Re: Need a Bass bridge for a 1965 Guild Jetstar Bass

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

[context shift - Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring]

I talked to him yesterday, finally. I suggested something that make get these things happening again. We'll see.

He got 30 pickups out to Europe last month. Basically, he's overwhelmed. Its a one-man operation. I'm leaning on him to give that up, which is more complex than you might imagine.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

mgod said:

I talked to him yesterday, finally. I suggested something that make get these things happening again. We'll see.
He got 30 pickups out to Europe last month. Basically, he's overwhelmed. Its a one-man operation. I'm leaning on him to give that up, which is more complex than you might imagine.

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I'm not even a bass guy, just a fan, but a guy like that deserves to see his legacy preserved. And beside that he owes it to us. (Just kidding!) Thanks MG.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

What are his reasons for not wanting to hire employees? Quality control issues?

If he's been doing these pickups 100% on his own for so many years, I think that adding two to three people under him would enable the company to increase output in a huge way (enough to meet demand I'd hope), yet Fred would still have control of the quality of his products. Not to mention that his profits would skyrocket.

That said, he's probably going to need some serious PR to correct this whole mess if and when he does resume business.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

bassmanpatsfan18 said:

What are his reasons for not wanting to hire employees?

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I could think of all kinds of reasons, like labor laws and related overhead issues, and workspace requirements, etc. Profit is not neccessarily the ultimate goal for everybody, especially if one wants to avoid headaches associated with being more than just your own boss.
As a control freak myself, I could also understand if he's leery about finding someone he could trust, to delegate labor or decision-making to.
In any case the question seems a bit intrusive to me, although I'm sure it wasn't intentional.
I thank Mgod again for the small insight he did share. I think it says all we need to know, for now.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

adorshki said:

bassmanpatsfan18 said:

What are his reasons for not wanting to hire employees?

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I could think of all kinds of reasons, like labor laws and related overhead issues, and workspace requirements, etc. Profit is not neccessarily the ultimate goal for everybody, especially if one wants to avoid headaches associated with being more than just your own boss.
As a control freak myself, I could also understand if he's leery about finding someone he could trust, to delegate labor or decision-making to.
In any case the question seems a bit intrusive to me, although I'm sure it wasn't intentional.
I thank Mgod again for the small insight he did share. I think it says all we need to know, for now.

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Fair point. I didn't mean for the question to be at all intrusive, I was asking merely from a business point of view.

The unfortunate thing is that his product is a replica of another company's product so he can't possibly own any sort or intellectual property rights over it. This means that anyone could swoop in at any moment and make another version of Dark Stars/Bi-sonics, which if they are of adequate quality could effectively do Fred's business in for good. I know that he does what he does for the enjoyment of it and not the profit, but the fact that he loves making these pickups isn't going to stop any person or company with the right equipment and knowledge from taking over his market.

I've heard that Fred is a great guy and he obviously makes a superb product, so I hope that he can find a way to get back into the swing of things without compromising quality or without feeling like he's divulging his trade secrets to potentially untrustworthy people in expanding his business.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

RussB said:

The unfortunate thing is that his product is a replica of another company's product so he can't possibly own any sort or intellectual property rights over it.

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I'm not sure that's technically correct, but it's a fair point. IF hagstrom did patent the Bisonics and IF that patent's still in effect, then that's probably true.

RussB said:

This means that anyone could swoop in at any moment and make another version of Dark Stars/Bi-sonics, which if they are of adequate quality could effectively do Fred's business in for good.

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I have a suspicion that in fact this is what allowed Fred to "swoop in" and reproduce the BiSonics, that there was in fact no "patent", but I am absolutely ignorant as to whether or not Hagstrom actually had any patents. It's possible that they considered the construction to be so generic as to not be "patentable", ie, it's just another variation on poles and windings, nothing so unique as to be worthy of protection?
Perhaps more knowledgable members can answer that one.
The alternative or maybe even additional possiblity is that because Hagstrom had discontinued 'em, Fred felt there was no ethical barrier to reproducing 'em, especially since technically there was no economic damage being done to Hagstrom?

