Hamer Factory Tour
 Part 2

One of Hamer’s latest products is the Improv hollow body guitar.
 

Many years have gone into the refinement of this instrument.
Jol showed us some cutaways of the guitar’s prototype.

One of the most surprising things we saw at Hamer was the shaping of the contoured tops on the Monaco line of guitars. This task is done by Mike, a very skilled Hamer employee. Here our group looks on while Mike uses a hand held grinder to rough out the shape of the contoured top.

Later Mike uses hand scrapers and other hand tools to refine the shape.
 

The next station is where Todd applies the Body Binding to guitars and basses. Hamer does not take shortcuts with this operation either. The CNC machine cuts a precise notch into the top edge of the instrument for the binding. We saw a beautifully figured left-handed Hamer Standard being prepared for binding.

 

The material is hand fitted by heating with a heat gun, bending it into shape, and gluing in place. The binding material is flexed into position in several steps to ensure a good, tight fit.

 

Todd spiderwebs the glue to help release the solvents and help the bond to be stronger.

Hamer Tour Part 3