Stressed-Neck System -- Was Hamer the First?

[FGJ]

I just bought my 12 year old daughter a 1984 Peavy T-30 (which turned out to have the most beautiful tone). I noticed it had a patented neck design which seems essentially the same as Hamer's three-piece stress-neck design. Peavy's design, however, only uses two pieces, but it seems like two pieces with opposing grain accomplishes the same thing without the third, middle section used on Hamer necks, which doesn't seem to add to the stress-neck function.

So now I'm wondering whether Hamer actually copied their stress-neck design from Peavy and added the third, non-opposing-grain, center piece to differentiate themselves from Peavy. I always thought this was a Hamer innovation, but now I'm not so sure. Does anyone know who actually first came up with the opposing-grain idea for a guitar neck?

[Andrew]

No, lots of neck-through designs have multi-piece, reverse grain laminate necks. Quite common on Asian guitars of the late seventies.

And I believe Dean were doing it first just a mile or two down the road from Hamer.

[serial]

Hamer began doing this in mid 1979. Around #9 1050 or so.

Probably before Peavey, but I didn't think they were the first to use it. Maybe the first to use it to counter wood movement as opposed to saving costs on lumber though, but can't speak to that either.

[Andrew]

It's not that Hamer did it first as the general principle is centuries old. And many bespoke basses had carefully crafted laminate necks (maple/rosewood/maple (reverse grain)/rosewood/maple) in the seventies.

It's much more important that Hamer did it better that their contemporaries.

[Roshark]

My 1st guitar was a 1980 Gibson SG that had a 3 pice laminated neck . I am not sure when Gibson started the 3 pice electric necks but they did use them on acoustic guitars in 1943-1944 . During WWII steel used to make truss rods was rationed . Gibson was using what ever wood they had or could get at this time . The 3-5 pice laminated necks made during this time are some of the chunkiest necks Gibson ever made . Some people love this period of Gibson acoustics best, others can't deal with the baseball bat necks . I don't mind them a bit .

[dragan]

also alembic

[crunchee]

To reinforce what Roshark mentioned, Gibson used three-piece necks on a lot of their electrics from at least the early Seventies, up to the beginning of the Eighties (edited to add: there's a fair amount listed on Ebay alone that you can check out and see)... The general appearance is very similar to what Hamer used later on starting in 1979, but I don't think that Hamer was 'copying' Seventies Gibsons! I doubt seriously that THAT idea ever crossed their minds! BTW, I don't think that Gibson ever built a three piece MAHOGANY neck back then, I think when they used three piece necks, they were MAPLE.

Ovation went from five piece mahogany necks with a maple/walnut/maple center section, to a two-piece mahogany neck on many (but not all) of their acoustic/electrics around 1979...Peavey was doing two-piece maple necks in 1978 and possibly earlier with their R&D models, but I don't think that Ovation was copying Peavey, I think it was more of a matter of cost...plus, Ovation's two-piece necks came along with the introduction of the 'Kaman bar' truss rod, where you had to access the truss rod through the body soundhole rather than at the headstock, which is where they were accessed before.

If you want to get into 'who used the most pieces of wood' category, I think old W. German Framus guitars from the Sixties win there...their necks are practically and literally plywood!

[FGJ]

I think some may be misunderstanding my question. I'm sure many other companies have used laminated or multiple-piece necks. However, not everyone who builds using multiple-piece necks (to my knowledge) takes the time to find and cut perfectly opposing grain so as to make sure the bending stress from each piece of wood cancels each other out. That kind of wood selection and preparation takes time, which costs money, which doesn't seem to be the kind of thing a company would do to save money.

Also, Peavy had a patent on their design, and I suspect the patent isn't simply to protect a laminate or multiple-piece neck design, since, as others have already noted, other companies had already been building multi-piece necks. It seems more likely that Peavy was patenting the opposing-grain stress-neck idea. Then again, for all I know, maybe they were only applying for a patent because no one else had bothered to do so, kind of like Dimarzio patenting double-cream humbuckers.

[stobro]

As I recall from my days woking at Peavey, the bi-laminated neck design was done so the truss rod route could be made in each half using their CNC equipment. This eliminated the need for a separate fingerboard or a skunk stripe insert in the back of the neck. Later Leo Fender did his own version with G&L, but he put his truss rod in off center or at an angle or something so he could get around Hartley's patent.

I don't know if Peavey paid any particular attention to grain direction or matching in production units. I know I have a few Peaveys that look like the two halves of the maple neck came from different trees.

[crunchee]

+1 on what Stobro said. I have/have had a few Peavey T-60s and T-40s, sometimes the two halves of the neck are well matched, and sometimes they look like mismatched crap...even though they may work fine as a functional neck, they can be 'cosmetically challenged' sometimes. There's no particular 'best year' for Peaveys that I know of, I focus on T-60s/T-40s made from 1978 to 1980s because of (1) the "PATENTS APPLIED FOR" decal/factory transfer on the headstock, and (2) they go with the 'slab' bodies that Peavey used in those years, which I prefer. BTW, the ash bodies used back then on T-60s and T-40s were either three, four, or five piece bodies (I haven't run into a two-piece T-60/T-40 body yet), and sometimes these are very well matched in appearance, and sometimes they look like a 'butcher block' table...hence, the common nickname for these guitars.