RussB said:

I know that he does what he does for the enjoyment of it and not the profit, but the fact that he loves making these pickups isn't going to stop any person or company with the right equipment and knowledge from taking over his market.
I've heard that Fred is a great guy and he obviously makes a superb product, so I hope that he can find a way to get back into the swing of things without compromising quality or without feeling like he's divulging his trade secrets to potentially untrustworthy people in expanding his business.

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I'm thinking that maybe even though he's a legend in his niche, the whole market for that type of product is too small to tempt competition?
And I was thinking more of trusting co-workers to uphold standards of quality, than keeping "trade secrets", for the reasons already noted.
But again, it's all speculation on my part, which might be clarified by folks like Mgod or Frono who've got a lot more expertise wehn it comes to Hagstrom/Guild bass history..

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

[url=http://hammoneng.com/faq1.htm said:

Fred's website[/url]]Question:
Are Dark Stars exactly like to original Hagstrom pickups?

Answer:
No. When I first approached this project I was obsessed with detail. I took carefull measurments as I reverse engineered the original Hagstrom pickups that I used as models. As time went on I became more familiar with the function and "logic" of it's construction.

One of the first things I noticed was that there were at least 3 different methods that Hagstrom used to mount connection terminals over the years. I found all of them "wanting" in some way. The terminal location seemed to be an after-thought to the design. One of the methods caused the plastic bobbin to melt when I tried to remove the old wire. Rick Turner encouraged me to make improvements where ever I could and suggested that I mold the bobbin from tougher and more heat resistant Lexan. I was then able to press mount terminal posts right on the bobbin itself.

Other improvements include using thinner and better insulated steel laminations in the bobbin core. I was able to put 8 laminations instead of 5 in the same space. This is to better reduce eddy currents and hysteresis loss which can limit high frequency. If you're really interested in this stuff check this out.
http://leeh.ee.tut.fi/transformer/tra232.htm
Dark Stars are a work in progress. I'm still experimenting with different coil wire gauges and DC resistance values but for now I think I've got a pretty good formula. Look for low impedance models in the future.

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Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

fronobulax said:

[url=http://hammoneng.com/faq1.htm said:

Fred's website[/url]]Question:
Are Dark Stars exactly like to original Hagstrom pickups?

Answer:
No.

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Thanks. I probably shouldn't have used the term "reproduced", I knew they weren't exact copies. Still don't know about whether or not anybody's designs were "protected" or even "protectable", but it just occurred to me that there's probably no useful purpose to be served by examining that right now.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

The concept of "swooping in" is sort of dreaming. I tried to find someone for 30 years who would care enough about this to take it on.

30 years.

For a little perspective, that's 10 times longer than the number of years between when they vanished and when I started looking. The likeliest candidate was always RT, who knew too much to try. Fred was the right guy with the right resources at the right time. This is not easy. At RT's behest he talked to Duncan about taking it over, but the numbers don't work.

Fred has proven it can be done and done well, and yes, with a lot of work someone could imitate what he's done, and would very likely lose money doing it.

Also worth noting - Hagstrom didn't make the Bisonic. And now we have no idea who did.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

There were rumors floating around on TalkBass of a Swedish company located near the original Hagström factory attempting to start doing their own take on the Bi-sonics. Have any of you heard anything about that? If Hagström really didn't make the pickups in the first place, then that may present them some difficulties.

The plot thickens...

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

I`ve never had anything but the best experiences dealing with Fred or his product. That being said, if he`s in this for the long haul ( and I do hope thats the case), it might be a good idea to have someone do a 10 minute update of his website. People wait all the time for a custom/ handmade product. Let them wait, just let them know. The site still says to expect shipping in 3 weeks. If Fred said , sorry, I make each pickup by hand, the wait is currently 3-6-9 months, or whatever, I doubt he would lose a single order.Well maybe BAZ :lol:
Just the fact that anything at all changed on the website, would at least confirm that he`s still out there. And I do hope he wants that.......

Jeff

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

mgod said:

Also worth noting - Hagstrom didn't make the Bisonic. And now we have no idea who did.

