RE-CREATION OF THE LEGENDARY 1958 “POLYNESIAN”

I won’t spend any time here on the back-story of the original of this this one-off guitar. You can get a brief overview in some threads on the Rickenbacker Resource Forum, and there are a few paragraphs in the out-of-print soft cover Japanese Rittor “mook” (magazine+book), on page 160. I WILL say that it’s been in the hands of a well-known Rickenbacker collector for a number of years now—it was listed on Gbase back in 2012, and sold then at a high price, 100% original including “oilcloth” patterned case. To some out there, it is an obsession, whereas others may never have heard of it until now.

I was asked to build a replica, 4 or 5 years ago, and had to wait until I dug up enough information and had sourced the odd parts required. The toughest parts were the two 1957-8 vintage knobs, which to my knowledge as I write this were never duplicated, and without which the whole appearance and playing “feel” would be compromised. I acquired them on Ebay many years ago, before this build was even discussed, at a (for then) crazy price. Glad I did!

Once begun, this project took an inordinate amount of shop time, as every body part had to be made from scratch, due to the odd body/neck/body back joint. The pickups were 1959 toasters, and two were converted to “flat back” configuration using three kits from Winfield Vintage; one was dead and required careful repair by soldering the end of the 44-gauge ground pickup pigtail to a single strand of copper to extend it to its termination. A custom wiring harness was created by Dane Wilder, using push-back cloth insulated wire.

The body and neck are Alder, with multiple pieces glued together to make the main body, and two pieces cut and glued to make a “book matched” back. The “German carved” bass bout was done entirely by hand using brass miniature convex planes, scrapers, and five different grades of sandpaper. It took many hours of fiddling to get right. Fretboard is padauk, as was commonly used in pre-1961 Rickenbackers. The bridge, bridge plate, jackplate, and strap pegs were sourced from Winfield Vintage, and the tuning machines are new nickel-plated single-line Kluson with hex bushings.

The finish is transparent, with a slight amber tint, which over the Alder took on a deeply-aged appearance, in line with the guitar’s appearance as it presents itself today in photos that have been published. Note that I did NOT apply any ageing techniques to this instrument, although it was discussed initially. I just could not bring myself to violate a pristine and near-perfect instrument, once it was finished.

(A couple of notes: The photos presented here show the guitar as it was initially finished and set up to check the wiring and action. Because of this, it has not yet been intonate. At this time it was fitted with cheap light gauge .010-.046 strings, as the heavy gauge La Bell nickel flatwound strings required for proper intonation and sound were on back order. It also has a bone nut. It has since been fitted with the correct black nut and LaBella strings, and a full setup including intonation has been performed.)