#Rickenbacker 325 guitar center cracked#

Anyway I've added some photo's of the damaged areas that are visible. I feel that defeats the purpose of even having a Vibrato. I've heard of people staking the Vibrola so it doesn't move and will stay in tune solely for looks purposes. They may look nice but are not functional for any lengthly playing, they simply don't stay in tune, and will destroy your finish. I know now why Lennon took his off first thing, its kind of a joke. I'm also dumping the Kauffman for the Bigsby B-5. I took off the Kauffman and will repair the damage myself as I'm experienced in this kind of repair. I also have since talked to other owners of these Rickenbacker 325's and they had the same problems, reinforcing my concerns. I venture to say if I pulled the Kauffman vibrato assemblies off of other Rickenbacker 325 models, I'd find the same problems. I have also owned many guitars with vibrato bars, that you could push or pull without tearing into the finish due to little clearance of hardware between the body and metal. I have owned and played guitars for over 35 years and have quite a bit of experience in knowing what is a production problem verses abuse. I was however told it was Mint, Unsold, with case and paperwork.

It was an internet purchase so I could not visually inspect it prior to my purchase. who had purchased it from Guitar Center, N.J.

In answer to your question I purchased the 325C58 from Hoboken Vintage Guitar, N.J. I also own a Korean Gretsch 3140 and a Korean Epiphone Les Paul that runs rings around this Rickenbacker at a fraction of the cost. I only wonder why Rickenbacker doesn't tighten up their quality control so as not to let this stuff out of the factory, and not rely so much on the Rickenbacker name and quality of the past to sell current models today, without the same quality and workmanship. I talked to several people who have had similar problems as I, so I know this isn't an uncommon problem. I must say I wasn't too impressed with my first Rickenbacker and wrote John Hall about the issues, after not receiving any reply from Rickenbacker factory on the problem, also sending photo's of the visual defect area. When I had loosened the strings all the way I noticed that 5 of the 6 tuners were flopping around loose, so I went to tighten up the little screws holding the brackets only to find out they had stripped into the holes where the had gone.

#Rickenbacker 325 guitar center cracked#

I next noticed that one of the tuner nuts on the outside of the headstock must have been tightened too much as it put a 3/8 inch long crazing in the finish from the nut outward, like a cracked glass. They should have either press fitted a metal threaded shaft into the wood first or used a coarse thread wood type screw into a smaller drilled hole. I took the strap screw out and noticed Rickenbacker had used a fine machine screw thread going into bare wood, this is a no no in woodworking. Also the screw going through the vibrato bracket that is used to attach the strap was also loose and stripped out, it could not be tightened. Next I noticed after loosening the strings and looking under the Vibrato unit that the springs of the vibrato unit and mounting lugs of the end piece had indented the wood. There looked to be no more than a few millimeters of distance from the body to the bottom of the thumbscrew, thus to me negating the use of this Vibrato unless you wanted further damage. First of all I happened to look under the thumbscrew of the Kauffman Vibrola unit and saw that the thumbscrew had gouged a mark into the high gloss finish.

Then after closely examining it and going over it I was a bit put off by the quality. When I first got it I was very impressed by its looks at first glance. I just reciently purchased a new Rickenbacker 325C58 MG, after many years of wanting one.