John Lennon Guitar Project....

[ATAG_Lewis]

A project I'd like to share with those of my flying buddies who actual like guitar stuff too...

So..

Being a Beatle/Lennon fan from 14 and a guitar player I always wanted a Rickenbacker 325 Capri like John Lennons original 325 he bought (altho aledgedly never actually completed the payments) in Hamburg before the Beatles were really big...This guitar was reissued by Rickenbacker for a short spell in the 80s and 90s and now they fetch around £3,000 ($5,000) on the used market...so not in a position to justify this price for a guitar I started looking for a copy that I could tweak to full Ric 325 spec...

A brief history of the Lennon Ric 325 Capri

John Lennon was given a number of guitars by Rickenbacker over the Beatle period but in an interview not long before he died he was asked which was his favourite guitar and he mentioned his original 325 Ric from Hamburg...When Lennon bought the guitar it was natural wood colour and was later brush painted black at the beginning of the Beatles climb to stardom...He played it throughout the Beatle period and also played it on the Double Fantasy album. The guitar is not a full scale size but more like 5/6. Lennon learned banjo first and so a short scale guitar would have been an easier transition to make and he would have felt more accostomed to its size than most guitar players would have..

Interestingly the very guitar that Lennon bought in Hamburg was photographed before he purchased it at a guitar exhibition with Toots Theilman(guitar in bottom left of photo)...It was an experimental guitar and not mass produced at this stage. Also at some point between these photos and when Lennn had it the guitar had more control knobs added the and drilling of the extra 2 holes in the scratch plate where never uniform which can be seen in photos of it.



The Ric 325 as it was when first bought by Lennon with original kuffman vibrato



The Ric 325 as it was throughout the Beatle period brushed black and with Bigsby vibrato and bowtie bridge.



So I decided to have a go at recreating this guitar and was going to be easist if I doctored an existing copy as oppose to building one from scratch (which I may do one day)...The best copy I could find was the Tokia 325 copy..mostly due to the fact that the fret board is red rosewood as oppose to the dark of many cheaper copies...so I managed to I buy one for £300 ($500) about 8 years ago on Ebay and over the past years have rebuilt it to best as I can get original spec...Although these copies are good they are based on the mid-sixties version of the 325 which was thinner and had a white scratch plate and head flash..also the head is a different shape..

The only part of this guitar I can not change is the scale length and the Tokia copy is full scale and not 5/6

Here is a Tokia 325 as it was when I bought mine (altho this is not mine)



So the work that was needed...

1) Body widened to 50.8mm from 40mm
2) Neck glued into position
3) Body routed to make semi-acoustic and covered.
4) Body base flute reshaped
5) Heel at base of neck added and sculpted.
6) Body top horn extended and sculpted.
7) Scratchplate made.
8) Bigsby Tremelo and Bowtie bridge added.
9) Angle of headstock corrected to 5 degrees from 14 degrees.
10) Headstock reshaped.
11) Headstock plate made with Rickenbacker logo.
12) Tuners added.
13) Control nobs added.
14) New Flat wound strings.
15) Resprayed in Black and polished.
16) Thick laquered fretboard.

I have been doing this work over a period of years and only when I felt upto it....I eventually finished last week after a thread on a Luthier site where I discussed the pros and cons of changing the headstock angle. After much deliberation I decided to go for it..and you can see the results below..

Body





Neck glued and flute reprofiled.



Neck re-angled
Before - 14 degrees........................................... .......After - 5 degrees



Headstock doweled and glued with Titebond original wood glue.





Sprayed


Finished



I hope you don't mind me sharing this with you fellas..I understand its not everyones cup of tea but its been pretty exciting to me...

[Marmus]

Wow, fantastic!! Thanks for sharing, it is a piece of artwork.

[92 Cdt. Kiwikillemoff (QJ-Z)]

Not my general cup of tea old chap, but the passion, craftsmanship and result is not lost.

It looks bloody fab! As is the fab four!


Kiwi

[Mattias]

Amazing stuff Lewis!

[III./ZG76_Keller]

Holy crap Lew, that's awesome man!

Do you notice any tone change or side effects to the modifications?

[ATAG_Lewis]

Holy crap Lew, that's awesome man!

Do you notice any tone change or side effects to the modifications?

The main difference was the routing into a hollow body guitar.....That made the biggest difference...and the flat wound strings made big difference big too...nothing else really did.......The original pickups aren't bad and it sounds very similar....I get that real clunky twang that the early Beatle stuff had....I actually have a real Ric 330, just not the same model as the lennon one and that sounds nothing like the early Beatle stuff

I haven't noticed and side effects of all the hacking...The only thing I was concerned about was the headstock angle work....I created a thread on a Luthier forum for info and got a lot of usefull help in the form of glues and how to deal with creep...hence I used Titebond original wood glue and doweled the joint...Tensioning the strings was worrying but the joint held fine and its been a week now with no changes , cracks or tuning issues so I have no worries now and I am very pleased I did the work.....Also Gibson SGs are renown for having head to neck breakages and are often reglued with no issues...and this joint is a whole lot stronger than those

[ATAG_Lewis]

Don't forget what learning guitar can do for you too!!

