# Hohner SR Devil - Questions



## crg123 (Jan 3, 2013)

Forgive the old picture, I took it when I was 6 years ago. It looks 1000x better in person.







So I have some questions about this guitar. I figured maybe someone out there can give me some information. 

History:

So I found this guitar thrown in a pile of trash one day. It was complete downpour but I spoted it out of the corner of my eye. The family had moved out of the house and pretty much threw everything they didnt want onto the lawn. It's headstock was sticking out from under a mattress LOL.

The guitar was covered in stickers, and missing half the saddles. I was really into project guitars back then so I took her in and worked some magic. 

I added an X2N in the bridge and a Tonezone in the neck (really into Symphony X then). I gutted everything and cleaned it all out. I wanted it hot rodded so I put 1k pots in (don't judge me lol). I got all gold hardware with locking tuners to replace the rusted crap and removed all the stickers with goo off. I worked the finish until it was back to shiny and new looking.

When I finally got it all fixed up and plugged in, I was shocked. This guitar played and sounded great. I looked up the guitar only and couldn't find much of anything about other then it was only produced from 1986 to 1988. Also most of the sites I found had to be translated from German and they didn't provide much.

Has anyone heard of this guitar or seen one before? I know they're not top shelf stuff but I've always been curious on the history/ rarity of them. I was shocked about the quality of what apparently would be a medium lowish end guitar. Apparently it went for 400 DM in 1988. Not sure what that conversion would be to todays money


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## xxx128 (Jan 3, 2013)

Howdy.

This was my first guitar. Sold ALL my Kenner star wars figures to get me a metal guitar, lol. This must have been '86. After listening to hell awaits for far too much i knew what i had to do in life! Paid 445DM (cheaper than listed) for it and still being in school i only got it because i couldn't afford a japanese BC Rich.

Back then there were two 2 lines with 3 shapes with hohner. A Star shape, an explorer and a flying V. The entry level model was called SR/EX/FV Devil and sold around 500DM.
The better ones with korean(?) kahlers were around 700DM and neck thru.But somehow the SR's were much better looking sans the Zebra stripes and such.

If i am not terribly mistaken ALL these 6 models were manufactured in korea.
Which back then wasnt as cool as it is today. The stock PU's and hardware were crap. But surprisingly enough the body which should be alder sounded really awesome with a nice humbucker. I am still looking for an alder guitar that sounds this awesome. Not joking but back then body woods did sound nicer even with crappy guitars.

Here is more info on these.
. - SR Devil


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## crg123 (Jan 3, 2013)

> But surprisingly enough the body which should be alder sounded really awesome with a nice humbucker. I am still looking for an alder guitar that sounds this awesome. Not joking but back then body woods did sound nicer even with crappy guitars.


Glad to hear you loved it as much as I do! I never heard what it would have played/ sounded like with the original hardware/ pickups but they looked like shit. I threw one wilkinson locking tuners and bridge with a solid steel block, and a tusq nut. Now its perfect 

Anyone else have one of these bad boys? I wonder how the hell it got to the states. I wonder if it's one of the only ones that made it over here.


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## xxx128 (Jan 4, 2013)

As far as i know these were exclusively sold in europe thus should be extremely rare in other parts of the world. Neck is candian maple with a rosewood fretboard. 445DM roughly equals 550 us dollar today.


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## crg123 (Jan 4, 2013)

wow thats awesome! I thought it must have been rare but I would have never known. Thanks.


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## crg123 (Jan 10, 2013)

Bump. He can't be the only one who's seen one of these before. Any others who've owned it?


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## Nag (Jan 11, 2013)

I have no info but this looks rad as hell


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## crg123 (Jan 11, 2013)

^ Thanks! Its at home now but when I go back I'm going to take some better pictures of it and refret it! I can't believe someone would leave this in the trash when they moved. Especially the nasty stickers they threw all over it. Took about 8 hours to clean up the body.


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## xxx128 (Apr 5, 2013)

There is a rare white one on ebay austria right now.

Hohner SR Devil - Sammlerstück - 80er Jahre | eBay


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## crg123 (May 28, 2013)

So I went home today and grabbed these from my dad's..... UNFORTUNATELY he put them in the god damn basement at some point in time so the frets and the metal hardware oxidized. I did my best to clean them up but I could only do some much. I figured I would show them both since they're both kind of rare/rarish guitar budget guitars I fixed up when I was in my teens.

Well Here are two guitars I brought back from the dead:
Look at this link for all the photos
Old Guitar/ New pictures - a set on Flickr

Customized 1988 SR Devil

This guitar was literally dead. It was covered in stickers from head to toe and thrown away by the side of the trash. I walked by and thought there was something special about this guitar.

Although I did not push the money into refinishing the paint job I used Goo-off to remove all the stickers and hand buffed over and over and over again until the body regained some of its original shine. 

Even though there are LOTS of cosmetic damage to the guitar and some that looks like it would have left the guitar obliterated (see image of nut), I put the money into this guitar to repair it.

Here are my customizations:
* Wilkinson locking tuners (gold)
* Guitar Fetish Tremolo with solid steel block
*Yellow and Black Dimarzio X2N bridge (yellow and black) + Red Dimarzio Tone Zone in reverse (paul gilbert style) position
*All new electronics 1M rating (I laugh at this now but I thought it'd give me SUPER HIGH output)
*New Graphtech graphite nut

the only issue I really have with guitar is that the frets are the original ones and they are a bit sharp on the edges and the frets are pretty worn down since their not stainless steel.














This is the nut, the idiot who had it early actually tried to carve into the wood because the old nut was broken. Luckily it seems to just be cosmetic.














