Early Hayman 12 string neck

[Scotrock]

Could any of your members please tell me what Hayman guitar this neck came off? It is beautifully made on Maple with Grover machine heads. From the type of Grover machine head it would appear to be early 60's, it has a zero fret and the distinctive slot at the heel for adjusting the truss rod.

If there is another web site that deals with Hayman guitars could you please advise.

[JimN]

One thing is for certain: it's definitely not from the 1960s!

Most Hayman headstocks had a more complex design, usually including a circular hole through the headstock containing a perspex decorative inlay. This one looks like a twelve-string version of the cheaper Hayman Comet range.

[RayL]

Hayman guitars are included in the Shergold website, http://www.shergold.co.uk

As Jim says, the Hayman Comet had a Shergold-style headstock with a printed 'H' rather than a perspex inlay, but the Comet was only made in a six-string version.

Pearls And Crazy Diamonds, Per Gjörde's book about Burns guitars, includes a chapter on Hayman. It says "The Hayman 12-string Models . . . . were only ever produced for special customers"

You might have one of the necks from a Hayman modular double-neck guitar (though only two were ever made)
http://www.shergold.co.uk/gallery.html? ... 6846b14d33

Where did the neck come from? Ebay? From a seller called 'That'll be the day' ?

[Scotrock]

Thank you for your detailed reply, I have attached a photo of the base for your information, I have no idea of its origins.

The neck did not come from a supplier called "That will be the day", the guy that sold it had no idea of what it was from nor much idea about guitars in general, could have been one of those house clearance types. It took me three or four hours of searching the net to identify it as a Hayman neck. My search revealed that during the 60's there were very few quality guitar makers making 12 string necks in maple, I also suspected it was associated with Burns as I own a Baldin Burns 706V of the same period which has similar characteristics. The zero fret is very pre 70's(although the Hayman double neck was dated 1975!)!

I presume it was one of the early Hayman necks before Shergold took over the surplus stock after Hayman folded?

[RayL]

It would be truer to say that it was one of the later Hayman necks. Jack Golder and Norman Houlder provided the woodwork for Hayman guitars, with Norman being the specialist in necks. They were left with a lot of wood (both as timber and as prepared guitar parts) when Dallas Arbiter collapsed in 1975. They did not 'take over' the wood since they had already bought it in anticipation of continued Hayman production. Jack and Norman decided to go it alone with their Shergold brand of guitars. It is likely that your neck dates from that time.

To demonstrate the similarity, the upper neck in this picture is a Shergold 12-string neck

Shergold 12 and Hayman 6 necks.JPG (71.72 KiB) Viewed 16736 times

.
It has no holes in the base since it has never been fitted to a guitar. From the number of holes in yours it seems likely that it has been fitted to more than one guitar
The lower neck is a Hayman (lacking, alas, the perspex inlay).

Your 706V is a rare beastie. I find that design of tremolo very pleasant to use, having had one on my Shergold Modulator 'bitsa' six-string since 1980.

[Scotrock]

Hi Ray

Thank you very much for the expert information, yes of course you are right, the neck would have been at the end of the Hayman period.

The photo you included is very similar to mine but there is a slot in the head board which suggests there is a truss rod adjuster, mine has the captain type turn buckle in the slotat the heal on my photo.

My 706V was a rescue job, when I got it the bridge and part of the tremolo were missing, incidentally the tremolo body was plastic! If you are interested here is a link to the re build postings I did for other 706 owners. I used the same electronic and had to rebuild a modern roller bridge by shimming to match the 7.5 in radius of the neck.

http://www.gretsch-talk.com/forum/grets ... ldwin.html

They have an unusually narrow necks, the neck had three of four damaged frets which I had to replace, otherwise the guitar was in good condition with only slight checking on the neck. They have a distinctive gangling sound very similar to a Rickenbacker, of course the pickups are single coils!

I suppose the question I am left with is having found out what it is what do I do with it, I suppose I could build a 12 string Hayman type body for it?

John

[Scotrock]

Here is a photo of Hayman 1010 12 string guitar from the Shergold forum

[RayL]

I suppose I could build a 12 string Hayman type body for it?

For a true Hayman body (1010,2020 or 3030 style) you should include a 'Vibrosonic Chamber' (box of springs under the bridge with the strings passing through this Chamber to anchor points at the back of the body). That should certainly increase the 12-string* jangle!
Ray
* my 2020 is currently strung Nashville (rather like having the upper strings only of a 12-string guitar). It produces a very fine rhythm guitar sound that is useful for recording - it is defined but without having the lower frequencies that intrude into the spectrum of keyboard or bass guitar.

[Scotrock]

Do you have a diagram or any photos of the way the Chamber and springs works?

[RayL]

Alas, the secrets of the Vibrosonic Chamber will only be revealed when someone is brave enough to tear apart the body of a Hayman 1010, 2020 0r 3030!

However, it's not hard to do some guessing. When Hank asked Jim Burns to design the guitar that would become the Burns Marvin, Jim got hold of a Stratocaster so that he could investigate the "v'bratin' sow-und" as he described in his County Durham accent for It Was In Tune When I Bought It. He correctly worked out that the counterbalance springs in the Strat's tremolo system 'sang' in sympathy with the strings (not a lot, but enough to influence the sound).

He carried that idea in his head, and when he was asked to design the Hayman range by Ivor Arbiter he aranged that the routing of the body included a space under the bridge for a box of springs. If I rap the body of my 2020 with my knuckles I can hear the springs 'singing' faintly through the wood.

So a good start if you wanted to build a Hayman copy would be to get some Strat springs and build them into a box that stretched them between anchor-points. Rout enough of the guitar body under the bridge so that the box will fit, and arrange that the strings pass through the box. No guarantees but it's a start.
Ray