Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I'm glad you stuck with it, Thomas, because we finally got to hear from several of the true Capri experts, especially Ron and David. This paid off nicely. My own experience with these old Capris, is a fraction of either of theirs, and, of course I did not have the opportunity of working at Electro String as Dale did.

Of special interest to me is the photo of the stack of flamed boards, which you indicate is old growth alder. I'd love to get my hands on some of that!

I never would have considered flamed alder until Dale told me. My recollection now is they got a bunch of this stuff in then used it all up. That would make sense from a production standpoint, and my observations based upon the closeness in proximity of the serial numbers of flamed alder capris. Then it made sense when you actually look at the base grain pattern. Plus, a couple of mine have checking patterns exactly like my 50's alder body strats. Maple does not check the same way in my experience, if at all. Look all all the maple Fender necks from the 50's and early 60's that barely have any checking. Alder is a different story. But one of my alder flame tops has a different pattern checking, go figure. But they all look like what they are, flamed alder. Never seen any other guitar with that wood. And the tone.....to die for....Remember these capris were finished in laquer, not conversion varnish which started in the early 60's. So that affects not only the tone but the feel. And it really is beautiful in person. A very different look than that of flamed maple......

Thanks for the encouragement, Paul. It's great to get some of these what-if's nailed down. And of course thanks to David, Ron and all the other great guys here who are willing to share information about the rare instruments they own, we actually have something to go off of, and we aren't totally in the dark.

Here is a little comparison I did, in high resolution:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2708212/capri%2 ... arison.jpg

Seems like similar grain patterns, even the little dark streaks show up. Any opinions?

Oh and Paul, the boards I posted before are old growth, but notice I never said they were alder.

Yup, that's alder...

vintagemusicgear wrote:Yup, that's alder...

Nope, it's old growth flamed birch. Both the shot of the flamey boards on page 2, as well as the close up I used in the above comparison. They were examples of wood sold at a supplier that specializes in old growth, sometimes water-recovered woods.

egosheep wrote:

vintagemusicgear wrote:Yup, that's alder...

Nope, it's old growth flamed birch. Both the shot of the flamey boards on page 2, as well as the close up I used in the above comparison. They were examples of wood sold at a supplier that specializes in old growth, sometimes water-recovered woods.

If it's birch,I believe it is, it doesn't have to be old growth, Birch shows this pattern often.




your pic off course

Great photos, Wim! I agree, I think it has to be Birch, but then again I have never seen a board of figured alder for sale, ever. It might have a very similar look to this, but it's hard to say because there's no comparables.

egosheep wrote:Great photos, Wim! I agree, I think it has to be Birch, but then again I have never seen a board of figured alder for sale, ever. It might have a very similar look to this, but it's hard to say because there's no comparables.

lol, two of them you posted already I see.

http://www.tdhallassoc.com/SmallTableBDetail.jpg
this is a good one.
Search for figured birch, you'll find lots.

Birch and alder can look very similar. They make bookcases using both woods for that reason. However, I clearly remember Dale being very certain it was flamed alder, so that stuck in my mind. If he said flamed birch, that is what I would remember. I wish I kept that email.....but that was years ago....do they even mass produce guitars with birch? That would be a strike against birch, since alder was pretty established by the late 50's as a bona fide guitar wood. Birch however is a great tone wood, used in speaker cabs and drums. But I don't think it ever had the wide appeal compared to alder.....anyone ever seen flamed rosewood?....that would be cool....

Oh yeah, they "make" it, especially if you're talking about bubinga:

vintagemusicgear wrote:Birch and alder can look very similar. They make bookcases using both woods for that reason. However, I clearly remember Dale being very certain it was flamed alder, so that stuck in my mind. If he said flamed birch, that is what I would remember. I wish I kept that email.....but that was years ago....do they even mass produce guitars with birch? That would be a strike against birch, since alder was pretty established by the late 50's as a bona fide guitar wood. Birch however is a great tone wood, used in speaker cabs and drums. But I don't think it ever had the wide appeal compared to alder.....anyone ever seen flamed rosewood?....that would be cool....

Dave, here are the relevant posts by Dale, which he posted in this thread back in 2007:

dale_fortune wrote:That's because the 1st ones of these were made with highly figured pieces of Maple, some were made with figured Birch laminated together then hollowed out from the back with a 2 piece back. Except for very few, all hollow bodied Ricks had 2 piece matched backs, 2 or 3 piece matched bodies/tops.

dale_fortune wrote:This is one with a wide Flame Birch Body. Amazing how some of these were never played.

In the second post he is referring to an auction of a Capri that had serial #2V290, but I couldn't find a photo of it. For all the cool Ric's you own, this guitar may have even passed through your hands at some point.

As far as mass produced birch guitars, Gibson used birch backs and sides for a lot of their early mandolins before they went to maple, and Hagstrom used birch in a lot of their guitars as well(solid and hollowbodies). In a more recent example, Ruokangas Guitars in FInland uses arctic birch on almost all their instruments. Their birch information page is here.

In addition to Dale's comments, I also asked Mark Arnquist about this and he said that maple, alder, birch and beech were all used on Capris. YMMV.

You know what?

Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants (Alnus) belonging to the birch family (Family Betulaceae). The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas also along the Andes southwards to Argentina.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alder

they're family.

Interesting, so birch and alder are related....they look very similar and both sound great. So whether the capris are birch or alder is kind of academic to me. They are among the best looking and best playing capris I ever had. Ive had a lot of maple ones which are great too, but I prefer the alder/birch ones with flame....

all the flamed alder/birch capris I had/have one piece backs.....

no I'm wrong, only one of them had a 1 piece back....I still remember Dale telling me it was flamed alder, not birch. Whatever, they are both good tone woods anyway...