Customized Dean VX with Floyd

This is the discontinued Floyd Model of VX series. I found this guitar covered in grime, frets destroyed, wiring destroyed. The guitar by all means was a piece of shit.... but when I picked it up I noticed something interesting. The neck on this guitar was amazingly comfortable for a Dean guitar especially of this price. I decided to take it home and salvage it.

Here are my customizations:
* All new frets
* Stripped old black paint and stained bare wood &quot;English oak&quot; w/ clear coat
* All New electronics with a push/pull coil tap for both pickups
*replaced zebra stock pickups for a SD JB Bridge (open black) and a Gibson Burstbucker 2 neck.
* Added Tremol-no 
*Left Grover tuners and Floyd Rose Licensed Bridge






















The two issues with the guitar again are just cosmetic but annoying. Basically the chrome pickup looks a but grimy (couldn't figure out how to polish it back to its old look), also the guy who clear coated my guitar (Springmire Vintage Oakville CT, beware) let the clear coat drip from the bottom forming bubbles at the tips of the V. Also the sides were extremely rough. I used super light sandpaper and smoothed out the sides and made the bubbles much smaller. See here:








*For Reference: 

This is what they use to look like!*

SR Devil Stripped. This was after I cleaned off the horrid stickers and all the old hardware (besides the old tuners at this point)





Dean VX- Not my photo






Let me know what you guys think. I was actually thinking about posting this in the Luthiery section even though it was done a really long time ago. It was nice giving these guys the photos they deserve, too bad they're just sitting at my moms house now haha.


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## Funkapottomous (May 29, 2013)

crg123 said:


> Forgive the old picture, I took it when I was 6 years ago.


 Woah man, that's deep.

Sweet guitar too.


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## crg123 (May 30, 2013)

^ Hahahh That was suppose to say 6 years ago, not 6 years old lol. I haven't been playing for THAT long. I took it when I was 16, I'm 22 now.


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## BucketheadRules (May 30, 2013)

crg123 said:


>



Dude, seriously - this looks awesome.

I have an old Baby ML, which was my first guitar. It's a nice guitar and still occasionally gets played, but you can tell it's cheap - good pickups but slightly crappy hardware. Also is finished in sparkly silver, so looks a bit stupid. Not very metal... now I'm feeling like I should strip and oil-finish it! Hopefully the wood grain would be as nice as that... probably not though, it's just plain ol' basswood. It'd be cool to get rid of that silver finish, it's always kind of bugged me. It could look more expensive than it does...


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## crg123 (May 31, 2013)

In all honesty go for it! When I stripped it, it looked ok but as soon as I stained it with the English Oak stain I was amazed! It really brought out the grain as you can see. Its really too bad this guitar just sits at my moms house. I should play it more but I don't have room at my new place.

That was the nice thing about cheap guitars; you really don't mind experimenting with them. I'm happy though cause I'm buying my friend's skervesen viper 7 "Octopus" soon. So I'm saving up for that. I'm thinking about selling these two down the road for the cash, although I don't think I'd get that much. They're more valuable in sentimental value then actual value haha.\\

Edit: funny think about the whole stripping it down to the natural wood grain thing. I had a guitar tech who told me I'd be an idiot to do that (I've mentioned him a few times on this site "Springmire Vintage"). So glad I didn't listen to that chop shop runner (he'd steal my old stuff when I had him replace it with new hardware/pickups + numerous other things that would be offtopic to talk about).


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## crg123 (Sep 10, 2013)

*Bump

*I don't believe that xxx128 can be the only ones who know about this thing. Does anyone else own one or one like it?

EDIT: WTF 

http://www.ebay.de/itm/VINTAGE-1980S-HOHNER-SR-DEVIL-ELECTRIC-GUITAR-RARE-PRE-OWNED-FREE-SHIPPING-/161026885432?pt=Guitar&hash=item257df34738


"Preis: US $949,99"


Wow I guess these are rare... I'm contacting the seller now to see if he can give me any more info


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## xxx128 (Sep 21, 2013)

there is an EX on ebay right now

Hohner EX Devil Gibson Explorer Shape Electric Guitar | eBay


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## Melting Clock (Jan 7, 2014)

I am the original owner of a Hohner SR Devil. It was the first guitar I ever owned. I received it as a Christmas present in 1986 or 87. My Mom purchased it new at a music store in Silverdale, WA USA. It was a great starter guitar although I would have honestly preferred a more standard body style. I was more into Punk back then than metal. It sounded pretty decent on the oem set-up. Held tune decently too for a vintage style trem set-up. I still have the guitar but play my Les Paul mostly.

So yes they were sold in the US but I don't think they ever became very popular. Most of the musicians I knew started on Low End Fenders, Jackson, BC Rich, or Ibanez.


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## crg123 (Jul 19, 2014)

Never saw that response man! Sorry I never got back to you but thank you for the information.


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## crg123 (Aug 20, 2016)

Bump. Still trying to find out more about these.


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## ptaka69 (Jul 17, 2018)

Hey! I know this is an old thread but just wanted to say I STILL have my original Hohner FV Devil flying V and is still the original condition. The Specs were:
Body: Rosewood/ Bridge: Tremolo/ Pickups: Humbuckers/ Pickup Configuration: H-H /Controls: vol/vol/tone


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## possumkiller (Jul 17, 2018)

Damn. Those are pretty rad.


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## ptaka69 (Jul 17, 2018)

possumkiller said:


> Damn. Those are pretty rad.


Yes they are! They are very rare and hard to find. I bought mine in Germany and Im still the original owner of it.


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## crg123 (Aug 13, 2018)

Nice man! I'm still curious of the story of how this guy made his way over here since it seems like they were mostly european releases.

I noticed one was up for sale recently if you want to see what one looks like in original condition before my mods: https://reverb.com/item/8203824-str...-hohner-professional-sr-devil-electric-guitar


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