I felt the need to post a pic or two of the absolute filthiest, smelly, dirty, gack infested, black cat scratched guitar I've ever had. I recently aquiered this from some little weezel dude college kid who lives in a bad part of town near campus. A pale dweeb nerd. His half a double was a total wreck mess hole of a rotton place to live. I almost threw up upon walking into the dank cat crap ridden basement where this bass was living on a stand with the lights out. The stench would only be tolerable to a medical examiner. I had to step around feces (spell check) all the way thru the basement. It was normal for this guy though.

I felt the need to rescue the guitar and give it a new home. Somewhere it can live out it's days in a clean enviorment. I took it as apart as I could and cleaned it the best I could. The fretboard had built up encrusted hand grime from the weezel boy on it. You could see the edges of the build up. Of course it's black and you can't see where the black cat scratched it. But that's all that's left of the film of neglect that once shrouded this instrument.

I can only hope that the bass now has some Mojo . It's "Black Cat Scratched" and that has to mean something.

Nice Hamer bass. Keeping it in the FMIC family I see.

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Yes Hamer is now from what I understand an arm of FMIC. I contacted Hamer and the guy says this bass is an alder body with an alder neck. I'm kind of wondering about that though. An alder neck seems odd. It is a set in neck though. I'd be interested to find out if it's alder. It just may be for all I know.

Hi SV: hmm, that is interesting. That Explorer shaped body is what Hamer call their Standard model on both guitars and basses. On their website Hamer list all their Standard guitars as having either maple or mahogany necks, on alder or mahogany bodies. Frustratingly, unless I'm looking in the wrong place I'm not currently seeing a Standard bass on their site:

http://www.hamerguitars.com/

There are pictures of Standard basses like yours to be found on Google, but so far I haven't found a spec sheet for it.

An alder neck does sound a bit unlikely, but who knows? There are Hamer forums out there, for example at:

http://www.hamerfanclub.com/

In case you feel like asking people who might know for sure.

Cheers - C

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I kind of doubt that it's an alder neck-- I think the wood would be too soft for that. Maybe the guy from Hamer that emailed me just did a typing error. His brain may have been doing one thing and his fingers another. Or he didn't know squat. I've never heard of an alder neck ever. Thanks for the links.

Why would alder be too soft for a neck with a steel rod in it. Whilst not being too soft for a body that has a load cut out of it? The pressure at the nut is only the same as the pressure at the bridge, isn't it?

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No no and no

I don't think alder is as ridged/stiff as maple or mahogany or walnut. Its not as hard. I think it would lend itself towards more movement . Then you'd be tweeking all the time. Also a bass neck can warp from side to side not just bow in and out. I had an old Fender P neck that had a sideways warp and it was maple- I bet alder would do that. There are some experts who know more than me. I just look at it from experiance and my own common sense (If I have any).

Looks to be in pretty good shape now. You'll enjoy it alot more now that you put the effort into it too. Did you get any "before" pictures of it that showed how nasty, sometimes it's hard to describe the improvements without have before and after photos.

My '78 Musicmaster was found/recovered from a hay loft in a barn, it was given to me for free but it was really really rough. The paint was flaking off in huge chunks, the neck was warped, rusty strings still on it. I had never heard of a Musicmaster or short scale bass at the time but when I plugged it in, even covered in dirt and rust, it still played. That was my "sign" that it needed to be restored. I stuck about $250 into a paint job, new tuners, and luthier fees to get it where I wanted it. I've played it now since summer of 1996, it's my workhorse and I love it to death.

But I never took a "before" photo, duh. But here's an "after" photo.



Anyway, nice bass.

Those look cool.


I didn't take any before pictures of the Hamer. I was really concerned that I would get some kind of rash or something from the grime on it. I used charcoal lighter fluid on a rag and cleaned the whole thing. It took a few times of cleaning that way with the rag and fluid. I had to take a blade and very carefully scrape each position on the fretboard. In some spots the dirt was 2mm thick! You could see the edges of the dirt like the mini cliffs of Dover or something! The rags smelled like cat urine on top of the smell of the mineral spirits. I'm not exagerating here.

The filth on the guitar was much in the same way with the filth in this guys place.

I took every screw and piece of the guitar apart and cleaned it with the spirits.

He had lied and told me he replaced the barrel jack. It was the first thing I had to replace. It was bad .

He also tightened the truss so tight that it (or he) pushed up on the fretboard and broke it away from the neck from the nut to the first fret. I reglued the fretboard and clamped it.

Did I mention that the frets were green with corrosion? Also rusted in spots.

You don't have to walk very far to find a dumbass these days.

It's amazing how some people live isn't it? I was a cable tv installer/tech for 7 years and let me tell you I got in some houses like that, just disgusting. I seriously had a pair of gloves in my van to wear in filthy houses, just to keep your hands out of whatever Ebola virus or whatever other germ was lurking in the filth. And so many of those filthy pits had small kids running around in all the crap. Made me just want to slap 'em upside the head.


I stripped that blue bass down to every piece removed as well. The bridge and saddles I was able to clean with some stuff called "barkeepers friend" it's what they use to shine up old brass parts on a bar rail. But the machines were just to rusty. The blue paint is the color of the car we had at that time. It was going in for hail damage repair so I had the body stripped and primed and sent it along, nice layer of auto clear coat on it too.


It's all a labor of love if you like the instrument though. For $250 I got a bass that's been reliable and fun to play.