Well, she's up and running. WOW....... She's even better to play than what I remember her before the strip down.
Guido was tinkering with her for a while last night to get the wiring sorted and get the guitar set up, re-strung and adjust the action. We had a real hardcore metal themed night while working on the explorer. He was working and I was watching, Wham, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Jersey Shore and drinking some foreign suds........lmao. damn you MTV and VH1 for being a sh*tty so called music channel.
Back to the guitar, the Seymour Duncan invader kicks so much ass, damn this whole guitar kicks so much ass!!!!!. We had it at a very low volume as he's in a complex and it was about 11pm, but after the wife and kids left this morning and before I came to work, I hooked her up to the mighty HIWATT and cranked her up...........whooooooooooa, she's sooooooo much cleaner than what I remember her being. The bucker hooked up to the decent switch as well as the higher end pots make for a damn clean sound, no buzzing, it's super quiet when at low volume with no unwanted noise. I redid the earth on the guitar when I gutted her and upgraded it at the same time with a better quality set up as well. This guitar is a rock machine, no doubt about it and it doesn't like to be told to play softer.
The Washburn neck pup is going to stay there, simply for the fact, that it does it's job and sounds freaking great, I was considering an SD 59 in there, but the guitar is a metal/ rock axe and I rarely go onto the neck bucker anyway, why bother when that money can be used elsewhere?
The action is nice and low, just the way that I like it, little effort is needed to push strings down, I'm running a set of regular slinky's on it, but will more than likely go for a heavier gauge as my next set to really bring out the best out of the Invader. I have to admit that I got WAY lucky with this guitar when making the mods, routering out cavities and chucking on the veneer on the front and the back. I have built a guitar from scratch before and got a bit lucky with that one as well. But I don't for one second deny that this guitar is made even more awesome by the guy that did the wiring and set up. I do believe that he can make any sh*t box feel and play like a million bucks, he's just got the knack for it. Thanks guido.......
He's set up my ARX and my old tech guy at my local said that it's perfection. Now he's itching to do my warlock as well, who am I to say no???
I didn't manage to get my script done on my headstock as well as my truss rod cover and my scratch plate cleaned up, so she's still looking a bit unfinished, the body needs another session with the steel wool and I will probably give the neck another coat of clear before the transfers go on. But I'm gonna play her as is to get her settled in for a while before I make the final changes. I also need to get a decent strap with a swivel section on it as the neck mounting position isn't working with my current arsenal of straps, so this is a perfect excuse to buy another one. I also need another set of strap locks.
This guitar by the way is the lightest on of the clan. Heaviest goes to my solid maple warlock, then my SX, ARX and my explorer being the lightest. Never saw that one coming.
I can honestly say that this guitar is something really special, I played about 100 guitars from R30 000 custom stuff to R300 lost causes and this Hamer...........is amongst the top 5.
