardly believe the surreal moment. We chatted for a while about instruments and blues and... beer. Then it was time for the sound check, and as Green walked away I began to chuckle. When my chuckle turned into hysterical laughter, some people near me looked at me as though I were going mad. The weight of the irony was full upon me, and I was enjoying the lesson—everything matters. It's something I remember every time I contemplate a new guitar. 

Approach each task as if it were the one that will define you.

Reunited and reconciled. By the way, this guitar sounds incredible.

Talladega Pro Wins Hamer's8th Editors' Pick Award in a Row

The headline says it all. The guys in the shop are doing exactly what they do best and the acclaim from the reviewers is pouring in. Today they are celebrating yet another Guitar Player magazine Editors' Pick award—our eighth in a row!  GP has reviewed eight of our guitars since 1999, and every one has recieved this award, quite a feat. That's what happens when great design meets flawless execution.

L to R: Mike, Enrico, Dave, Tom, Todd, Mark, Collin, Gary, Mike D. and Jamie.

Congratulations to the Hamer crew, world champions and the best builders in the business!

Hamer Guitar Workshop Featured in Premier Guitar Magazine

We've worked hard to create great products that bring joy and satisfaction to our clients. Our efforts are acknowledged worldwide by collectors and fans, artists and our peers in the industry. Today is a good day for the guys in the shop as their latest work, the Talladega Pro is featured on the cover of the October issue of Premier Guitar magazine.

 Click here to read the entire article

Raising Hell in the Workshop

As our last post indicated, you never know when you'll run into old friends. That was the case again last week when a couple of ours burst back into the frame. A flight case arrived via FedX along with an urgent phone call telling us that Rick Nielsen's "Gonna Raise Hell" guitar needed some emergency work.

Here, Todd "The God" Gencarella whips the covers off in order to begin his inspection. Apparently the guitar wasn't staying in tune, and was buzzing mightily as well. Everyting pointed to a locking-nut problem, but Todd still went over every inch before making any repairs.

This guitar, constructed in 1982, has been used nightly to perform the Cheap Trick song of the same name. CT does a couple hundred gigs per year, so after twenty-six years, this guitar has seen its share of abuse. Being locked in trucks, cars and aircraft cargo holds in all sorts of weather takes a toll too. The nitro finish is dried and cracked to the point where it is flaking off, especially at the headstock. The Hamer logo has all but disappeared. As it turned out, the screws holding down the nut had worn themselves permanently loose and the ensuing movements had ground the nut lower and lower until the high strings dropped down onto the frets.

Mike plugged the original holes and drilled new ones while Todd fabricated a new nut platform shim. After reassembly, we put the old girl through some steep dives and blackout-level pull-ups—everything checked out.

As the FedX truck pulled away with our oversize priority package (insured for five-figures) we pondered the idea of creating a "modern" replacement. It may be time to raise a little more hell for old time's sake.

More Glenn Tipton Guitar Progress

A lot has happened with Glenn's guitar in the last few weeks, so we'll try to catch up. We decided to keep the traditional "GT" headstock on this model, and because Glenn wanted bevels on the body we thought that the headstock should echo that too.

After Mike sketched the first draft, I put a logo overlay on the headstock to see how the whole thing would look. When we saw the overall effect, I thought that the bevel was too large. It really dominated the headstock as opposed to being a flourish like the ones on the body; so we reduced the mass of the bevel to suit the overall theme. It's important to think of the instrument as a whole rather than a collection of individual design ideas because no matter how much you like them all, if they don't work together the design fails.

Satisfied that we'd balanced things out, Mike proceeded with the woodworking using a sander, file and a scraper. Then it's just a matter of prepping for the paint room where we'll pick it up next time.

Blending Glenn Tipton's Neck

At this point in the build, Mike and I were talking about the positioning of the controls on the body of Glenn Tipton's guitar, and we needed some clarification from the client. Glenn's original plan was for both a volume and a tone control, along with a three-way toggle. The last drawing we had showed only a single volume and a toggle, so we had to make a decision. Rather than guess, I got on the cell and called Glenn on his.

Sure enough, the last drawing was correct, so we could proceed with one control hole. I rang off with Glenn and we marked the locations immediately.

A few hours later, Mike has cut the neck pocket and fitted the neck to the body of the guitar. He's added the bevels on the body, and now it's time to do the neck blending. The first step is to draw out the blend line on the instrument. The idea here is to provide good hand access, retain the maximum amount of joint for good energy transfer and create a pleasing visual transition.

After Mike and I take a couple swipes at it we get a good line, so it's time to park the guitar in a vise and get after it with a pneumatic drum sander. The grit is very coarse, so Mike takes it easy, just hogging off the major real estate. In this photo you can see the wood flying off the sander past Mike's shirt—always wear eye protection!

After the sander, Mike does the final smoothing with a file and then with sandpaper. After about an hour, it's looking good.

Glenn was stoked about the progress, and said that he was on his way to a photo shoot with his vintage Hamer Phantom GT. At this rate, the guitar will be in the paint booth soon. We'll come back to this project then.

Judas Priest in the Workshop

With all the projects that we have going on at any given time, it's hard to spotlight all of them here. After all, we're guitar builders not webmasters. Here's one job that's been in the shop for a while.

Right: Back in the day... Glenn Tipton and Jol Dantzig in the studio during the recording of Judas Priest's "Turbo" album

It's no secret that we've worked closely with the boys in Judas Priest for over two decades; every album and tour since 1984 has bristled with Hamer-tone. Since one of our readers asked, I'm going to jump the gun on a special post series that we've been holding close to our chest.

After talking to Glenn Tipton over the course of a few weeks, and receiving the basic idea for his new guitar, Dave set to work building a mahogany neck with a curly maple fingerboard. We've elected to use the old "six on a side" Hamer headstock shape, because it matches Glenn's other Hamers, and goes more with the feel of this guitar.

The scale is 24.75" and it calls for block inlays. We selected some nice chunks of "black" pearl and cut them into rectangles. Here, Tom has routed the pockets for the pearl and is gluing them in.

Then, based on the outline provided by Glenn, Mike starts to rough out the body from a mahogany blank. In this photo he's placed the neck over the body to get the cutaway, pickup and bridge locations locked in.

We've collected all the parts we need, including a NOS (new old stock) original Kahler from the '80s. Mike will create templates for routing, and then do the pocketing on the pin router. There's a few bumps in the road, but we always figure it out in the end. Stay tuned for more...

First Photos: Earthen Talladega in the Sun

If you've been following the construction of our twenty-five, Earthen Maple Talladega guitars you know we're getting to the final stages. Indeed, as soon as Mark was finished with number 22 I took it outside to snap some photos to share with all of you.

I walked out the shop's back door and took a few steps towards the Farmington River that rushes past our lunch table. By the side of the cascading water, I gingerly placed the guitar next to a tree and fired off a few snapshots. As I peered through the viewfinder, I had the same thought that many of you will have after seeing these photos; how soon can I get one for myself?

Each one of these guitars is distinctly different. The unique grain and mineral streaking makes certain that you'll never mistake your guitar for any other. Everyone who has played them in our shop has remarked about the clear, crisp top end and warm bottom. The combination of the mineral-laced tops with a mahogany neck gives these twenty-five guitars a special tone.

Here's a nice touch, the individual series numbers are laser etched into the lacquer (but not the wood like the serial number) to protect and confirm the originality of the finish for future collectors.

As much as I hate to see 'em go, I can't wait to hear from the new owners and hear the music that they make.