JOHN LENNON'S 325 RESTORATION--WHAT CAN WE LEARN?

[leftybass]

Paul, I believe the grommets were long gone before this last re-do in the 70's, I'm thinking prior to The Beatles coming to the US in '64.

[admin]

Excellent point John. Another spelling of Ron DiMarino as well. Time for me to get this right.

[leftybass]

Peter, with Yoko being the savy person that she is, I would think that the best measures of conservation are being applied to Lennon's guitars. The one that needs the most attention is the '64 325/6, the peghead is near the point of snapping off from what I've heard. When I was at the RRHOF last year I spent nearly an hour looking at Lennon's 325/12, only inches away from it...it is in pretty good shape.

[admin]

Thanks for this Lefty. Another good observation. I can't see how the most famous guitar in modern history could be overlooked. However, it is hard to deny that some stain was applied at the time of the Capri's most recent work.

[jingle_jangle]

Peter, no offense taken at anything. I had read of course about DiMarino, but had forgotten myself which of the many ways he spelled his name, hence my (sp?) question.

That appears to be a photo from the Babiuk book, and the three areas I mention are quite obvious, along with a good look at what appears to be, not dust in these lighter areas, but wiped on stain on the others.

I don't think the guitar should be touched by anyone at this stage, gentlemen, but that every effort should be made to preserve it in this, its final approved-by-John, stage. It's a strange and troubling job, but it was what John wanted as far as we know.

Now look at the above picture, at the bow tie, and note that the lower edge of the bowtie's curved base plate, has been ground away (not enough) in an effort to bring the strings into line on the fretboard. Note how the low "E" is right on the edge of the fretboard, while the high "E" has about 4 mm of space below it.

See also how high the top of the bowtie is above the top of the bridge pickup, as well.

[jingle_jangle]

Now, here are two more versions of the same photo, with no mods except to bump the contrast up a bit.

The top one shows the "unstained" or "dusty" areas quite clearly:




The bottom one shows (purple arrows) a couple of the "unstained" or "dusty" areas, the screwdriver scratch (green arrows) and one more interesting feature which seems to support my surmising that a stain was wiped over the guitar post-assembly: a lap mark, indicated by blue arrows, with a narrow band of unstained wood closer to the pickguard edge. It looks to me like a rag wetted with stain was wiped over the guitar, and left a bead of stain on the surface in this area, which then dried a good deal darker than the rest of the stain job:

[leftybass]

I have always wanted to see the guitar as it is right now with the pickguard removed, but I doubt if we'll ever see pics like that.

More importantly, I'd like to see pics of the back.

[jingle_jangle]

Agreed, sadly, on all three of your points, John.

This is like archaeology and autopsy rolled into one.

Maybe someday...

But just seeing it in the flesh, so to speak, would answer a lot of my own questions.

[britye]

,Well now I know the rest of the story. Very interesting. I agree Paul, leave it go like it is. Only because this is as John last saw it. The set up of the bow tie bridge job done on the counter top at Hessy's was never corrected.(?) Seems easier to me to trim out the pickguard with a blade of some sort rather then grind down the radius of the bridge. If it it were me, I'd grind some fit it, grind more if I had to, until I got it right trial and error method. That low E on the top edge of the fretboard would have driven me crazy. Also I would think that because of the slow- drying "Bus" paint there had to be finger print impressions and impressions from clothes that came in contact all over that guitar, if John used it while it was curing

[jingle_jangle]

All good points, except that 1/8" acrylic (plexiglas) is a BEAR to trim with anything short of a Dremel or drum sander or router, and John wasn't exactly the handyman!

[britye]

Yes it does crack very easily.

[jingle_jangle]

It is quite important to stress-relieve any areas of a plexiglass piece which have been subjected to cutting, routing, or drilling operations. This is usually done (for instance in boat glazing and other fabrications subject to shock or vibration) by isolating fasteners and other added components with rubber grommets. But the most common way is to isolate the fastener by installing a rubber grommet into a hole, and then pass the fastener through the grommet, so that there is a cushion of rubber around the fastener itself.

Rickenbacker isolates the upper pickguards using grommets as shock mounts, which for a light-duty application works fine.

Drilling a hole in plexi always results in microscopic stress cracks formindg around the edge of the hole. This also applies to sawing and routing this material, too.

Over time, these cracks lengthen due to vibration of normal use and expansion and contraction due to temperature changes. This is why older Ricks nearly always have cracks in the pickguards radiating from the attachment screw holes.

Want to see for yourself how this works? Take a small piece of acrylic, drill a hole in it, and dip it in some rubbing or denatured alcohol. You'll see cracks appear immediately. The alcohol accelerates the cracking process. On gold painted guards, the solvent in the paint does the same.

For this reason, I've taken to laser-cutting my acrylic pickguards. The laser not only cuts through the acrylic, but also "cauterizes" (heat-seals) the edge, minimizing these sorts of cracks and preventing their spread over time.

[joepee]

Paul,

I started a thread on Voxtalks a couple of years ago about the mark (that looked unfinished to me) beetween the bowtie and the bridge pickup. Everyone then came to the conclusion it was dust.

That area can be a booger to dust out (especially if left in a display presumably under heavy security).

I only wish Mr. Lennon could have met you and let you do the refin. Or like Paul McCartney, sent it back to Rickenbacker to have it done right.

I just wonder what DiMarino(sp) refinished it with?

I have also heard many discussions about replicas Mrs. Lennon may have had created and are being passed off as the real thing? Leftybass the back of the guitar would be a critical clue. Are their any RicForumites who have seen this guitar in Japan?

[jingle_jangle]

I have heard this dust theory, and it makes some sense. I sure wish somebody who has seen this guitar very close up could verify this. To me, that dust would have to be very thick to look so obvious.

It of course is possible that the guitar received both stain after varnish (as the above-referenced lap marks seem to indicate) and poor dusting prior to photography, which is pretty strange. ("You can have the guitar for exactly 12 minutes this decade in order to do some high-resolution photographs. What's that? Dustcloth? No, sorry--we don't have that sort of thing around here...You'll just have to make do with that pocket handkerchief and your thumb.")

Some very knowledgeable people on the inside have seen these replicas, which apparently were made in Japan to a very high standard.

Assuming that this is true, if anyone's seen the guitar at the Lennon Museum, how are they to know it's the original or a dead-nuts replica?

[leftybass]

Lennon's '64 325/12 is quite smudgy, many fingerprints and streaks, some tarnished metal and corrosion etc...but all in all it's decent; of all the Rickenbackers of John's that Yoko has, it is in the best shape. The 1996 which Ringo has maybe better, without a pic it's hard to say.

My point is that I doubt if the preservationists would even allow dust to be wiped off of the original samples, after all they are literally priceless artifiacts preserved in a certain state.

I don't think it's dust anymore, not one bit. I think it's a lackluster attempt at staining wood.

There are some of us on the Forum who have been to Tokyo to see it, and have differing opinions as to what is legitimate and what isn't. I patiently wait for more info to come out, and round two of the debate to begin.