2024 - Hagstroem inspirations

Hagstroem inspirations

In the 80s I once had one like this red one here. Due to the trouble and the impending bankruptcy of our Rockinger company, I was forced to sell practically my entire guitar collection, various P90 guitars and all sorts of exotic guitars etc.. A loss like that always hurts. But recently I was offered these two rare birds and bought them. The blue one is called "Batman".

As I've always said, all European guitars from the 60s had their quirks. Hagstroem was still a ray of hope, because not only did the tinsel flash and the pearloid twinkle, but the things also worked halfway. Plus crazy and imaginative features: The fingerboards were made of plastic and the frets were simple stainless steel blades, so no T-profile material with those nubs, just smooth and pressed into their slots. In addition, the bridge had six individual saddles guided on a slim bar, which could be moved sideways and adjusted in the octave unit by means of two clamping screws. The trussrods were not adjustable, but were made of an elaborate, solid aluminum profile so that these necks did not warp. The pickups, each with 12 individual magnets, were quite stylish, but rather flat-chested.

Only the tremolo - how could it be otherwise? - because it didn't always return to its original position despite the fact that the blade was actually positioned correctly and also had an unfavorable string path. But there was a nice lever attachment: the lever was screwed into a thin tube, which in turn was soldered into a tremolo button at a slight angle.

But why did they use these push switches for the pickup combinations? Various Italian guitars also had something like this. What could be easier to operate than a CRL or OAK 3 way switch or a toggle switch?

And on my new red guitar it turned out that, firstly, a potentiometer was broken and, secondly, some of these push switches had nasty loose contacts. So I had to dismantle the whole thing! The entire electrical system with the two pickups is located in a kind of box, with a chrome-plated plate on top and a plastic cover on the back. Many small screws and the pots with 4mm shafts. I ordered the potentiometer from Bürklin (you hardly ever have anything like that in the house) and replaced it.

And: the Hagstroems probably wanted to be even more "industrial" than Leo Fender!

But although I had ground and cleaned all the contact blades of these push switches, I couldn't get to grips with the problem of the loose contacts. The only way was to deactivate all the snot and replace a pressure switch with one of our excellent mini toggles. However, with its 12 mm diameter, it didn't fit into any of the rectangular recesses. So I filed down the thread on both sides, resulting in a width of approx. 9.5mm, so that it could finally be fitted and the nut still had enough substance to be tightened.

Now everything works perfectly, a volume pot, a tone pot and a deactivated one including the five remaining dummy pushbuttons.

And now the inspiration!

Why not put something like this on a Duesenberg guitar? Either with two knurled pots or a horizontal flat pot and a 3-way switch that protrudes as little as possible at the top. See for yourself!