Hamer Standard Flametop Electric Guitar

August 9, 2007 by Jo Minor 


The Hamer Standard Flametop electric guitar is a good looking axe in the unique Explorer type of body style. It features a beautiful flame maple top on alder body, Duncan designed humbuckers, a neck so fast it’s slippery, and other qualities found in more expensive guitars. This Hamer guitar has a retail price tag of $689.50.

Hamer Guitars was founded in 1973 by a tight knit group of musicians headed up by Jol Dantzig and Paul Hamer. They began building modern guitars in a basement in Chicago, Illinois. The first guitar they made was a V-shaped electric bass guitar. To begin the business, they ran small advertisements in guitar magazines. The company expanded slowly and carefully, one guitar at a time in the early years.

These artisans created what is now called the “boutique” guitar. These are beautifully hand-crafted limited edition guitars that are destined to become heirlooms. Hamer is all about “modern vintage” - that means that the buyer is encouraged to think of their guitars as the collectible vintage instruments of the future.

Hamer chooses the very best of the tone woods for their guitars, and then lavish lots of attention on each detail in the process of creating an electric guitar. Their ultimate goal is to build soul into each of their products. A unique idea is a low mass, single truss rod design in their necks that allows you to adjust them from both ends without having double truss rods. As they say, more wood (less truss rod mass) means more tone for your guitar.

Although Hamer began as a company that catered only to professional musicians, they created a line known as the XT line for semi-professional musicians and those who need a little lower price. These are made in Asian factories, but still have good quality. Hamer also has an entry level series now which they call the Slammer.

The Standard Flametop electric guitar from Hamer is part of the XT line that carries a more moderate price tag. The quality, however, is still excellent, and many professionals are plenty happy with this guitar for their gigging needs. It is an amazing rock machine as far as tone is concerned.

Advantages: The Hamer Standard Flametop electric guitar is a great value considering the fine quality construction and modest price. It is set up well right out of the box and the stock Duncan designed pickups are of excellent quality, so there should be no need to swap them out for other pickups.

This guitar is very beautiful as well, with its cherry sunburst coloring over flame maple. The binding enhances the looks, too, as do the crown inlays.

The extreme body shape will have you looking like a rock icon. Unlike some other extreme shaped electric guitars, however, the Hamer Standard Flametop electric guitar is very comfortable to play. The alder body means that it is not too heavy like a guitar made of mahogany would be. You can rock all night with this beautiful baby. The shape is OK for playing while sitting down, which you cannot do comfortably with some of the other shapes on the market.

The tone is good, too, with the notes all clean and crisp. It sounds good whether you are playing it clear and clean or at maximum levels of distortion. The neck is glossy and not too big around which makes it comfortable for playing. It has the 24 frets desired by so many lead guitarists, too.

Disadvantages: It could be alleged that the Hamer Standard Flametop electric guitar is a Gibson Explorer knock-off. Granted, it is a lot like the Gibson Explorer. Also, while some purchasers have found the set up to be perfect right out of the box, others have needed to have a professional guitar tech do a set up and even work on some of the frets. Like other import brands, you could probably get the occasional lemon.

Specs:

  • Alder body in Explorer-style shape
  • Ivoroid binding on body and on neck joint
  • Two piece flame maple cap on body
  • Chrome tuners
  • Alder set neck
  • Rosewood fingerboard
  • 24.75 inch scale length
  • 24 frets
  • Crown inlays
  • Two volume control knobs
  • One master tone control knob
  • Three-way toggle style pickup selector control switch
  • Dual Seymour Duncan designed Hamer humbucker pickups
  • Tune-o-matic bridge
  • Stopbar tailpiece

Hamer Guitars might not be quite as well known as some of the more familiar rock guitar brands. Check out their website if you would like to know more about this brand of electric guitars.

To learn more about collectible “boutique” guitars, check out the website called “American Guitar Boutique.”

The Wikipedia article about Hamer Guitars includes historical information as well as a list of prominent musical artists who use Hamer products.

Filed under: General
Tagged:

Comments

Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!