IIRC, Rickenbacker went to two-piece maple neck-thru-body necks sometime around 2005, and used the 'opposing grain' method to help prevent warping...which is to say, they would take a neck blank, cut it in half lengthwise, then flip one side of the neck end over end, so that the wood grain of the neck pieces would have opposing grain, then glue them together. Rickenbacker has actually been using this method for YEARS (as in, at least since the Seventies, maybe longer) in making the BODIES for their 330/360 guitars, to prevent them from warping, because they start out in the beginning as one single piece of maple...again, taking a maple body blank, cut it in half, flip one side end over end, then reglue them together so the grains oppose, then rout for the semi-hollow body.

[Andrew]

B C Rich would win the competition for most pieces of wood. In the eighties they has a guitar with about a hundred pieces that really was plywood - I can't find a reference anywhere. Anyone remember the name?

[FGJ]

Stobro, thanks for that explanation. I was under the impression that the patent was for a design that stabilized the neck, but it never occurred to me that it was for a different way of implementing a truss rod. That cleared things up for me quite a bit.

[Armitage]

I think what made Hamer's Stressed-Neck System more unique is it's made of one piece of wood, cut into three, with one piece reversed. It's not just made of three different pieces of wood.

As the wood would try to pull or relax, the opposing piece would react oppositely. Lots of companies have made guitars with many pieces, e.g. the Firebird.

[Jem]

However, not everyone who builds using multiple-piece necks (to my knowledge) takes the time to find and cut perfectly opposing grain so as to make sure the bending stress from each piece of wood cancels each other out. That kind of wood selection and preparation takes time, which costs money, which doesn't seem to be the kind of thing a company would do to save money.

Personally I don't think there was anywhere near that amount of thought or 'voodoo' in it, much more the case, as Armitage said, that they just ripped a 7" wide board, 7/8" thick in three and flipped the middle one - that's what I do.

And for the original premise: I think we can all agree multipiece, and three piece necks in particular, were around long before Hamer, I had a '74 LP Custom with one, but it was perhaps them who first gave it a poncy name so that sticks in everyone's head ?

[Roshark]

My 1980 Gibson SG has a 3 pice mahogany neck . The center strip grain appears to be flipped or in an opposite direction to the outside pices .

[FGJ]

Jem,

I was under the impression that those opposing pieces were matched from different pieces of wood, but what you wrote makes much more sense. Perhaps it's not such a difficult process after all.

Does anyone know if Hamer ever patented their stress-neck system?

[Jem]

No, I would have thought it quite difficult to patent sticking three pieces of wood together, it's a technique that stretch's back literally hundred's of years - I seem to remember from school (alright, that was 35 years ago !) that they started laminating Longbows back in the 15th century due to all the Yew tree's having been cut down for bow making.

I'm sure you've seen this but this is what Hamer does blow it's trumpet about:

http://www.hamerguitars.com/?fa=firsts

And actually, you can tell I'm off work with no plan, here they refer to it as 'a' stressed neck system not 'the' or 'our' stressed neck system so I think that sort of draws a line under it:

http://www.hamerguitars.com/?fa=details

[Steve Haynie]

Ampeg wins the multi-laminate competition.

[aknapp]

Ampeg wins the multi-laminate competition.

Construction looks exactly like the neck on the old Kingston I have.

[LucSulla]

To reinforce what Roshark mentioned, Gibson used three-piece necks on a lot of their electrics from at least the early Seventies, up to the beginning of the Eighties (edited to add: there's a fair amount listed on Ebay alone that you can check out and see)... The general appearance is very similar to what Hamer used later on starting in 1979, but I don't think that Hamer was 'copying' Seventies Gibsons! I doubt seriously that THAT idea ever crossed their minds! BTW, I don't think that Gibson ever built a three piece MAHOGANY neck back then, I think when they used three piece necks, they were MAPLE.

I have a 78 LP Custom with a three piece maple neck, which was standard as I understand it. It also has the volute under the nut and the reduced back angle. It ALSO has slipped out of the strap, pogoed off the head stock, bounced a foot back into the air, and not even fallen out of tune, much less snap the head stock.

Not everything Norlin did was a bad idea IMO.

[crunchee]

Ampeg wins the multi-laminate competition.

Construction looks exactly like the neck on the old Kingston I have.

Like I said before, some vintage W. German-made Framus guitars had these laminated necks too. It also looked exactly the same as this one, as far as construction goes.

[JimiH]

Do all hamer guitars have this? Cause my USA diablo looks like its a one piece.

Geoff

[veatch]

Diablos were one piece.