My 1984 Kramer Replica

 
The 1984 guitar served as a backup for and was very similar to the 5150 guitar. It's interesting to note that many people have thought that this guitar had a black Floyd Rose on it because of the 1984 REPLICA that is depicted on vintagekramer.com (shown below). But it is evident in the pictures of Ed and Valerie at the top of this page that the 1984 had a chrome Floyd Rose just like the 5150 guitar. 

For my replica, I started with an old strat style body I found at a flea market a couple years ago. I sanded off the old paint, and filled in the unnecessary cavities with blocks of wood, plastic wood, and elmer's wood filler

After a white base coat, I masked the stripes

 

 

 

And then the red coat, and peeling the mask

For the black stripes, I put down mask to allocate the areas that would be covered with black

Next, I outlined those areas and pulled the original mask off

And covered all areas outside of the outline

On the original, the black stripes were pretty sloppy, so I tried to be as sloppy as possible about it. Unfortunately, I didn't get the same result, but it is what it is

And here are some pictures of the headstock, using the same process

I added the Kramer logo before clear coating

I didn't want this guitar too be too glassy looking, so I only put about 10 coats of gloss, then wet sanded only with 400 grit before buffing. I assembled this guitar with generic schaller style tuning machines, a generic liscenced Floyd Rose trem set, a VEH extra hot brown sound pickup from guitarfetish.com, and an old MXR knob and other extra parts I had sitting around

Note: I didn't want to spend a ton of money on this replica, and I wanted to use up this banana neck I had. But it didn't have a skunk stripe like the original. So this skunk stripe is faked - it's a dark wood stain only

I got the "space tape" 1984 with 2 stars decal set from axetremecreations.com

My Diver Down Yellow Kramer Doubleneck

This guitar was made for Ed by Kramer. Aluminum 12 string neck, with the standard strings tuned at the headstock, and lighter strings tuned at the body. Classic kramer beak headstock neck for the 6 string neck with an early Rockinger tremolo. This guitar was delivered to Eddie during the Hide Your Sheep tour of 1982, and he performed "Cathedral" and "Secrets" with it.





Making a replica of this guitar is not easy. It was almost a one-of-a-kind body, the aluminum necks are hard to get a hold of without paying close to $1000 and removing it from it's original guitar, and the Rockinger bridges are very rare. Considering all those difficulties, I decided that I wasn't going to worry about being very accurate, so why not see if I could make one from all the leftover parts I had hanging around? So here is what I did:

I took two separate bodies and cut them each in half

I picked these bodies up for less than $25 at a flea market

I glued the 2 half-bodies together by drilling out holes and connecting the 2 bodies with wooden dowels

Shaping and filling old routes

Rather than sanding the old paint off, I actually used a milling machine to thin out the body to reduce the weight

Adding the tuner plate

Adding the long horn

   

       

Roughly filled, ready for grain filling and sanding

Stripes masked

Yellow coat

Peeling mask

After wet sanding

Here is a breakdown of parts used:

Some leftover Schaller style tuners for the 6 neck

The Floyd locking nut is not historically correct, but it and the string tree were leftover parts that I already had

This set of Washburn tuners was also a leftover set. If I remember correctly, I got this set from the modded Charvel Star that I picked up to make my Star/Dano hybrid replica

Couldn't find a 12 string nut to fit this 6 string neck, so I had to cut my own nut with my bandsaw.
I made the headstock bridge from an old trem claw

This 12 string bridge is not historically accurate, but I couldn't find a Rockinger version

Another leftover tuner set

Hit the jackpot on this find! A real Rockinger trem for $80 on Ebay!
The Floyd posts aren't historically accurate (the original had the 6 pivot screws)
But it's close enough for me!

Ya, those are matching Squier neckplates that I had laying around.
And the rear cavity covers? Yup, I cut up a leftover pickguard to get the shapes I needed

The neck is NOT aluminum. I just couldn't find an affordable aluminum neck, so I bought a paddlehead, and painted it metallic aluminum. If I ever find an affordable aluminum neck, I will be replacing this one.

I had to buy the LP knobs, but all the switches, pots, and other electronics were leftover parts as well.
The bridge pup on the 6 side is a generic "brown sound" style pickup that was leftover from one of the kits I previously
bought, and I paid $12 on Ebay for the old Kramer stock neck pup. The pickups on the 12 side are both GFS Classic II
Alnico 2's for a nice "woody" sound, from guitarfetish.com

What an exciting project this was! I really enjoyed using up some of my leftover parts and modifying them to work! It's the first time I've made or setup a 12 string guitar, and trial and error during the setup took quite some time. The setup still isn't perfect, but it's close enough to sound good: