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SHAMRAY GUITARS GALLERY

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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 04.04.2006 20:47 
Paulo Mendes



Master Sushkov probably :)
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 04.04.2006 21:10 
Jonas Dalmayne



Yea, that's Master Sushkov alright.

Mike playtested it today, and reports;

"All i could think was "best guitar ever" - when you play it yourself, you will agree. This guitar feels PERFECT, i dont think i've played a better feeling guitar in the past ten years."

So that sounds ok, i guess... :)

And believe it or not, the sun was shining today...
4apr11.jpg
4apr6.jpg
4apr5.jpg
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 04.04.2006 21:36 



Wow. Now we're all excited about the shipping situation :D This guitar needs some Swedish spring time!
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 04.04.2006 22:18 



I want him making my next one.
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 04.04.2006 22:59 



Congratulations, wonderful guitar! I like it, perfect details!
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 04.04.2006 23:55 
Ïðàãà
ãèòàðà

Test drive ;-)
PICT0001.JPG
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 05.04.2006 00:04 
Ïðàãà
ãèòàðà

Jon Pinson, you're welcome. Now I'm working at completing Paulo's and Christophe's guitars. And I'm waiting for new interesting projects.
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 05.04.2006 20:42 



I think my ideas are too boring.

Sorry for the hijack Jonas.
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 07.04.2006 02:46 
Ïðàãà
ãèòàðà

Guitar is fully completed and next week will go home!
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 07.04.2006 10:57 
Jonas Dalmayne



Cool! Can't wait! :)
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 11.04.2006 20:33 
Ìîñêâà


One last look before its PACKED... this magnificent guitar is due to ship home THURSDAY

:-)
CS-0063_7318s.jpg
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 13.04.2006 18:30 



Already sent!
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 13.04.2006 19:21 
Jonas Dalmayne



Thank you very much!
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 14.04.2006 00:16 



Hope it passes the customs fast so you don´t have to wait too long.

Han som vantar pa ngt gott, vantar alltid for lange. Var det inte sa?
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 14.04.2006 03:04 
Jonas Dalmayne



Så är det definitivt i mitt fall... :)
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 16.04.2006 23:54 
Jonas Dalmayne



Any luck with that tracking number Mike?
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 17.04.2006 01:43 
Ìîñêâà


check yer email!
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 18.04.2006 21:20 



Arrived yet? ;-) We're waiting!
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 19.04.2006 01:10 
Jonas Dalmayne



Nope, probably will take a few more days i guess with Easter slowing things down...
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 21.04.2006 14:08 
Jonas Dalmayne



Well, just got a letter from FedEx, apparently the guitar got stuck in customs so I'll have to pay up $100. Typical... :(
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 21.04.2006 15:13 
Paulo Mendes



Hi Jonas... I hate FedEx they suck always trying to "steal" us money :( Hope u get the guitar quickly out of customs.
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 21.04.2006 18:23 
Jonas Dalmayne



Well, They'll send it out as soon as the payment has come through, but since it's Friday they won't get the money 'till Monday, which means the earliest I'll see the guitar is Tuesday... GAH!!!
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 22.04.2006 01:40 



Oh my, poor man. In Norway the postal service will deliver EMS things wherever you are, and you pay upfront. Very smooth, but you have to pay, though. I even had them come to my workplace when I ordered a Japanese strat a while back. I guess you can't wait till monday ;) Just stay drunk until then.
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 22.04.2006 02:22 
Jonas Dalmayne



I can't, I have an exam tomorrow (Saturday) at 9.00 am...
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 24.04.2006 19:19 
Erico



Did it arrive today?
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 25.04.2006 17:58 
Jonas Dalmayne



No, but I spoke to FedEx earlier today and it should be delivered tomorrow.
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 26.04.2006 21:29 
Jonas Dalmayne



The guitar arrived today at lunch. I'll give it a full review in a week or two, but for now I can only say I'm very pleased.

It looks gorgeous and sounds sweet. It needs a truss-rod adjustment to play up to it's potential, but for some reason none of my Allen keys fit, so it'll have to wait a day or two.

I'll try to take some new pics and post them along with the full review when I've had some more time with her.

For now, thank you Master Sushkov for the great work, Michael for the great help and to mr Shamray for the speedy delivery.
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 26.04.2006 23:36 
Ìîñêâà


Glad it arrived safely!

I would give it a couple of days to 'acclimatize' to your local environment, before you tweak the truss rod (its had a long trip, and who knows if Swedish customs guys bother to heat their warehouses)
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 27.04.2006 01:20 



Congrats. How about some pics out in the sun? :)
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 27.04.2006 10:08 



Nice news!!!
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 27.04.2006 10:11 



Oh, forgot, there were already some pics out in the sun :) I guess it is the same sun in Sweden.
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 09.06.2006 15:11 
Jonas Dalmayne



Well, I've finally put the guitar down long enough to write a review, it should be up on Harmony Central in a day or two, but I'll post it here for now.



This Explorer is my second from Shamray Guitars, the first is also reviewed here at HC, so if you read that one you'll get a better understanding behind the reason for this second guitar being built.

In short there was some things that weren't quite to spec and that I wasn't quite happy with. After reading the review Shamray Guitars offered to have me send the guitar back and in return build me a new guitar to my exact specs at no extra cost. This was a slightly surprising offer, but one I gladly accepted.

So, about six months later FedEx dropped of another package, and here we go again... :)


Features: 10

Body: 1-piece mahogny, based on the pre-lawsuit ESP Explorer with instrument-grade flame maple top, back and control cavity cover.

Neck: 2-piece quartersawn bookmatched mahogny, U-shaped, 20mm @ 1st fret, 22mm @ 12th fret. 24.75 inch scale, "Scimitar" headstock with front and back instrument-grade flame maple headstock overlays. "JHD"-logo (my initials) inlayed in Mother of Pearl on the ebony trussrod cover.

Fingerboard: Ebony, no inlays except Mother of Pearl side dot markers, 12 inch radius, 22 Jumbo frets, dual-action trussrod, Graph-Tec nut.

Pickups: Bareknuckle Pickups "Warpig" in the bridge, Bareknuckle Pickups "Mule" in the neck. Ebony covers for both pickups.

Controls: 3-way toggle switch, individual volume controls for each pickup, neck pickup tone control.

Hardware: Gotoh Tune-O-Matic bridge and tailpiece, Sperzel locking tuners, Schaller strap-locks, all black.

Finish: All flame maple parts finished in a transparent pale bluish purple with black bursted edges, rest of guitar finished solid black.

Case: Hard custom case, black..

Well, once again it's a 10. Pretty hard putting another grade on something you've decided on yourself. Got exactly what I wanted, didn't hold back on anything and Shamray gladly obliged..


Sound: 10
I was very much looking forward to playing this beast after trying a friends LP and being blown away by the massive sound from the Warpig he had installed in it.

I certainly wasn't disappointed. It's a brutal pickup, very hot and dark yet never turning mushy and still having enough top end to balance things out. It's been described as a passive EMG-85 and there's definitely similarities there, even though I prefer the Warpig myself. Even though it's at its best when you're wildly chugging away at some monster metal riff, it's still surprisingly pleasant for clean and overdriven sounds if you just turn down the volume knob a bit. The alnico magnet used probably has something to do with that.

The Mule is something quite different, more of a hottish PAF pickup, intended more as a blues pickup. I figured it would complement the Warpig nicely when I felt like chilling out a little. It's very smooth and vintage sounding and definitely has that beautiful mellow warmness that I was looking for, yet has enough grunt to stay with the 'Pig without sounding out of place with both pickups active.

The guitar certainly does its part in bringing out the be(a)st in the pickups, the mahogny adding warmth while the maple and ebony supplies a little top end zing. Overall just a great sounding guitar for most anything I can throw at it, very impressive!


Action, Fit, & Finish: 9

I was slightly nervous opening the case for the first time, still remembering the slight disappoinment the last guitar brought with it.

My first thought on opening the case however was just WOW! The colour was spot on, the flame maple a lot more figured and alive than on the old guitar, the black hardware and ebony board and pickup covers perfectly complementing the finish. This is easily one of the sexiest things I've ever seen, couldn't be happier about the looks!

Not very surprisingly it needed some slight adjustments after the long flight from Russia (not to mention spending Easter at the Swedish customs warehouse). After settling down the neck is as straight and even as can be and I even ended up raising the action a little to get it up to what I like (1/16" bass side, 3/64" treble side @ 12th fret), but the neck is so straight it could go lower then that no problem without the strings buzzing.

Well, at least it could with a perfectly cut nut, but there's the only real imperfection I could find, I think it's just cut slightly to low, especially on the bass E string. This is slightly strange as the nut is already shimmed with what looks to be a strip of ebony. I'm guessing it might be that the guitar was setup with a bit more relief at the factory than what I prefer, and the slight straightening I did was all it needed to become a little low at the nut. Besides that though it still could have used a little more work, as the treble E string has a tendency to get pinched while tuning. It's not a huge problem by any means though and can easily be rectified, it just sticks out a little considering everything else feels absolutely perfect, so I'll deduct a point here.

The only other minor imperfections I can find is a tiny spot just above the nut where there's no dye applied and one or two of the side fret position markers have a tiny bit of paint creeping onto them.

Other then that though it's flawless, the neck feels like made for my hands, it plays like butter, the frets are nicely shaped and polished, the finish is as mentioned awesome, the controls work the way they should, everything is neat and tidy inside the control cavity, no excess solder used, etc, etc...


Reliability/Durability: 9

I'll just go ahead and copy what I wrote in the review of the first guitar, as that pretty much sums things up:

"This is obviously hard to judge given that I've only had the guitar a few weeks, but considering the quility of the hardware used and the general feel of solidness the guitar exumes I will give it a high mark. Shamray also offers extensive warranties for the hardware (5 years, I believe) and the integrity of the woodwork ("lifetime"), so if the necks warps or falls off you should be ok :). The only slight problem might be that the very thin nitro finish will probably wear easily, but that is the trade-off for optimum tone I guess. And hey, beat-up guitars are all the rage these days anyway."


Customer Support: 10

Just the fact that Shamray offered to build me a new guitar, without me nagging them about it too much I might add, made me feel a lot better about them and their sense of responsibility to their customers. On top of that they also pretty much let me go nuts when it came to extra details and parts without charging me anything extra for it, which was very much appreciated.

Also, this time the building process was a lot more pleasant, I got a crafter who knew English and had Internet access at work, enabling me to communicate directly with him when needed. Michael (who's in charge of foreign customer service) was as helpful as always and the owner, mr Shamray, did his part by sending the guitar on time. Things seem to have sorted themselves out at Shamray and the operation seems to be running a lot smoother now in general.

So, this time around there's no complaints and Shamray Guitars have very much redeemed themselves as far as I'm concerned.


Overall Rating: 10

Couldn't be happier with this guitar, it's exactly to specs, sounds amazing, plays beautifully and wasn't that expensive (well, relatively speaking). This was very much what I expected when I first ordered my guitar and even though it took 18 months to finally get it I still feel it was all worth it in the end. Kudos to everyone involved at Shamray, and especially to Michael and master crafter Sushkov!
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 09.06.2006 15:52 
Ìîñêâà


Thanks for the (very thorough) review! If you ever get tired of being a guitar-player, I think there is a career in journalism waiting for you... :-)
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 10.06.2006 13:58 
Jonas Dalmayne



Well, if you're going to do it, you might as well do it right! :)
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 10.06.2006 14:50 



Thanks Jonas!
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 12.06.2006 20:38 
Jonas Dalmayne



Here's the link to HC for those that might be interested in reading both reviews...

http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/Data4/Shamray/Custom_Explorer-1.html
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 12.06.2006 21:56 



HI !

n1 guitar ;)

do you got any problems with EU - customs ?
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 12.06.2006 22:28 
Jonas Dalmayne



Yea, I did have to pay a customs fee, about $100. My typical luck I guess...
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 12.06.2006 22:59 



@ both guitars ?
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Òåìà: Re: CS 0063 - Shamray Custom Shop "JHD EXP Mk.II" for Jonas Dalmayne (Sweden)
Âðåìÿ: 13.06.2006 00:42 
Jonas Dalmayne



Only the second
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