It beat the hell out of building another gun or spice rack. Too bad I never got see if it ever got a finish to it as it was the end of the school year, so I had to leave it behind as we were moving to Calif. I remember cutting a clear plexi truss-rod cover and photocopying the Rickenbacker logo and cutting the paper copy to match the plexi shape which was under the clear cover.

To everyone's amazement (mainly mine), it played fairly nice for something that 15 year old kids built. It had banjo frets as they were all we could get at the time from a nearby music shop.

I was lucky enough to have a friend's cousin's 325 to use as a model. The body was birds-eye maple and the neck was laminations of walnut and rock maple from cannibalized antique furniture. it was a semi-cheezy solid body copy of a 325 with neck through body (which was the simplest) with hardware off of several junked out Jap guitars that friends and I had owned. I should have built a guitar in High School woodworking class. The only finished Astro I built that I still have has pine sap coming up through the finish. I know I had problems getting the ones I built right in this regard.Īlso, pine was probably not the best choice of body wood. Unfortunately, if you didn't sand the guitar, the finish thickness made the joint bind but if you sanded too much it was loose. The major downfall was the very clever interlocking neck to body joint which used no fasteners or plates, just a type of dovetail. It was a cheesy little guitar which made no mention of Rickenbacker anywhere for obvious reasons but it probably was the first available electric guitar kit. Hall overhauled the business and began focusing on standard electric guitars. The total quantity was probably about 500 units, unlikely any more than that. (Radio-Tel), purchased the Electro String Company from Adolph Rickenbacker in 1953.

They were primarily sold in the Christmas season of one year, probably 1963 or 1964 based on the photos of me holding one of the ones I made. I seem to recall that the May Company department store chain was the major seller, if not the only one. This is strictly by memory at this point but I believe these sold retail for $49.00.

Rickenbacker 325 guitar kit