Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

It kinda has a moserite look in ruby red very, very nice!

I'm digging it!

krick wrote:Congratulations Craig. Gorgeous guitar!

Could not agree more!

jwilli wrote: On another note and this has bothered me for a while......RIC needs to tame those pointy horns. Soften them a bit.

+1 (not to detract from Craig's 381).

Ellen--I had an original '72 381 for a while in the late '80's. I'd wanted one ever since I saw one in the '69 catalog--never saw one for sale until around 1988, so I bought it, and had to do some work on it to get it playable, as the guy I'd gotten it from had .008"-gauge strings on it, and had BENT the bridge posts backwards (ouch!) in an attempt to get it to intonate, which it didn't do until I got a new bridge from Rickenbacker and put regular .010"-.046" strings on. I also got a set of Toaster pickups to replace the original Hi-Gains, and it finally started to sound like a Rickenbacker. It was prone to feedback at higher gain levels, more than a 360 would be, and the biggest problem I had was that I couldn't get the action low enough to be comfortable without choking out on bends in the upper register. I finally got rid of it after a few years. It was a beautiful guitar--the only Jetglo 381 I've ever seen that wasn't a John Kay model--but even after the replacement parts it still had some playability issues. As Rickenbackers go, I prefer the 660 with the wider neck anyway, although I've played a more recent 381 reissue that was a lot better than my old vintage one.