Feline Guitars and others luthiers, attention please, need some advice. NGD.

[GuitarIv]

Cheers all,

it's been a while since I posted anything on here but since I have a surprising NGD today I decided to once again ask for advice at this great place of knowledge called the BKP forum. First of all: this thread is aimed especially at luthiers and people who have some knowledge about getting vintage guitars into shape again. So Jonathan, if you read this, I appreciate your advice.

Now I need to explain some things first before getting to the topic: I have a friend who regularly pays me visits with his instruments, I swap pickups for him, change electronics, do setups including string action and intonation and so on. Now last week after I once again took care of an instrument for him he asked me if I wanted to have a Kramer. I was like "what?", but he told me he has a beaten up Kramer lying around at home doing nothing and that he originally got it as a gift from a friend but hasn't used it whatsoever. My response was of course positive and I kinda really got excited about owning a Kramer after reading up the companies history. Anyway, today he stopped at my place to hand me the instrument. I was surprised. And after examining it further I have some mixed feelings, positive as well as negative.

Now you will see the details on the guitar in the pictures. The Intel I gathered so far is the following: It's an American Guitar with the Serial saying "E7963" and "Neptune, NJ, USA" engraved on the backplate. Judging by VintageKramer.com this is either a 1985 or a mid 86 to late 87 guitar. Now I don't have a damned clue what exact model this is, that's the reason why I registered at the Kramer Guitar Forum where I'll be asking for some help to identify it, waiting to be approved by an admin there right now.

Anyway it seems that it has gone through quite some abuse by it's original owner, the two biggest indicators for this being the self-engraved german iron cross in it's body and the scalloping that awkwardly starts at the 7th fret and removed almost all the fret markers. There's a red "inlay" at the 12th fret saying "EVB". I wonder what it's supposed to mean. Eddie van Bludgeoner? Kinda hurts my feelings to see this kind of "modifications". I'm not a luthier nor skilled in any kind of woodworking, all I know is how to solder and setup instruments, therefore I would never dare to attempt this kind of stuff on a Vintage Instrument, but it seems like not everyone has my opinion. Now I don't wanna be to fast judging: after giving it a fast observation it doesn't seem like it has hurt the playability of the instrument, still a big no no in my opinion.

Now I really wanna get this guitar into shape again as it would be a shame to leave it as is, the pointy Jackson style headstock is exactly my thing, the body has quite some weight but is nicely contoured and seems to be oil finished, we have what seems to be an original Floyd Rose and made in Germany Schaller tuners, plus the neck really feels sleek and fast and I have a Miracle Man lying around that would perfectly fit the 80's flair of the guitar. I could of course just clean it up, put in the Miracle Man, some new strings, adjust everything and start shreddin but the aesthetics would probably bugger me too much.

Now I wanna get rid of the iron cross. I know James Hetfield has one on his Les Paul and whilst technically it's not exactly a Nazi symbol since it has been used prior to WWII and Hitler just adopted it, I don't want any kind of such stuff on an instrument. Especially since I live in Austria and not America hahaha 
So that will probably need some refinishing.

The next thing I'm thinking about is getting a new fretboard done. I know a local luthier who built an amazing guitar for me and I'm pretty sure he can do it, probably gonna pay him a visit.

Now there also seems to be some cracking near the neck pocket, not sure how much of an issue it is...

So what are your opinions? How realistic is a fretboard change and should I do it? Or should I just take some tape to cover up the iron cross, clean the guitar and set it up, suck it up and play it?

Pictures attached. Looking forward to your opinions. Cheers!

[GuitarIv]

Here you can see the scalloping of the fretboard and the ugly "inlay"

[GuitarIv]

And finally the serial number, the Schaller tuners and the cracks around the neck pocket

[witeter]

Hope you get some good advice and that you get to resurrect it-good to see you around again btw!

[Alex]

Hm I'd have a lot of mixed feelings about it. I would start with the acoustic tone and if the guitar has something "inspiring", that would warrant some major funds being poured into such a restoration project.

My thoughts is that you should check the cracks in the neck pocket, but from what I know these can often be only cosmetic/affecting the paint. It's difficult to tell from your pictures.
The fretboard to me looks a bit butchered. Maybe it has a Yngwie Malmsteen vibe (?), but I think having a new slab of Rosewood glued to it and new frets added, which will also require several other adjustments is really a bit... too much. I would rather "cheat" and get a new Warmoth neck and try to transfer the Kramer logo onto the Warmoth neck.

And then you get to the old Iron Cross (the newer version of it is the official symbol of the German Bundeswehr, btw). All I can think of here is some George Lynch vibe and putting a picture over it.

Sorry, I don't sound more enthusiastic. I probably just don't get the vintage appeal for an 80s Super-Strat over a real 60s or 70s Fender strat.

To add: that looks like a Seymour Duncan Invader pickup there. Not a very refined or good sounding pickup, which horrible & cold top end, but does great metal rhythms. Ironically you wonder why the neck is scalloped then, which would have suggested someone more interested in lead sounds.