[Mattias]

Don't forget what learning guitar can do for you too!!

Naaaah, we bass players gets all the girls

[Doozy]

Outstanding work there Lew !
I was surprised to learn John used flatwound strings , but I guess they would probably sound
better for a rhythm guitar , which John played. I was just getting into my teens when the
Beatles came to the US and my older sister and all her friends were thrilled about them,
so I naturally fell in love with their sound too. I used to go in my bedroom and put on a Beatles
album and use my sister's tennis racket for a make believe guitar , LOL I did however later get
a real guitar and played in bands for many years. It was great fun.

Thank You for sharing your project


Doozy

[Screamadelica]

Naaaah, we bass players gets all the girls

Hey Mattias! Great to see you play the bass as well. What is your weapon of choice? Fender Prodigy and Musicman here. And you are very, very right....

Bloody hell Lew, you are one talented and very busy guy! Great job.

[9./JG52_Meyer]

I too play the bass but not as good as this fella

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub6Q0DWg-g0

Nice job on the Rick btw

Enjoy!

[ATAG_EvangelusE]

Ambitious project there Lew, particularly the modified head stock angle. There is a lot of satisfaction in making something better than the stock version, no wonder you are really chuffed with the results - looks great. Right tools, skills, enthusiasm and confidence are needed to complete so well done!

I will have to take pics of the 'Tele' I made and the 'Ibanez AS Artist' that I customised including a re-modelled headstock and is now one of my favourite guitars.

[Aescwulf]

wow lewis thats amazing!

I just found out my guitar is now rare and its at my dads with all my step brothers might have to go rescue her

[ATAG_Septic]

So much research, attention to detail and patience Lewis old chap, maybe you should consider renting a very big shed and filling it with 5/6 Spit one day?

Septic.

[Mattias]

Hey Mattias! Great to see you play the bass as well. What is your weapon of choice? Fender Prodigy and Musicman here. And you are very, very right....

Bloody hell Lew, you are one talented and very busy guy! Great job.

Screamadelica,

glad to see a fellow 4-string slayer here I use Fender Precision, Jazz and Jaguar but tend to favour the Precision (I also have an old Japanese P-bass copy called Tokai "Hard Puncher" -great quality and highly affordable).
When it comes to amps nothing beats an Ampeg SVT + 8x10 rig

@Meyer: Got to love bass distortion -far to few of us use it

Sorry for OT Lewis and no intention to hijack your thread... back to your wonderful guitar "modding"

Cheers/m

[LuseKofte]

I cannot move my fingers in the position needed for playing guitar. I admire all that take such a task at hand. Very good job, and many thanks for sharing

[ATAG_Lewis]

I cannot move my fingers in the position needed for playing guitar. I admire all that take such a task at hand. Very good job, and many thanks for sharing

I never said I could play the bloody thing...lol........it just looks nice..ahhh

But seriously..I am not a good guitar player...chords and little bit of lead...but I really do enjoy playing....I get a lot of satisfaction from it and play every day....I have guitars hung in every room bar one....and I have even been known to take a guitar in there on occasion....which reminded me, I watched a documentary about Jimi Hendrix once and his manager said something along the lines of...'It was no accident that Jimi could play so well...He use to come to the breakfast table with a guitar around his neck'.....Another anecdote from when I started playing and when I bought one of my first guitars I spoke with a guitarist at a blues gig and asked him which guitar to get...expecting advice on setup, string action or something technical...and he said..''Go into the guitar shop and pick the one you like..could be a favourite guitarists guitar or just one you fall in love with...hang it on the wall and never box it...because the guitar you buy should be the one that you want to play and if you don't want to play it you won't....and if you box it..you'll never look at it and say 'I want to play that guitar'...''...25 years later I still remember that....and it is what I tell new players today...and it is the exact same philosophy I use now...All my guitars are in view

So much research, attention to detail and patience Lewis old chap, maybe you should consider renting a very big shed and filling it with 5/6 Spit one day?

Septic.

Well not exactly a 5/6th but still made from wood and I still loved to make it....

[SG1_Lud]

Thanks so much Lewis for sharing this....

It would be great if you can post a clip of the sound of your guitar, technic does not matter it's all about feeling.

Top bananas!!!

[Robo.]

Awesome Lewis, thanks for sharing


9./JG52 Meyer I've heard them on some radio show playing this track and some other, too - and I never realised there was no guitar at all, I thought alright dropped C guitar, stonerock riffs. Great band btw.

[ATAG_Lewis]

Thanks so much Lewis for sharing this....

It would be great if you can post a clip of the sound of your guitar, technic does not matter it's all about feeling.

Top bananas!!!

Yoikes...I don't think I'll be doing that...only the missus puts up with my playing....