Hang Ten
Bill Lewis Custom
24 frets guitar
1969-71 Vancouver
Some information about the Bill Lewis Custom guitar
Some guitars are special in some way – the Bill Lewis Custom 24 frets guitar, made in Vancouver, BC, between 1969 and 1971, is special in many ways.
With probably less than 30 handbuilt copies it’s rarer than most other professionally made guitars, and it has some quite unique features:
- made of one piece of Mahogany or Limba (Korina) – except for the headstock’s scarf joint
- 24 fret fretboard (Ebony or Brazilian Rosewood) with a compound radius from 12″ to ∞ (flat) on a very thin and wide steel reinforced neck
- the later ones have custom made pickups, fully epoxied, and switchable between humbucker and single coil sound without any hum or microphony
Detailled view on a Bill Lewis Custom
All the Bill Lewis Custom guitars seem to differ in details. The regular BLC is made of light weight Swietenia Mahogany finished in translucent Amber or Ebony (“black”) nitrocellulose lacquer with an Ebony fretboard and wooden inlays on a Holly veneer on the headstock. Body thickness, neck dimensions and scale are not consistent. Most of them have a three pot layout (1 volume, 2 tone) and one toggle switch, all placed on the lower bout’s treble side, and a side jack.
What all have in common are the German Schaller M6 tuners (the first 1967/68 edition). Regularly the Bill Lewis Custom did not have a vibrato – some few have and most of them may have been added later.
The earlier ones used Schaller pickups (single coils) including a complete Schaller wiring harness with switch, pots, jack and knobs. The pickups on the later ones were custom made by Bill Lewis’ brother Jack, and at least the later version of these pickups is switchable between humbucker and single coil sound.
One step more custom: master volume and one volume and one tone per Dual Range pickup (5 knobs instead of 3), pickup selector switch at the upper horn.
The sound of the Bill Lewis Custom
Schaller single coils
The best example for the sound of a Schaller equipped Bill Lewis Custom is all the stuff the Cramps recorded between 1976 and 1984, as lead guitar player Poison Ivy Rorschach always played her Lewis until she switched to a Gretsch in 1985.
(In case you are interested in The Cramps, here’s a timeline of their entire career in video and audio.)
The Cramps - Tear It Up (Live - Urgh! A Music War)
Live August 15, 1980 Santa Monica Civic, California, USA
The Cramps - Peppermint Lounge
Live May 19, 1984 Peppermint Lounge, New York, NY, USA
Lewis Dual Range
As for the custom made Lewis pickups, there are only a few safely dokumented recordings I know: some tracks David Gilmour did for Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon recordings and some live footage for French TV.
The Cramps’ Poison Ivy has used her second Bill Lewis for a very short time after her first got smashed in Paris in June 1984.
Pink Floyd - ORTF TV, Paris
The Cramps
Pink Floyd - Brain Damage (studio footage)
Bill Lewis Custom
1969-71 – Vancouver, BC, Canada
There are probably doublettes, as all information from the Guitars Canada forum is quite vague. If you have a Bill Lewis custom and want to share some info or even pictures, please get in touch with me: max@hang10.de
| (Original) Owner | Color | Pickups | Date | Note | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) | Ebony | Lewis Dual Range | October 1970 | Story here: David Gilmour’s Bill Lewis guitar | |
| Eric Clapton (Blind Faith) | Ebony | Schaller | August 1969 | ||
| George Harrison (The Beatles) | Ebony | Lewis | n.a. | Picture here at Getty Images: George’s Guitar | |
| Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | Allegedly Jimmy Page owned two – I’ve never seen a picture or found any more info about those. | |
| Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | ||
| Poison Ivy Rorschach (The Cramps) | Amber (refinished to Sparkle Gold in 1981) | Schaller | n.a. | Matsumoku Vibrato | The Cramps’ main lead guitar from 1976 to 1984, when it got smashed in Paris. All The Cramps recordings until 1984 have probably been recorded with this guitar. |
| Poison Ivy Rorschach (The Cramps) | Ebony Burst | Lewis Dual Range | n.a. | Bigsby Vibrato | Poison Ivy’s backup guitar 1983/84 |
| “picky pete” (The Spectres) | n.a. | Schaller | receipt from April 24, 1969 | Mentioned here at Guitars Canada: post 20 | |
| “GuitKid” (The Dale Russell Music Ensemble, The Guess Who) | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | Mentioned here at Guitars Canada: post 32 | |
| J.S. | Amber | Lewis | n.a. | Pictures here: The Lewis Electric Guitar | |
| O.G. (Pacific Salt) | Ebony | Lewis Dual Range | December 1971 | Mastervolume + 2 Vol + 2 Tone, switch at the upper horn | |
| J.S. (Pigs) | Amber | Lewis Dual Range | September 1969 | ex Lefty, ex (Bigsby?) Vibrato, now wooden bridge base plate, strings through body | Picture and story here at an old Harmony Central thread: Turns out one of my guitars was owned by Poison Ivy from The Cramps… – btw, it’s not Poison Ivy’s ;) |
| B.S. (Applejack) | Ebony | Schaller | n.a. | Picture here: Smittys Scrapbook | |
| P.D. (The Fox, The Shantelles, Loverboy) | Ebony | n.a. | n.a. | Picture here: The Fox Vancouver, British Columbia 1969 ~ 1970 | |
| N.C. | Amber | Lewis | n.a. | Pictures here at Pinterest: Bill Lewis custom guitar Mentioned here at Guitars Canada: post 56 | |
| L.C. | Mahogany with ebony V inlay | Lewis Dual Range | n.a. | Bigsby vibrato, different knob positions | Story here: My Bill Lewis Story |
| L.W. | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | Mentioned here at Guitars Canada: post 20 | |
| L.S. | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | Mentioned here at Guitars Canada: post 41 | |
| D.O. | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | Mentioned here at Guitars Canada: post 49 | |
| V.S. | Amber | Lewis Dual Range | n.a. | Pictures here at Flickr: Lewis 24-fret Solid-body Guitar | |
| n.a. | Amber | Schaller | n.a. | untypical back routing, no press buttons for back plate | Pictures here at Misha Udovenko Luthiery, Vancouver:Bill Lewis Guitar |
| n.a. | Amber | Lewis Dual Range | n.a. | Rufus Guitar Shop May 2022 | |
| n.a. | Limba/Korina | Schaller | n.a. | Picture in Bill Lewis’ “Catalogue for Musical Instrument Builders”, July 1974 | |
| n.a. | unfinished Limba/Korina | not routed | #9 | body blank, outlines routed only | Sold on eBay January 2014 |
last modification: May 13, 2023