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That's news to me. Please elaborate and in the meantime I will stop using Hagstrom and Bisonic as if they are synonyms for the same pickup.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

bassmanpatsfan18 said:

What are his reasons for not wanting to hire employees? Quality control issues?

If he's been doing these pickups 100% on his own for so many years, I think that adding two to three people under him would enable the company to increase output

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IIRC, Fred did try having others make the DS for him - maybe 5- 6 years ago?

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

Well, just throwing this out there, but if Fred ever decides he wants to hire a young, passionate, dedicated-to-the-cause individual, I'd be honored to jump on board for very little pay.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

Might be worth noting for anyone who thinks that it'd be easy for someone else to just pick this up -

Before doing this Fred had worked for years as a tooling designer in aerospace (which he still does, full time), and he also was wiling to risk about $20,000 on the tooling and initial parts expense. It can take a lot of pickups - built by hand - just to break even.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

mgod said:

Might be worth noting for anyone who thinks that it'd be easy for someone else to just pick this up -
Before doing this Fred had worked for years as a tooling designer in aerospace (which he still does, full time), and he also was wiling to risk about $20,000 on the tooling and initial parts expense. It can take a lot of pickups - built by hand - just to break even.

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After reading Fono's link to his webpage, and his comments about how he tweaked the original designs, I realized that there must have been some production quantity orders at some point. You don't just order up 40 or 50 custom moldings at a time for instance. That is unless you want to pay for the whole minimum production run anyway.
I worked for a while in a place that quoted plastic moldings, amongst other things, so I'm pretty sure I know exactly what he's going through, in terms of trying to find a reasonable economy of scale.
$20 grand actually sounds cheap to me. Good job, Fred!
I hope he makes out well in the end. I've got nothing but respect for entrepreneurs.
I'm just glad that as a wholesaler, they need me as much as I need them. It's symbiotic.
Just elaborating on your point, (I think), Mgod: "have a little sympathy, it's more complicated than you might suspect"
I'm also remembering another classic double-bind, re that "disconnected number" question: one can spend so much time explaining to folks what's going on, that one doesn't have any time left to actually do something. So, sometimes, one leaves the phone off the hook for a while, right? :wink:

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

I did for myself something that is inspired to the Bisonic/Dark Star. I bought some time ago a Peavey T-40 on ebay, without pickups. It was perfect for installation of a couple of Hagostrom bisonics or Dark Star, but I had no chance in finding them, so I decided to make myself two of them.
So I collected documentation to reproduce them and tried, however I found some great difficulties in two main points:
the lamination cores machining and the pole height adjustement mechanism.
I decided to give up with the pole height mechanism, the screws that you see are dummy, and replaced the lamination with ferrite beads, they should do the work of lamination, maybe even better.
I used 6 mm alnico poles, and alnico bars and handwinded single coil at about 5.4KOhm, (really hand winding, no coil winding machine of any type) and finally wax potted the pickups. Finally I created a wooden ring painted black including a classic humbucker height adjustement possibility.

Then I installed on the T-40, with series/parallel option.
My craftmanship skills are not great and actually the appearance is not the best, the main problem was removing the wax from the front of the PU, however the results was better that expected and the sound, well the sound to my ears is great!
I have no experience of the real thing however these pickups have a fat deep tone that I do not find in my other bass, and at the same time a great clarity. The volume is terrific, expecially in series configuration, and the frequency response great. I really like the sound that now is coming from this bass. I would be really curious to compare with some real Dark Star or Bisonic. Here are few pictures
I started this project about 5 months ago, and worked in the few spare time from work and during holiday,and used a drilling machine and a router to make the job essentially from plastic sheets, forbon, ferrite beads, alnico poles and bars, and AWG 42 wire.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

Baz Cooper seems to have vanished.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

mgod said:

Baz Cooper seems to have vanished.

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*snicker*

More like Moderated.

See this if there is anything else to say about his JetStar.

Re: Fred Hammon Number disconnected-I need a Darkstar trim ring

I see.