My Japanese Mosrite Johnny Ramone Ventures II

[oipunkguy]

when I first became a Ramones fan, like many ramones fans I was obsessed with Johnny's guitar. I always wanted one. the one thing I'd wanted to change about this guitar (if it was mine) was to install two mini humbuckers and les paul style wiring. 2 volume, two tone knobs. I designed a guitar like this when I was a sophomore in high school, back in 1994.

fast forward ten years later, a good friend of mine that collects guitars ended up owning two of these guitars, this one that I bought from him for $900, the other one is the original batch of 30 "official" mosrites made by filmore that was sold at guitarpunk.com around the year 2000. the guitarpunk mosrite is more collectible, so my friend sold me the other, which he said the previous owner had since the mid 1990's, but he didn't know an exact date.

So in 2004 I managed to scrape up the 900 bucks and bought the guitar from him. but the thing I didn't like about this guitar is that the electronics were terrible. very cheap parts. the original pickups weren't even original seymour duncan or dimarzio, they were generic. other thing that I didn't like with the strat style pickup. a single coil like this will only sit so high on the guitar, and even when raised completely up, there was still quite a lot of distance between the pickup and the strings, based on the design of the guitar. so when ever I switched the pickups there was a HUGH imbalance in volume. not to mention that the pickups also just sounds plain old crummy. the mini humbucker squeal a lot as well.

So I went back to my design from high school and bought a seymour duncan mini humbucker from the neck, but I wasn't sure what to get in the bridge position. after doing some looking on line I found the pickup I wanted, a rio grande babybucker. it was a hot pickup (measuring about 20k if I remember correctly) and it also had the aesthetic appeal of the dimarzio fat strat pickup, except in a mini humbucker form.

[Dennisthe Menace]

Aaron, I'm with you 100 per cent on this one! For the sake of not getting in trouble here, when 'Flounder' Musical Instruments redesigned their 'Deli-blaster'
back in the early 70's with a humbucker in the neck and a single coil in the bridge, that never made any darn sense to me ! Because no matter how
low you had set the h'bucker, and how high you raised the single coil, it still lost the 'umph' when switching to the single coil......oh wait a second.........
that's right, I forgot, by then, they were owned by C.B.S.....Corporate Bull Sh*t .

[KRamone27]

I love your way of thinking Dennis lol

[oipunkguy]

i agree with you dennis, that's what screwed up fender in the 70's as well. freakin CBS

[oipunkguy]

So I finally got the pickups, but I realized that the seymour duncan mini-buckers was a different size then the generic one that was installed in the original pickguard. so I had to hand cut a new pickguard. using the original guard as a template, I cut it out. after that I had to cut out the holes for the pickups, but I had to do this free hand. this was a little difficult to say the least.

the original electronics:






after a little bit of trail in error, I got the pickguard cut. for the electronics, I upgraded everything. switchcraft input jack, toggle, poly film caps, and I used cts 500k pots. but I wanted an extra bonus. since the original MKII's had single coils I used push pull pots to coil tap each pickup. now when I had a single coil in the bridge it wouldn't have such a drop off in volume!

I was going to add in and out of phase and series/paraellel wring as well, but I changed my mind during installation to keep the design more simpler. once I got the pickguard properly wired up, I had to rout out the pickguard cavity a little larger to accommodate the extra electronics. I had to be carefully also to not go pass the edge of the pickguard and to leave enough room around the screw holes.
I also added an anti shock circuit (for those that have been shocked by a mic while singing and playing guitar at the same time on stage you know what I'm talking about) and added shielding paint inside the guitar cavity for additional grounding.

Once I had it all together, it was time to install the knobs. I went with getting mij mosrite reproduction spun knobs, which was what originally came on the ventures II. unfortunately, the spun knobs were designed for a metric sized pot, lol. so I routed out the inside of the knob to fit the american pots. I then stung it up, and I was done.
And darn darn darn, WHAT an improvement in sound. I'm so happy with this guitar.

[oipunkguy]

american moseley bridge on the left, MIJ bridge on the right

[oipunkguy]

the spun knobs:


neck pics:
notice how the fretboard extends pass the neck.

[oipunkguy]

more pics:










neck screws:

[oipunkguy]

the wad of electrical tape contains the anti shock circuit

[oipunkguy]

the wiring: