It’s captures it at an angle with raking light and I would guess there was an extremely thin layer of finish applied- probably one coat. This video is the best views I’ve found of Lennnon’s guitar. Also there is zero info to be found on George Harrison’s Casino which apparently was also sanded down. My instinct so far is to leave it totally raw. I can’t find any info on whether John Lennon applied a finish after sanding. I want to change these two pieces because the guitar is having pretty major problems staying in tune- especially the g string. I’m also thinking about replacing or modding the saddle. Maybe I’ll just have SF Guitarworks put it back together and clean it at the end because I want them to make a nice bone nut for this too. I have to research how to remove and replace pots and pickups on a hollow body because I will need to remove them temporarily to sand. I’m anticipating problems with dusty pots but will deal with that when it all done. I blew out the inside with canned air through one hole and the dust blew out the opposite hole. One other dust related problem is the dust falling into the sound holes. I laid the guitar on a towel on my counter and had a vacuum with a hose attachment nearby to periodically vacuum the dust. I was just using the paper in my hand- no block. Right now I’m using 80 coarse 3M sandpaper.

But it very satisfying when it suddenly appears! So after I gauged the effort involved I started the top. It takes quite a bit of sanding to get down to the raw yellow wood. I did a couple small test spots on the back first. After doing some research online where I found a bunch of conflicting opinions on how to proceed I just decided to get a piece of sand paper and start. Now I’ve decided to test the Donovan theory. I sold it and bought Casino (for about $2k less) and it’s perfect. But it only had one pickup and a floating wood bridge which felt out of set with my playing and sonically limited. I had previously owned a 1966 Fender Coronado 1, also hollow body, which had insane tone both unplugged and amped. I recently bought a standard new Casino (Chinese made I believe).

I’ve always been intrigued by this story. It’s well known and documented he created a huge bulk of his Beatles and solo music with this instrument- it’s his sound.

John and George did sand them and John Lennon famously used his for the rest of his life that way. As you all prob know in 1968 while studying Transcendental Meditation with the Maharishi in India the Beatles were told by Donovan that sanding the finish off their Epiphone Casinos would allow the guitar to “breathe”. Hey all, I’ve looked around for info on this topic and found little of any use so thought I would post about this project.

John lennon epiphone casino on display