To the Best of Ed Roman's Knowledge
Hamer was the first company to offer a 27 fret & 36 fret production guitar.
Hamer was the first company to offer fretless guitars.
Hamer was the first company to be purchased by a large corporation (Kaman)
and actually improve it's quality.
Hamer was the first company to scale down from 15 guitars a day in the 80's
to 3 a day in the 90's.
Hamer was the first company to offer a triple coil pickup on a production
guitar.
Hamer was the first company to offer holograms imbedded in a production
guitar.
Hamer was the first company to use the 3 piece maple reverse stress opposing
grain process on a production guitar.
Hamer was the first company to utilize Alex Gregory's 7 string patent and
produce a seven string guitar (In stock and available).
Hamer was the first company I ever saw manufacture a Piccolo Bass
Today there are a lot of choices when you
buy a good USA handmade rock guitar but during the early 80's Hamer was one of
the best
ones.
Check out the control cavity in any USA Hamer, for instance. Remove the
conductive aluminum back plate from the guitar and take a look. Notice how the
cavity is flawless, almost beautiful in appearance? It's extremely functional,
too, and carefully coated with a premium nickel based paint against noise. All
of the rugged, top shelf electronics it houses are totally RF shielded, as well.
Speaking of electronics, the volume pots are custom tapered with a boost
at the last 1/10th of rotation for easy volume gain into solo breaks. Naturally,
all of Hamer's pots, jacks and switches are of the finest American quality
available.
Hamer carefully matches pickup specifications, among other things, to the
timbre of the guitar's body and neck. To insure versatility and quality of tone,
Hamer never specifies identical pickups for neck and bridge positions - a common
mistake with other brands. Even the way the pickups are attached is unique. On
many models, threaded brass inserts are used for stability rather than just
flimsy wood screws. All of the screws are hardened for strength and coated to
prevent rust.
Each and every Hamer fret is hand seated, The Hamer craftsman must feel
how the fret enters the wood a machine simply cannot do it properly. I was at
the USA made Ibanez factory several years ago and they were all proudly showing
me a new contraption they had developed to install all of the frets at once in
a neck. Those American made Ibanez guitars failed miserably. I don't much like
their Japanese ones anymore either. Let them sell their guitars back in Tokyo.
Hamer Fingerboards are carefully quarter sawn for long life, perpetual
straightness and ease of neck adjustment. I saw piles of rejected fingerboards
due to them not meeting criteria. As I stated earlier in this article Hamer
rejects a lot of wood, The Fingerboards are the most carefully inspected in the
industry and have the highest rejection factor. You can be sure that no matter
what model Hamer you own, The Fingerboard will be a super high quality premium
piece of Rosewood or Ebony.
Hamer's exclusive "stressed neck" system consists of three piece necks
with opposing wood grains to insure straight and true lifetime performance. Low
mass truss rods are easily accessible at the headstock.
Each set-in guitar neck is joined to its body with a specially designed,
radically oversized dovetail joint that enhances the transmission of energy
throughout the instrument and strengthens the guitar structurally. And, Hamer
was the first company to create chopped neck joints and angled neck heels for
their bolt-on neck guitars.
The beauty of Hamer Guitars is the result of the expert application of 14
coats of the highest grade lacquers and time consuming hand buffing.