Rickenbacker Restoration And Customizing

Since 2003, when I did my first Rickenbacker restoration / customization (an 80’s 350), I have had the pleasure of assisting many Rickenbacker guitar and bass owners in customizing, preserving or restoring their instruments. The guitars and basses shown here are but a very small representation of the instruments I have worked on, resurrected or customized. It was, quite frankly, hard to choose which to spotlight (my apologies to those of my customers whose guitar or bass isn’t shown), since they all have been special in their own right, and could have easily been included. Here goes:

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Restoration:

This 1959 Capri came to me in a pretty sad state. Although complete, the guitar was beyond preservation, which is the first thing any luthier should consider when dealing with a vintage guitar. In its restoration, the Capri was completely disassembled to do a much needed neck reset and repair the mis-aligned ply’s of the neck’s headstock. The restored guitar now features a new bubinga fretboard with crushed pearl inlays; new neck and body binding, pickguards, Kaufman vibrato and pickup covers. The existing vintage knobs, pickup and wiring harness, and jackplate remain. With its new AutumnGlo finish, the Capri is an astounding guitar to play and hear, and is ready for many more years of playing pleasure.

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After

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Customizing:

Selecting one example for customizing has proven to be impossible for me, since the options available are virtually unlimited. The guitars and basses shown below show examples of what can be done with new finishes, binding, inlays, pickguards, etc. The palettes available are limited only by the imagination.

350 MerlotGlo

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After

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Replicas:

From time to time, someone will come to me wanting to replicate a vintage or celebrity guitar. Since “knocking off” a guitar would be copyright infringement, which I won’t do, it is possible to create an “inspired by” guitar or bass based on a contemporary instrument. Here are a few examples:

Rutherford Double-Neck

This guitar, a replica of one of the double-necks used by Mike Rutherford of Genesis, started as a combination of contemporary 360/12 and a 4003, but early in the process the basis for the guitar side changed to a 660/12 to more closely reflect the design of the Rutherford guitar.

59 Combo 850

Starting from an 80’s 610, this replica of a late-50’s Combo 850 entailed fabricating a new body, adding new headstock wings to replicate the 50’s shape, new pickup with custom horseshoes and a Seymour Duncan P-90, and a custom pickguard and wiring harness:

59 4000

Starting from an 80’s 4001, this replica of a late-50’s 4000 entailed fabricating a new body, adding new headstock wings to replicate the 50’s shape, new pickup with real horseshoes and a custom coil by Lollar Gutars, a custom pickguard, and vintage wiring harness: