Hamer Studio

I'm not sure what year the model I had was but it was made in the USA by Hamer guitars. It had a beautiful cherryburst finish over a nice flame maple top. Solid Honduras Mahogony body with a set 3-piece Mahogony neck,shaped somewhat like a thicker 50's Gibson Les Paul. The pickups are Seymour Duncan; a JB at the bridge,a'59 at the neck. The tuners are Schaller and the bridge is a TOM and stop tailpiece. It has 22 frets and standard 2 volume, 1 tone control with 3 way switch. All hardware is nickel.Guitar came with a nice hardshell case.


UTILIZATION

I found the access to te upper frets is somewhat hindered by the heel of the guitar and the straight cut wings. It's not terrible but not super easy to get to either.
With the two humbuckers and three way switch it is easy to get a nice and workable sound.
I found the thicker C shaped 50's type Gibson neck too thick for my purposes and not easy to do fast lead work with. It is a heavy guitar because of the quality woods used, about the weight of a Les Paul.

SOUNDS

I used this guitar with custom built Peters amplifiers, which are kind of a cross between a Peavey 5150 and high gain Marshall/VHT with a little Boogie thrown in. The amp was paired with an Avatar 4x12 that had Celestion G12h -30's and a Splawn 4x12 with Governor/ManOWar speaker combo.

I usually go for a nice thick Jerry Cantrell AIC tone, to use with my modern rock/metal band.

This guitar had a super thick and boomy bass tone and decent mids and balanced highs. I found it too bass heavy and somewhat muddy under high gain.

The guitar had some nice and thick lead tones and nice deep toned cleans.
My least favorite sound was high gain rhythm playing.
In the end the guitar did not have the tones I needed.

OVERALL OPINION


This is a wonderfully made instrument that has all the makings of a great guitar. These guitars are absolutely first quality as good or better than the best of the Gibsons. But the guitar did not have the tones I needed (see above).
This guitar would be great for more classic rock tones but has way too much bass to be used with high gain playing. It is best suited for classic rock sounds and can get you close to the same tones as a Les Paul.
I like the quality, some lead and clean tones it could produce the best.
I didn't like how it held up under high gain rhythm palying, where I spend the majority of my time. I didn't want to mess with changing pickups to see if it would sound better because I could not use the neck as easily as I'd like, so I sold it.
Value for the price used was great!

I have been through many guitars and had a number of years where I would buy, try and flip, which enabled me to have many guitars around to try out.
In the end, it was too bass heavy in tone and I did not get along with the neck carve.
Knowing what I know now, I would have passed on buying it, even though I broke even.