[FELINEGUITARS]

The guitar is a Kramer Pacer (same model that Steel Panther's Satchel uses now)
The date you have is correct and the "american made" tag is technically correct , although from what I gather Kramer made NONE of their own parts and assembled parts made by ESP - up till the late 80s a replacement parts company, and later other companies.

TheIron Cross is an interesting one . The cross design goes back as far as 1219AD, and has had significance in the Germanic countries since then . It was prevalent in the Prussian empire a lot too which enveloped a lot of Northern Europe, including Austria, so it is almost fitting in a historical way.
Unfortunately in the 20th Century it got associated with both World Wars and the Kaiser and secondly the Nazis, which has left it tainted in the minds of many.
A shame as it is in itself a strong attractive motif (whether you like it on a guitar is another matter)

More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Cross

Parts wise many of the components were made by Schaller:
Machineheads
tremolo (made for Floyd Rose)
Pickup rings and possibly the original pickups , although later a deal with Seymour Duncan was struck
Originally straplocks may have been fitted too.

Damage
Not sure of the depth of the neck pocket damage, although it could run deep
there is other damage where the neck has pushed the wood of the body into the neck pickup hole, so may need some attention
The scalloping - how deep is the lettering a the 12th - would scr@ping a bit deeper remove that (but would you want a scalloped guitar)

You could have the whole fingerboard replaced and re-fretted , although that may be a big investment

Maybe worth seeing how much you like it and like playing it before spending too much money.
Swap the pickup to the MM b all means and enjoy playing her

[FELINEGUITARS]

Of course I do have the matching acoustic you could have to join it.

[Dave Sloven]

Yeah I'd be getting rid of that cross.

Just find a nice big Crass sticker to put over it!

[GuitarIv]

Cheers all and thanks for the answers 

Hey Chris, thanks, good to be back again, gonna get more active again round here, hope all is good. Saw your NGD thread on Sevenstring, the Sabre turned out killer. How do you like the HetSet? 

Jonathan: Thanks for the input and that is an amazing looking acoustic. I just don't think I can afford it hahaha

Anyway, after reading through all this I thought I'd give you an update as I've been working on the guitar yesterday as well as today. I think I'll just start the easy way, attach some pics and comment them. In the first four of them you can see the preparations I made on my kitchen table to work on the guitar, some steaming and fresh brewed coffee that always helps to keep vigilance up, the ticket to the Opeth show I was at yesterday evening and the first disassembly of the guitar :)

[GuitarIv]

Next up you see the neck pickup, and Jonathan you were right, it's a Seymour Duncan. The sticker says "UNL" whatever that may stand for. I noticed that it had a pretty short amount of wire left and the screw coils where facing the bridge instead of the neck. Also the pickup mounting ring was facing the wrong direction with the slant running towards the bridge as well. Dont know if this was on purpose, but there's no way to turn it around to face the other direction due to, as mentioned, lack of wire length. Pictures of the Neck pocket damage are attached as well.

[GuitarIv]

Some more neck pocket pics, the DC resistance of the neck pickup which reads around 7.2k ohms and the glorious Miracle Man at around 17.8k ohms 

[GuitarIv]

Next up you can see the Floyd Rose (which seemed to have the low and the high E string clamping parts exchanged for other ones somewhere over the course of the years, this turned out the be a big pain in the arse, but I'll get to that in a few pics), the non recessed tremolo routing, the short amount of neck pickup wire and me removing the tuners to clean the neck.

[GuitarIv]

And here we have the back of the dirty neck with the allen wrench holder and some kind of... whatever that plastic thingy was supposed to be. A cigarette holder? Seriously, I honestly seem to despise the person who did this to the instrument more and more. Removed the damn thing carefully (although not perfectly as you can see from the small scratch in the wood) with an acto knife, it was sticked at the back of the neck. Ugh.

[GuitarIv]

Sooo, time to clean the neck and rehydrate the rosewood with some Ballistol. This stuff is used to clean weapons, seal wood and besides the horrible, horrible smell you can use it to sterilize wounds of your domestic pets, clean their ears and keep their fur shiny. Including your horses mane. No shite. It's all written in the description at the back of the bottle, including some other uses like cleaning the mechanic parts of your mountain bike. Did I mention it's skin friendly? Asked a local luthier about it, he told me it's great for guitars... still that smell. Barf. Anyway, the neck got some nice colour back 

[GuitarIv]

Whoop whoop, next up the shiny neck, some of the disgusting grease I removed, the dc resistance of the Invader and the Miracle Man being prepared to find a new home. The Invader is actually an ok pickup for fast thrashy rhythms, used a pair of those for a few months years ago, but it has a really cold and sterile sound to it, sounds really muddy (especially compared to them knuckles), the low end is too flabby and the high end is, as Alex already said, ugly. Good thing we are gonna put a proper rock machine into this axe now hehehe